The Associated Press
Defendant Marjorie Knoller (left) reacts Thursday as she speaks to attorney Nedra Ruiz after Knoller was convicted on all counts against her in the San Francisco dog mauling trial in Los Angeles.

Dog owner guilty in mauling

LINDA DEUTSCH, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Originally published Friday, March 22, 2002

LOS ANGELES -- A woman whose two huge dogs mauled a neighbor to death in their San Francisco apartment building was convicted Thursday of murder, a charge almost never leveled in an animal attack. Her husband was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

Marjorie Knoller, 46, could get 15 years to life in prison for the second-degree murder conviction in last year's death of 33-year-old Diane Whipple, whose throat was ripped open in an attack that left the hallway spattered with blood.

Knoller looked stricken upon hearing the verdict, fighting back tears and turning to look at her parents. She appeared to mouth, "Help."

Her 60-year-old husband, Robert Noel, showed no reaction. Both were convicted on the manslaughter charge, as well as having a mischievous dog that killed someone. Those charges carry up to four years each.

Sentencing was set for May 10 in San Francisco. In all, the jury deliberated for 111/2 hours for three days before convicting the couple on all counts.

A large group of Whipple's friends and her domestic partner, Sharon Smith, burst into tears in the courtroom.

"There's no real joy, in this but certainly some measure of justice for Diane was done today," Smith said later. "I'm glad to see the jury didn't buy some of the smokescreens that were put in front of them."

The jurors reached verdicts on everything but the murder count on Wednesday. They said they took up the murder charge last, realizing it was the most serious charge and the most difficult.

Juror Shawn Antonio, 27, said that the jurors played repeatedly a television interview of Knoller in which she disavowed responsibility for Whipple's death.

"There was no kind of sympathy, no kind of apologies," he said. "It helped us a lot."

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.

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 by an exotic breed known for its ferocity.

Wisconsin case

In another lethal dog attack, Alicia Lynn Clark, 10, of Mauston, Wis., was bitten to death by a pack of dogs while visiting a friend's house last month.

The owners of the six Rottweilers were not home during the attack, but have been charged in the case.

Wayne Hardy, 24, and Shanda McCracken, 32, were charged with being parties to several crimes: homicide resulting from a vicious animal, reckless endangerment and child neglect.

On Wednesday, Hardy and McCracken pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor counts of child neglect, but did not enter pleas to the felony charges. They were released on $10,000 bonds. Both declined comment on the case as they left the courthouse.

According to authorities, Alicia was pulled from a living room couch, dragged from room to room and bitten to death -- despite her 11-year-old friend's attempts to kick and pull the animals away. After about 15 minutes, Alicia lay on the dining room floor as her friend sat by her, keeping the dogs away, while waiting for her mother, Shanda McCracken, and McCracken's boyfriend, Hardy, to get home, a criminal complaint said.

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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