In 2001, women’s lacrosse champion Diane Whipple was mauled to death by two Canary Mastiffs belonging to Paul Schneider, an Aryan Brotherhood gang member doing time for attempted murder. The dogs had been left in the care of his defense attorneys, who then legally adopted Schneider during the trial.
Edit — (Minor correction — apparently they adopted him a few days before the attack. A news article I’d read suggested it was after)
The 2001 mauling death of women’s lacrosse champion Diane Whipple remains one of the stranger murders in California’s recent history.
On Jan 26, 2001, Whipple was in the hallway of her San Francisco apartment building when her neighbor, defense attorney Marjorie Knoller, lost control of two large Canary Mastiffs while attempting to take them out for a walk. The 100+ pound attack dogs, named Bane and Hera, then lunged at Whipple, leaving hundreds of punctures across 98% of her body. She later died of blood loss in a local hospital.
Following Whipple’s death, it was found that the dogs belonged to one Paul Schneider, a white nationalist member of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang, who was then incarcerated at Pelican Bay for attempted murder. He had planned to raise the dogs for an illegal dogfighting ring, and left them in the care of his attorneys, Marjorie Knoller and Richard Noel, who agreed to train the dogs for combat in their tiny apartment (which doubled as their law office).
While under investigation for the implied malice murder of Whipple, Noel and Knoller would go on to legally adopt the 38 year old Schneider, in a move which stunned California’s law community. When asked why they became the legal guardian for a 38 year old white nationalist, they refused to elaborate.
Yes it has been 25 years since the infamous dog-mauling murder case was SF’s Trial of the Century, but now decades later, the woman convicted of letting her dogs rip a neighbor to shreds is up for parole for a third time.
sfist.com