News
Criminal
Feb. 27, 2002
Witnesses Describe Vicious Encounters With Dogs
LOS ANGELES - A San Francisco man testified Tuesday in Los Angeles that he contacted police to relate a frightening encounter with the two dogs that mauled a woman to death.
Prosecutors charge that the husband and wife attorneys whose huge dogs fatally mauled a 33-year-old neighbor acquired the dogs from a white supremacist prison gang that operated a vicious dog breeding business from within prison walls.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge James Warren moved their trial from Northern California to Los Angeles because of widespread publicity in the Bay Area.
Both Robert Noel and Marjorie Knoeller are charged with involuntary manslaughter and keeping mischievous dogs that killed a human being. Knoller, who was with the dogs at the time of the Jan. 26, 2001 attack, is also charged with second-degree murder.
If found guilty, Knoller would be the first defendant in California and one of only a few in the country to be convicted of murder for the deadly actions of her dogs.
On Tuesday, John O'Connell testified that, after Diane Whipple's death, he was prompted to report a previous incident in which the two large Presa Canario dogs terrified his son.
O'Connell said he contacted police after seeing news accounts in which the dogs' owners, Noel, 60, and Knoller, 46, protest that the fatal mauling was a shock and that they had no warning the dogs were capable of such behavior.
O'Connell testified that he was walking his 6-year-old son, Tmo, to school in mid-December 2000, the month before Whipple was killed, when they met up with Hera and Bane, the attorneys' dogs, which Noel was walking on a sidewalk near the school.
His attention was drawn to the dogs, O'Connell said, because they closely resembled brindle mastiffs owned by his sister.
San Francisco Deputy District Attorney James Hammer asked O'Connell to describe the encounter.
"Just as Tmo got right at the point of the dogs, one of the dogs lunged at him, very suddenly," O'Connell said. "It was barking, growling, teeth bared."
Tmo, who stood about 31/2 feet high, "freaked" and jumped back from the dog, O'Connell said.
"I would say he was totally shocked and terrified," O'Connell said. "It was the classic 'deer in the headlights.'"
O'Connell estimated that the dog's head was within 6 to 12 inches from his son's neck.
"It was definitely in an attack mode," O'Connell said.
Noel, he said, yanked the dogs back by their leashes and may have muttered "sorry" as O'Connell guided his son away from the animals.
O'Connell is one of many prosecution witnesses who claimed that they had vicious encounters with the dogs before the fatal attack on Whipple outside her sixth-floor apartment in Pacific Heights.
Defense attorney Nedra Ruiz, who represents Knoller, elicited from O'Connell, as she has from all other prosecution witnesses, that he did not report the incident until after Whipple's death.
O'Connell acknowledged that he reported the incident only after seeing Noel and Knoller protest to the media after Whipple's death that the dogs were not vicious.
"I said, 'That's bull.' This happened to a 6-year-old boy," O'Connell said.
San Francisco postal carrier Jane Lu gave animated testimony, eliciting laughter when she imitated the snarling of one of the dogs.
One of the dogs sneaked up behind her as she was stuffing letters into a mail slot at a home near the Pacific Avenue apartment complex, Lu told jurors.
Lu said she was helping out on a co-worker's route when she saw one of the dogs jump out of a car that Knoller parked at a nearby curb.
San Francisco Deputy District Attorney Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom asked Lu to describe her encounter with the unleashed dog.
"I put the pouch in front of me and tried to protect myself," Lu said. "I scream - eeeeh eeeeh eeeeh," Lu said, recreating her reaction to her confrontation with the dog.
Lu said she pulled out her Mace in preparation to spray the dog, but the dog stopped advancing when she screamed.
She delivered mail to the next house and then waited for Knoller and the dog to pass before she continued along her route.
"I want them to go first. I don't want the dog behind me," Lu said.
Guilfoyle Newsom asked Lu whether Knoller apologized for the dog's behavior.
"She said, 'My dog is fine,'" Lu said.
In other testimony, neighbor Violetta Pristel said that she and her husband had several frightening encounters with the dog near the lobby elevator. They were planning to report the incidents to apartment management but did not have time before she traveled for a visit to her native Australia.
Neighbor Jason Edelman, a buyer for Williams Sonoma, said that a dog walked by Knoller, without warning, jumped up and placed its paws on his chest. Later, Edelman said, the dog did the same thing to an elderly woman.
He testified that he saw Noel and Knoller together several times with both dogs, and it appeared to him that the couple "was at the beck and call of the dogs" as the animals strained at the leashes.
Neighborhood shoe repairman Edward Nahigian testified that he saw Noel daily walking Bane in the morning and again in the evening. He said he never saw Bane wearing a muzzle until after he saw Noel with a bandaged arm.
Noel allegedly was bitten on the finger by Bane when he tried to break up a dog fight.
Hammer read from Noel's grand jury testimony taken before he and his wife were indicted. In that testimony, Noel stated that he bought the muzzle a week or 10 days after acquiring the dogs. He muzzled Bane so that he could take the dog on the Muni bus.
The manager of the apartment complex, who allegedly witnessed the gruesome attack on Whipple, is slated to testify today.
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Anne La Jeunesse
Daily Journal Staff Writer
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