Jury finds dog owner guilty of murder in landmark case

? 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 a gruesome 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 11 1/2 hours over 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.

‘Some measure of justice’

“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 that charge last, realizing it was the most serious charge.

Juror Shawn Antonio, 27, said that the jurors played repeatedly a TV 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.

Sabine Davidson of Milford, Kan., was convicted of second-degree murder in 1997 after her three Rottweilers killed an 11-year-old boy. She was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Jeffrey Mann of Cleveland was sentenced to 15 years to life in 1993 after he knocked his wife unconscious and ordered his pit bull to attack her.

‘Timebombs’ waiting to explode

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.

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.

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.

Soon word spread that the owners were lawyers who specialized in lawsuits on behalf of inmates. They were also in the process of adopting an inmate, white-supremacist gang member Paul Schneider, who officials said was trying to run a business raising Presa Canarios for use as guard dogs.

The couple acquired the dogs from a farm in 2000 after Schneider complained the animals were being turned into “wusses” there. The dogs’ former caretaker later testified she had warned Knoller that Hera was so dangerous it “should have been shot.”

After the attack on Jan. 26, 2001, Knoller and Noel defiantly blamed the victim. Noel, who was not present during the attack and was not charged with murder, suggested Whipple may have attracted the dogs’ attention with her perfume or even steroids.

The case made legal history even before the trial began when Whipple’s partner, Smith, claimed the same right as a spouse to sue for damages. The Legislature enacted a law to allow such lawsuits by gay partners.