Murder Conviction In Dog Mauling

A woman whose dog mauled a neighbor to death in a San Francisco apartment building last year was found guilty Thursday of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. Her husband was convicted of manslaughter.

Marjorie Knoller gasped and Robert Noel showed no reaction as the verdicts in the death of Diane Whipple were read.

Knoller, 46, was charged with second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and having a mischievous dog that killed someone. She was found guilty on all three counts and faces 15 years to life in prison on the murder count.

Her 60-year-old husband was charged only with the latter two counts since he wasn't home at the time of the mauling in the hall outside the couple's apartment. He also was convicted of both counts and faces up to four years.

The sentencing date was not immediately announced. In all, the jury deliberated for about 11½ hours.

It was the first murder conviction in a dog-mauling case in California and was believed to be only the third of its kind in recent U.S. history.

In pursuing the charge, prosecutors said the husband-and-wife lawyers knew their two powerful Presa Canarios were ``time bombs,'' and they brought in more than 30 witnesses who said they had been terrorized by the dogs, Bane and Hera, which both outweighed the 110-pound victim.

The defense contended that Knoller and Noel could not have known their animals would kill, and that Knoller tried to save Whipple by throwing herself between her neighbor and the enraged Bane. They also disputed the witnesses' accounts of being menaced by the dogs.

"Virtually everything worked against the defendants in this case," says CBSNews.com Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen. "The animals brutally killed Diane Whipple. The animals looked ferocious. Neighbors came forward to say that they, too, were scared by the dogs before the killing. Knoller and Noel were not particularly sympathetic defendants. And when you add all those things up, these verdicts – even the second-degree murder conviction against Knoller – aren't particularly shocking."

The gruesome case was a sensation in San Francisco: Whipple, a successful member of the city's gay community, was savagely killed outside her door in exclusive Pacific Heights, her throat ripped open by an exotic breed of dogs known for its ferocity.

Soon word spread that the owners were lawyers who specialized in lawsuits on behalf of inmates. They were also in the process of adopting an inmate, white-supremacist gang member Paul Schneider, who officials said was trying to run a business raising Presa Canarios for use as guard dogs.

The couple acquired the dogs from a farm in 2000 after Schneider
complained the animals were being turned into "wusses" there. The dogs' former caretaker later testified she had warned Knoller that Hera was so dangerous it "should have been shot."

After the attack on Jan. 26, 2001, Knoller and Noel defiantly blamed the victim. Noel suggested Whipple may have attracted the dogs' attention with her perfume or even steroids.

"It's not my fault," Knoller said in a TV interview that was played for the jury. "Ms. Whipple had ample opportunity to move into her apartment. She could have just slammed the door shut. I would have."

The case made legal history even before the trial began when Sharon Smith, Whipple's lesbian partner, claimed the same right as a spouse to sue for damages. The Legislature enacted a law to allow such lawsuits by gay partners.

The trial was moved to Los Angeles because of concern that overwhelming publicity would prevent a fair trial in San Francisco. The attack so traumatized the pet-friendly city that police tightened enforcement of leash laws and city officials briefly considered a muzzle law.

In closing arguments, prosecutor Jim Hammer argued that there were plenty of warnings that the dogs were violent, including incidents in which the animals lunged at people on the street and at the couple's apartment building.

"It was perfectly foreseeable and they didn't stop it," he said of Knoller and Noel. "They got off on it some way — power trips."

Hammer showed jurors charts recounting the testimony of more than 30 witnesses who said the dogs lunged at them, barked and growled, and in one case bit a man.

"By January 26 it was not a question of whether someone was going to be mauled," Hammer said. "The only question was when and who and where."

The prosecutor also showed photos of Knoller's cut hands after Whipple's death. The defendant claimed the injuries were sustained when Knoller tried to save Whipple by jumping on her during the assault.

"My mother gets worse wounds gardening," the prosecutor said. "Compare those to what happened to Diane Whipple."

In her closing arguments, Knoller's attorney Nedra Ruiz said her client didn't know the dogs could become killers. Ruiz also accused the victim's domestic partner, Smith, of lying when she testified that Whipple suffered a previous bite by one of the dogs and feared them.

Knoller testified for three days, crying, shouting and insisting she never suspected her beloved dogs could be killers.

"I saw a pet who had been loving, docile, friendly, good toward people, turn into a crazed, wild animal," the defendant sobbed, referring to Bane. "It's still incomprehensible what he did in that hallway."

Ruiz added to the courtroom histrionics by crawling on the floor, kicking the jury box and crying during her opening statement. In closing remarks, she attacked Smith as a liar and said the prosecutor was trying to "curry favor with the homosexual and gay folks."

Noel didn't testify and contended through his lawyer that he had no warnings the dogs would kill.

But his letters to the couple's adopted son, found in his prison cell, were read to the jury. Two weeks before the attack, Noel wrote about an incident in which Whipple was frightened by the dogs while entering the elevator at their apartment building.

"As soon as the door opens at 6 one of our newer female neighbors, a timorous little mousy blond, who weighs less than Hera, is met by the dynamic duo exiting and all most (sic) has a coronary," Noel wrote. "The mutts show only passing interest as she gets in and goes down."

After Whipple's death, Noel wrote another letter bemoaning the death of Bane and vowing to fight for the life of Hera.

"Neighbors be damned," he wrote. "If they don't like living in the building with her, they can move."