Witnesses recall encounters with mauling defendants' dogs; link to white supremacists alleged

<br>LOS ANGELES (AP) _ A couple charged in the mauling death of a San Francisco woman for not controlling their dogs worked with a white supremacist prison gang on a plan to raise aggressive dogs, according

Friday, February 22nd 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ A couple charged in the mauling death of a San Francisco woman for not controlling their dogs worked with a white supremacist prison gang on a plan to raise aggressive dogs, according to a corrections employee.

Devan Hawkes, an employee of the state Corrections Department who investigates gangs, said Thursday that letters found at the home of Robert Noel and Marjorie Knoller, and in the cells of two Aryan Brotherhood inmates, clearly showed they were working together.

Testifying in the couple's trial, Hawkes pointed to paragraphs in letters from Noel that showed active involvement in the ``Dog O' War'' business as well as efforts to tip off one of the inmates to the location in the prison system of his arch enemy.

Knoller and Noel, who are both attorneys, are being tried in the Jan. 26, 2001, mauling of their neighbor, Diane Whipple, by two presa canario dogs they kept in their San Francisco apartment. The trial was moved to Los Angeles due to extensive publicity in San Francisco.

Knoller, 46, is charged with second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and having a mischievous animal that killed a human being. Noel, 60, who was not home at the time, faces the manslaughter and mischievous animal charges.

Former neighbors of Noel and Knoller also testified Thursday about confrontations with the defendants and their two huge dogs.

In September 2000, neighbor Neil Bardack said, Knoller was dragged along a sidewalk by one dog, which clamped its teeth around Bardack's three-legged Sheltie and put ``a death grip on her back.''

Bardack said the smaller dog would have been killed if he had not intervened. He said he took the dog for treatment the next day and found a puncture wound, but he never reported it to authorities.

``I let it pass and moved on,'' he said. ``My dog healed.''

Letter carrier John Watanabe said that one morning in January 2001 two huge presa canario dogs rushed toward him as he loaded his mail cart.

``They were in a snarling frenzy,'' he said. ``It was very strange. I was terrified for my life and then suddenly it stopped. It was like someone pulled a plug and they began to run back.''

He said the dogs then ran toward Noel and Knoller down the street.

After the witnesses testified, Superior Court Judge James Warren sent the jurors out of the room and announced that much of the evidence, which had been carefully separated to apply to only one defendant or the other, might apply to both.

He said that the prosecution could argue that Noel was ``criminally responsible for allowing his wife to take these dogs out on the public street.''

The trial was scheduled to resume on Monday.