Owner in Mauling Case Denies Dogs Were Aggressive

The San Francisco attorney on trial for murder in the dog mauling of her neighbor denied Tuesday that her Presa Canario dogs were aggressive, despite earlier testimony by nearly 30 witnesses that the dogs had lunged at or charged others.

Defendant Marjorie Knoller testified that she could not have known her dogs would do something so “disgusting and gruesome” as attack Diane Whipple.

“How can you anticipate something like that?” she said. “It’s a totally bizarre event.”

During three hours of questioning, Assistant Dist. Atty. James Hammer attacked Knoller’s credibility, accusing her of changing her story. He also questioned the sincerity of her tearful testimony Monday.

“Have you,” Hammer asked, “expressed sorrow either to Diane Whipple’s mother or to her partner, Sharon Smith?”

Knoller responded, “Personally, no.”

Whipple, a 33-year-old college lacrosse coach, died from loss of blood and asphyxiation after the dogs attacked her in the hallway outside her San Francisco apartment.

Knoller, 46, who lived two doors down from Whipple, was indicted by a grand jury on charges of second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and keeping a mischievous dog. Her husband, Noel, 60, faces the latter two charges.

The dogs, Bane and Hera, have been destroyed.

Prosecutors have argued Knoller and Noel knew the dogs were dangerous but did nothing to prevent an attack. Defense attorneys maintain their clients were responsible dog owners, and that the attack was unexpected.

Hammer confronted Knoller with the testimony of witnesses who described terrifying incidents with Bane and Hera.

Over and over, Knoller said the witnesses were not telling the truth: That never happened. He was wrong. That is false. She even said her husband was inaccurate when he wrote in a letter that the dogs had pulled her down the hallway and forced her to let go of them or risk losing her footing.

The dogs never showed aggression before Jan. 26, except once when Bane bit Noel’s finger, Knoller said.

“They were just sweet, friendly dogs?” Hammer asked.

“In my presence, yes,” she responded.

Knoller also testified that she was never warned about the dogs’ nature. She said their previous owner, who testified that Hera had killed her farm animals, never told her that.

In response to Hammer’s questions about a veterinarian’s letter saying that the dogs would be a liability, Knoller said she believed the dogs would be fine with the proper training and discipline.

But she acknowledged that she recognized that anything was possible.

“At the time you brought Bane and Hera into San Francisco, did you have any doubt in your mind that large dogs could maul someone terribly or kill them?” Hammer asked.

“Any dog can do that,” she answered.

Hammer also challenged Knoller’s assertion that she desperately tried to protect Whipple from the dogs by throwing her body on top of the victim. He questioned why she only had a few minor cuts “after 10 or 12 minutes of the vicious mauling of Diane Whipple,” while the victim was so badly bitten that her clothes were shredded.

In addition to trying to shield Whipple, Knoller said, she put pressure on Whipple’s neck to slow the bleeding, she said. “There was blood all over,” she testified. “I knew that obviously it was a grave injury.”

Knoller said she left a dying Whipple in the hallway while she put the dogs in her apartment. Then she walked passed Whipple to look for her keys.

Hammer questioned Knoller about an earlier witness who connected her to an attack dog breeding ring run from inside Pelican Bay State Prison.

Knoller admitted that she adopted prison inmate Paul Schneider, knowing he was a member of the Aryan Brotherhood and had stabbed an attorney. But she said she did not participate in the breeding ring, even after Hammer confronted her with business fliers found in her apartment.