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American Morning

Dog Mauling Trial Enters Second Week

Aired February 25, 2002 - 09:16   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Turning now to the dog mauling trial underway in Los Angeles. A San Francisco couple facing murder and manslaughter charges for the deadly actions of their two dogs. That trial goes into its second week today, the prosecution has been presenting evidence that the couple had prior knowledge these animals were extremely dangerous.

CNN's Anne McDermott has been following that trial from Los Angeles.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNE MCDERMOTT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This dog and this dog, both 100-plus pound Presa Canarios, pets or predators? Well, they did kill Diane Whipple, in the hallway of her San Francisco apartment building.

JAMES HAMMER, PROSECUTOR: In the hallway was a naked woman, from head to toe with no clothing on her whatsoever, covered in blood, crawling.

MCDERMOTT: That was James Hammer speaking, one of the prosecutors in the trial of the dog's owners, Robert Noel and Marjorie Knoller. The married couple, both of whom are lawyers themselves, indicated that what happened to Whipple on that terrible day in January of last year was a terrible accident.

Prosecutors, though, say the couple knew the dogs were dangerous and presented a witness, who claimed the dogs had bitten him. And the dogs' one time veterinarian said, he warned Noel and Knoller that the animals were dangerous.

DON MARTIN, VETERINARIAN: It was just a bomb waiting for it to explode.

MCDERMOTT: Defense Attorney Nedra Ruiz suggested that the dogs' attack was completely unexpected, and with a dramatic flourish, she got down on her knees to show how Marjorie Knoller tried to protect Whipple.

NEDRA RUIZ, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Marjorie slapped, you know, down here on the ground, Marjorie was slapping at the head of Bane as it came over to bite and ravage the flesh of Miss Whipple.

MCDERMOTT: Because Knoller was there during the attack, she is charged with second-degree murder. Both she and her husband are also charged with involuntary manslaughter. Late in the week, prosecutors introduced testimony linking the lawyers to an Aryan Brotherhood prison gang at California's Pelican Bay State Prison.

At one time, Knoller and Noel represented one of the gang's reputed leaders, inmate Paul Schneider. Schneider is believed to have told the couple to take the dogs in. And authorities say inmate Schneider and others were running a dog-breeding ring specializing in Presa Canarios, a fighting breed.

But outside court, Knoller's mother said she resented the prosecutor's attempts to link her Jewish daughter to a white supremacist group.

HARRIET KNOLLER, DEFENDANT'S MOTHER: They don't take in Jewish people, Aryans. So he was trying to prove she was a Nazi and a Racist, and we resent that.

MCDERMOTT: However, she was less clear on why her daughter and son-in-law legally adopted inmate Schneider, who is serving life in prison for attempted murder.

Anne McDermott, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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