SF Dog Mauling Diana Whipple

In 2001, Diana Whipple was killed by two dogs after she was trying to enter her apartment door in San Fransisco, California. Diana was coming home after she went shopping at the grocery store when the two dogs came from behind her and attacked her. The dogs were two Perro de Presa Canario dogs that were cared by her neighbors Majorie Knoller and her husband Robert Noel. Mr. Noel was not home when this incident had happened. Ms. Knoller had said that she was taking her dogs up to the roof when they yanked her and she let go of the leash. Whipple had a total of 77 wounds on every part of her body except the bottoms of her feet and scalp. She was then taking to the San Fransisco General Hospital where she died several hours later due to loss of blood from traumatic injury.

Later in 2001, they had finally gone to court and Ms. Knoller had been charged with second degree murder and Mr. Noel had been charged with involuntary manslaughter. They both were then charged with a felony of owning a disobedient dog.  In court, Knoller had argued that she was trying to defend Whipple during the attack but people had said that Majorie Knoller had refused to control her dog. When their "dog walker" told Mr. Noel to put a muzzle on the dogs, he responded in a rude, unlike manor of telling her to "shut up".

It seemed that this incident wasn't the only one and that there were more but no one had reported them when they happened. During the court visit, they were trying to convince the jury that Mr. Noel and Ms. Knoller knew about the dogs being aggressive and she did not do anything about it. Robert Noel kept saying that the dogs were never fighting dogs, and the only time that they saw that the dog was mean was when the dogs were with male dogs.

The jury had found both Noel and Knoller guilty of involuntary manslaughter and owning a mischievous animal that caused the death of a human. They did find that they both knew that the dogs were aggressive towards other people and which they did not take precautions of doing something about it. Knoller had state appealed the court in which she had lost twice. After it being 7 years, in September 22, 2008, the court had sentenced Marjorie Knoller to 15 year to life.