Randall Lockwood testified Thursday that Knoller was not as close as she has claimed to the attack on lacrosse coach Diane Whipple by a presa canario dog.
"She may have been nearby but she was not in very close proximity," said Lockwood, a research official with the U.S. Humane Society.
Lockwood said that after listening to Knoller's testimony and analyzing evidence, he would have expected her to receive more severe bites than she did from the dog, named Bane.
Knoller's injuries "suggest she was at some distance and Bane was giving her warning bites to back off and let him do what he felt was his job. ... He essentially was telling her to leave him alone."
On cross-examination, Lockwood was asked whether Knoller was trying to prevent the attack.
"She was present," Lockwood said tersely.
The final piece of evidence introduced by prosecutors in the case was a letter written by Knoller's husband, Robert Noel, to a state prison inmate the couple had adopted. It stressed their devotion to the dogs.
"There is no way to ease into this. Bane is dead, as is our neighbor," the letter began.
In it, Noel promised to fight to keep another dog, Hera, alive.
"Neighbors be damned," he wrote. "If they don't like living in the building with her, they can move," he wrote.
The trial was adjourned until Monday when closing arguments are scheduled. The case is expected to go to the jury on Tuesday.
Knoller, 46, is charged with second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and keeping a mischievous dog that killed a person. Her 60-year-old husband faces the latter two charges. Their trial was moved to Los Angeles because of extensive pretrial publicity.
Whipple, 33, was attacked in the hallway of her building as she was carrying groceries into her apartment on Jan. 26, 2001.
Lockwood said he believed Knoller's testimony that she tried to pull Bane away, but he also suggested that some of her injuries were more likely produced by the leash in her hand.
Lockwood said he believed something caused the dog to become aggressive toward Whipple, but he did not know what that was.
"What is unique in this situation is in the more than 300 dog attacks I've seen we have never seen a healthy adult young woman killed when the owner is present," Lockwood said. "Usually, the presence of the owner is sufficient to stop the attack."
Bane was destroyed after the mauling. Hera was put down this year after a legal battle by the couple to save her life.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A San Francisco woman whose dog killed a neighbor would not have been charged with murder if she and her husband had shown remorse and acknowledged responsibility, according to a defense expert's report unsealed Thursday.
Superior Court Judge James Warren, speaking without the jury present, said he was revealing the pre-trial report in response to a defense attorney's claim that San Francisco prosecutors soured public opinion against the couple.
The defense expert found that Marjorie Knoller, 46, and husband Robert Noel, 60, brought upon themselves an atmosphere of hostility after the mauling death last year of Diane Whipple.
"There are many statements made by the defendants and an image of untruthfulness, lacking of sorrow and blaming the defendant for her own death," the judge quoted from the report, which will not be presented to the trial jury.
Whipple, 33, was attacked by one of the couple's large dogs in a hall of their San Francisco apartment building. Knoller is charged with second-degree murder. Both she and Noel are charged with involuntary manslaughter and keeping a mischievous dog that killed a person.
The couple has said they didn't know the dogs were dangerous, and Knoller said she injured herself trying to save Whipple from the attack.
The judge said the expert, Edward Bronson, "was obtained at enormous cost" by the defense to help argue why the case should be moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles because of publicity.
Bronson was hired by the public defender who initially represented the couple — not their current defense team.
Defense attorney Nedra Ruiz argued Thursday that a skewed grand jury had indicted the couple because San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan had created intense negative publicity.
The judge said those arguments motivated him to reveal the report. He also ruled that prosecutors would be allowed to rebut those claims by presenting evidence that the grand jury was instructed to be fair.
"I saw a pet who had been loving, docile, friendly, good toward people, turn into a crazed, wild animal," said Knoller, whose dog, Bane, mauled a neighbor to death.
"I could never imagine this dog turning into what he turned into. It's still incomprehensible what he did in that hallway," she said shortly before the defense rested its case Wednesday.
Her voice broke, she began to cry and, finally, she was shouting and sobbing to a hushed courtroom: "How could he turn into what he turned into in that hallway?"
Prosecutors planned to begin their rebuttal Thursday, with closing arguments scheduled for Monday. The case is expected to go to the jury Tuesday.
Knoller's dog Bane attacked neighbor Diane Whipple as she was carrying groceries into her San Francisco apartment on Jan. 26, 2001.
Knoller is accused of second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and keeping a mischievous dog that killed a person. Her 60-year-old husband, Robert Noel, faces the latter two charges. Their trial was moved to Los Angeles due to extensive pretrial publicity.
Prosecutor Jim Hammer said he planned to call an animal behavior expert to the witness stand during Thursday's prosecution rebuttal. The expert is expected to say that large presa canario dogs, like the two the couple owned, can be expected to turn from docile to dangerous in an instant. The defense is seeking to keep the witness from the stand.
Hammer also planned to show jurors a letter written by Noel after the attack in which he promised to fight for the life of the couple's second dog, Hera, after Bane was put to death.
"Neighbors be damned. If they don't like living in the building with her, they can move," he wrote.
The dog was put down in January.
Knoller was the defense's star witness; her husband did not testify.
The focus of the defense, which called two dozen witnesses, was to dispute the prosecution's contention that the dogs had been a menace before the attack.
Knoller insisted that the 30 witnesses who testified to frightening encounters with the dogs were mistaken or inaccurate and that one man who thought he was bitten actually injured himself by banging into a door knob.
She also portrayed her own actions as heroic, saying she threw her body over Whipple trying to save her when Bane attacked.