Killer Dogs’ Owners Ignored Danger Warnings, Jury Told

The San Francisco couple on trial for the fatal dog-mauling of their neighbor knew their massive Presa Canario dogs were dangerous yet did nothing to prevent a ferocious attack, prosecutors said during opening statements Tuesday.

“Diane Whipple was not the first victim of these dogs, but was the last in a line of almost 30 prior warnings and incidents,” Assistant Dist. Atty. James Hammer said in Los Angeles County Superior Court, where the case was moved because of publicity in the Bay Area. “They disregarded all of those warnings and Diane Whipple is dead as a result of that.”

Showing gruesome autopsy photographs and diagrams of the Pacific Heights apartment where the attack occurred, Hammer said officers found Whipple lying face down, covered in blood and her clothes ripped off.

Defense attorneys countered by calling the attack on the 33-year-old college lacrosse coach an unexpected and tragic accident. They said that Marjorie Knoller, 46, and Robert Noel, 60, were responsible owners and that the dogs were not vicious.

The impassioned statements, which lasted all day in the crowded downtown courtroom, set the stage for the trial for the husband and wife attorney team. Whipple was attacked by the dogs, which each weighed more than 100 pounds, on Jan. 26, 2001, as she scrambled to enter her San Francisco apartment. She died of blood loss and asphyxiation, prosecutors said.

Knoller and Noel face charges of involuntary manslaughter and keeping a mischievous dog. Knoller also faces second-degree murder charges because she was in the apartment hallway during the attack.

If convicted, Knoller could face 15 years to life in state prison. Noel could face four years in prison.

The dogs, Bane and Hera, have been put to death.

Prosecutors said Tuesday that Knoller and Noel were associates of the Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist prison gang, and that they were keeping the dogs for inmates at Pelican Bay State Prison. Hammer said they were part of a scheme, called “Dog O War,” to breed, raise and train aggressive guard dogs for the inmates, one of whom they adopted.

Defense attorneys, however, maintained that their clients were not part of any such operation. Knoller’s attorney, Nedra Ruiz, said the couple were keeping the dogs because the inmates wanted to draw pictures of them.

The 12 jurors and six alternates are expected to hear testimony from prison experts, veterinarians and neighbors during the trial, estimated to last between four and five weeks.

On Tuesday, Hammer said Whipple had returned from buying groceries at the same time that Knoller finished taking Bane for a walk and opened her own door, allowing Hera to enter the hall. Whipple’s key was in her door’s lock, and she had placed one bag of groceries inside when the first dog lunged at her, he said.

An elderly neighbor heard growling, barking and pounding on her door, and a few minutes later heard someone yell, “Stop.” The neighbor called 911. Knoller did not call, Hammer said.

When officers arrived, Whipple’s throat had been torn and she was trying to crawl toward her door, Hammer said. There were marks or gashes on her thighs, back, breast, neck and arms.

“Diane Whipple was covered literally from her head almost to her toes from wounds from these two dogs,” Hammer said.

Hammer said neither defendant showed any remorse after Whipple’s death. He played a television interview during which Knoller said her neighbor had ample time to enter her apartment and slam the door.

The couple deliberately ignored warnings about the dogs’ unpredictable and dangerous nature, prosecutors said.

Janet Coumbs, who testified Tuesday, kept the dogs on her Northern California farm and said she told Knoller on several occasions that Hera killed both her sheep and her daughter’s cat. A veterinarian wrote a letter to the couple, advising them, “These animals would be a liability in any household,” Hammer said.

The dogs, which Hammer called “some of the biggest and most aggressive dogs in the world,” had bitten or attacked others numerous times, including an incident when one of the dogs lunged at a woman who was eight months pregnant and another when Bane nearly severed Noel’s finger. One of the dogs had previously bitten Whipple, prosecutors said.

But in her opening statement, Ruiz said that the couple took their dogs to Laundromats, to restaurants and a brew pub, and that “the dogs were never a problem, whatsoever.”

Ruiz said Knoller did everything she could to protect Whipple from the “jaws of this berserk beast.”

That afternoon, Knoller yelled at Bane to stop, yanked him back and covered Whipple with her own body, Ruiz said, getting tearful at times. The dogs overpowered her client and made it impossible for her to stop them in time to save Whipple, Ruiz said as she got down on the courtroom floor and acted out the attack.

In her attempts to put Whipple out of harm’s way, Knoller was bitten and bruised, Ruiz said.

“No one is sorrier that Marjorie Knoller could not save Ms. Whipple than Marjorie Knoller, who risked her life,” Ruiz said.

Noel’s attorney, Bruce Hotchkiss, said his client was in no way responsible because he arrived home after the incident was over.

“Mr. Noel was not present at any time during the tragic events,” Hotchkiss said during his brief opening statement.

Noel and Knoller were responsible with their pets, frequently taking them on walks and to the veterinarian, Hotchkiss said.

Whipple’s mother, Penny Whipple-Kelly, came from Connecticut to watch the trial. She said that seeing the photographs during opening statements was “heart wrenching.”

“That’s not how I try to remember my daughter,” she said. “But she would have wanted me to be here.... I intend to stay here, no matter what.”