Bane, the dog that has killed a woman in San Francisco is anything except a Perro de Presa Canario. Prosecutors are likely to use Martin's testimony about Hera to back up their assertion that both the defendants' dogs were involved in the mauling of Whipple. "These dogs reacted like they were on a hunting trip -- one reacts, they all will follow. A single mother, she and her daughter Daisy squeaked by with her disability check and what income they could pull out of a small farm where they raised lambs. Along with lead prosecutor James Hammer, Guilfoyle showed in court that Knoller and Noel were criminally responsible for their dogs behavior, recounting how the dogs, in their few short months with Knoller and Noel, had. There was incredible tension. That is, they adopted their violent, white supremacist client, Cornfed Schneider. Defendant's knowledge of breed characteristic of the Presa canario dog. Bane, Hera, and six other Presa Canarios were bought for Bretches and Schneider by intermediary Brenda Storey, police say, and then were raised by Janet Coumbs, 49, of Hayfork, Calif-ornia. "I just had this feeling that maybe Ms. Knoller was not aware, that maybe she was a little naive about the dogs. Police previously seized from Knoller and Noel three handguns, a shotgun, a computer, and 11 packets of letters, magazines, and photographs. The terrified senior called 911 to report that dogs were running wild in the apartment building. The two member panel cited her prison record and stated she would be a danger to society if released. ", "Knoller Gets 15 to Life in Dog-Mauling Case", "High Court Rejects Appeal In Fatal San Francisco Dog Mauling Case", Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, "San Francisco Fatal Dog Mauling Conviction Upheld", "Parole denied to attorney serving life sentence in San Francisco dog mauling", "Marjorie Knoller, convicted in dog-mauling death of Saint Mary's coach Diane Whipple, denied parole", "Parole denied for Marjorie Knoller, convicted in San Francisco's notorious 2001 dog-mauling case", "Landmark Ruling Recognizes Sharon Smith's Constitutional Right to File Wrongful Death Suit", "Attorneys in Dog-Mauling Case Deploy Widely Different Styles,", "Dog owner convicted of second-degree murder in fatal attack on woman", Court TV coverage of Diane Whipple dog mauling case, "Mugshots: Knoller and Noel The Attack Dog Scandal", Multimedia Special from the San Francisco Chronicle, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Death_of_Diane_Whipple&oldid=1140841774, Documentary series Mugshots from Court TV (now TruTV), This page was last edited on 22 February 2023, at 01:27. But Knoller and her husband Noel didnt care. Coumbs also told the jury that after the dog-breeding scheme started to fall apart, Knoller called her to threaten that Coumbs would lose her land and car unless she gave up the dogs. 24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events. At 11 oclock, youll know where he is.. Presa Canarios were originally bred for fighting, guarding and some herding in Spain's Canary Islands. Police said the attack was seen through a peephole by a 76-year-old neighbor. There, in the hallway outside her apartment, she was attacked by a massive Presa. But Knoller and Noel werent done fighting the laws whether civil or natural. Your email address will not be published. Hawkes will testify about alleged connections between Knoller and Noel and the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang, prosecutors said. Inside the hour, that dog was at the vet with a needle in his arm, Noel said.. Knoller was also hurt. Much like an engine without oil, her heart seized-up and stopped functioning. [7], After attending Brooklyn College,[8] Knoller received her J.D. [9] Noel graduated from the University of Baltimore Law School in 1967. But after the San Francisco Animal Control officers put down their children, the couple wanted to replace the lost dogs with a human child or, well, a full-grown adult. Coumbs said she loved Bane, calling him a "clown." Knoller was taking the dogs out of their apartment at the same time Whipple returned. He wouldn't get into the cage with Hera to vaccinate her, Martin said, preferring to use the farm's owner, Janet Coumbs, to hold her against the fence. A homemade shiv fashioned from a prison soup ladle and smuggled into court rectally is maybe the most normal part of this seemingly impossible tale. They were raising attack dogs. - Mauling Trial Lawyers Clash in Final Arguments. Once again, she lost. He has also reported extensively on theAugust 2012 fire that erupted at Chevron's refinery in Richmond. Schneider was scheduled to appear in court to testify in a trial. The couple, prosecutors argued, could have foreseen and prevented the fatal attack. Although the judge granted a new trial for the second degree murder charge, he sentenced Knoller to four years in prison for the lesser-included involuntary manslaughter on July 15, 2002. Dog walker Ron Bosia stated that Hera seized a poodle by the head, in front of Noel, and would not let go. Representing one Janet Coppini, founder of an organization called TLC that briefly held the city of Petaluma animal control contract in 1995, Noel in early 1996 alleged in a nine-count lawsuit that ANIMAL PEOPLE had libeled Coppini with a two-sentence summary of her removal from the Petaluma shelter by city police. Whipples blood was splattered on the walls of the hallway; it soaked into the carpet in pools. After his second visit, Martin said, he wrote his letter to Knoller, who with Noel had sued Coumbs to win custody of the dogs. Required fields are marked *. The trial will continue today, with prosecutors expected to call Devan Hawkes, an investigator for the state Department of Corrections. Shes now in the witness protection program instead. They sent a 19-page letter to San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinanaccusing Whipple of bringing death on herself. After a trial that attracted international attention, they were sent to prison for involuntary manslaughter. Boy, was that dog hung. Later, in the same article, a former prison guard recalled how much Noel was impressed by Banes genitals, Id get on the phone with Bob to ask him about a case. [31], In November 2015, Knoller petitioned the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to overturn her second-degree murder conviction. January 26, 2001, was a Wednesday. Clients of Knoller and Noel in several lawsuits against the California Department of Corrections, Bretches and Schneider are alleged leaders of the white supremicist Aryan Brotherhood. Katie Dowd is the SFGATE managing editor. Marjorie Knoller and Robert Noel had adopted Bane and Hera from a prison inmate who was training them as guard dogs. In 2003, Noel was paroled. The daughter of working-class San Francisco parents, shed attended UC Davis for undergrad and the University of San Francisco for her law degree. "Could we not do that, your honor?" Whether they had actually trained the dogs to attack and fight remained unclear. She didn't change her opinion even after Bane and another dog broke down the door of her home one day in 1999, urinated to mark his territory and ate four pairs of her shoes. The dogs - named Bane and Hera - were being cared for by a married attorney couple who lived in the same building as the victim. Superior Court Judge Lenard Louie on February 15 ruled that the prosecution could use five of the 11 disputed packets, and was to rule on the rest by February 21. That scored him a second life sentence. One of the most famous Presa Canario attack cases caused the tragic death of Diane Whipple in 2001. 170 posts. All the dogs appeared violent and excitable, Martin said, and Bane was the most fearsome of them all. Three years later, in 1990, when Schneider was brought to court to testify as a witness in another inmates case, is when he stabbed Cozens with a soup ladle he pulled from his rectum. Hera was the couple's other dog, also a Presa Canario and also trained to protect Mexican meth labs. Prosecutors say the husband-and-wife lawyers were in league with two inmates of Pelican Bay State Prison in a scheme to breed aggressive Presa Canarios. Knoller saw the attack and did. There, in the hallway outside her apartment, she was attacked by a massive Presa Canario named Bane. However, after being paroled, during Knollers probation hearing in 2008, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Charlotte Woolard, opted to reinstate the jurys original verdict. [35][36] Her December 2021 parole hearing was first postponed until August 29, 2022, then again until February 15, 2023. "They had big mouths, big teeth.". He. Presa Canarios have thick, muscular bodies and huge heads, making them powerful attack dogs. It had been seven years since Whipples death. There simply wasnt enough blood in her body to keep her heart beating. The prosecution showed jurors gruesome pictures of Whipple's fatal dog bites and argued that Knoller ignored the dangers posed by her pets and let them kill her neighbor. Can I still get Beyonc tickets? During the five-week trial, prosecutors argued that Knoller and Noel were responsible for Whipple's death because they knew their dogs, Bane and Hera, were vicious and dangerous. ), As Schneider sat in lock-up and looked back over the events of the dog-mauling case that centered on Bane the dog hed first imagined buying as he sat in his prison cell and flipped through the pages of Dog Fancy, and who he was able to afford due to his payout from successfully suing the prison system he had only this to say, For once, I try to do something good, and look what happens. The married lawyers decided to keep them in their sixth-floor Pacific Heights apartment. Whipple and Smith. That earned him a life sentence and a pair of tattoos, an A and B inked on his right hand. His sister describes their childhood home as a battleground between the two men, Our house was a prison, and our stepdad was the warden. Shes said that her stepfather sexually abused her and physically abused her brother. . Two of the Presa Canarios a cattle-herding and guardian breed of mastiff from the Canary Islands that were raised for the Pelican Bay inmates on a farm in Trinity County.. She was relentless in her prosecution of Knoller and Noel, and along the way, she made her debut on the national stage. Yet despite his bloodlust, it wasnt Bane that ruined the set-up that Schneider had arranged with Coumbs. It will be a scorched earth defense, Noel said. Noel faces a maximum of four years in prison if he is found guilty. Those cities and towns that have breed-specific laws normally put restrictions on these "Canary dogs" as a pit bull variant--in other words, a "gripping dog" created for the purpose of battling other animals to the death . Knoller claims she didnt learn he was dead until three months later. San Francisco District Attorney Terence KO Hallinan assigned Assistant D.A. She is not eligible for parole again until 2026. 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