"First and foremost, I want to express my deepest apologies. It's hard to apologize for a dog. ... It was definitely wrong. But in his little dog brain, for some reason, he felt he was doing something right.'' -- Paul 'Cornfed' Schneider


Six weeks ago, 33-year-old Diane Whipple was mauled to death by her neighbors' dogs as she entered her San Francisco apartment. The victim had been a two time All-American lacrosse team member, an athletic, relatively young woman, not the type of person you would expect to fall prey to dogs in her own apartment. The attack lasted five minutes going on an eternity for Whipple, who fought the hundred and twenty pound Presa Canario-mastiffs until one of them managed to crush and rip her throat away, leaving her unconscious in her blood-soaked apartment.

"She was screaming in a major way. I personally thought she was being mugged or raped," said David Kuenzi of New York, who was in the building, visiting friends.

I remember the story well because, on the following day, when I first heard the news, I was driving through the city. I glanced across Pacific Heights and the rows of houses and historical architecture bathed in the golden late afternoon sun. It's an upscale district on the northern San Francisco Peninsula tucked between the Presidio and Knob Hill. Diane Whipple, who had, only months before, begun her job as coach of the St. Mary's College lacrosse team, must have considered herself fortunate to live there.

But for all fortune had heaped on Diane Whipple, her luck ran out the day her neighbors Robert Noel, 59, and his wife, Marjorie Knoller, 45, brought home a pair of vicious dogs.

Immediately after the attack, the gentle people of San Francisco could be heard expressing their pain in radio sound bites. There was little, if any, anger about the attack, just pain and mild shock. It was a mellow grief, a Bay Area kind of grief, a grief that seemed premature in its ready acceptance of the violent death of a woman who did nothing whatsoever to deserve it. It was creepy, not the attack, itself, which was gruesome and horrible, but the sheep-like acceptance of it afterward.

I had experienced that same creepy feeling before, not so much in San Francisco as across the bay. It was oddly the same reaction I get in the pit of my stomach whenever I go to Berkeley, except this time it was more pronounced. It's that uneasiness, a feeling of ill-being that I get as a reaction to The Berkeley Syndrome.

Berkeley Syndrome (BS) is any mind numbing manifestation of a smothering social entity. The standard yardstick for top of the scale is, of course, the Berkeley City Council. To call these people liberal would be like calling highly enriched uranium a pile of pitchblend. They are liberals distilled so far beyond your garden variety, naturally-occurring in nature social liberal that you must marvel at whatever process it took to synthesize them. BS is what makes the transporting of horsemeat for food a felony in California. It is what makes Berkeleyites believe that animals have rights and that humans cannot own or hold sway over them, but can only exist with our fellow beasts during the time they pass their lives upon the planet alongside of us. Berkeley, you see, just passed a law proclaiming that pet owners will now be known as pet guardians. Pure Berkeley. Pure Berkeley Syndrome.

The Berkeley Syndrome is what makes citizens believe that if anything even offends, much less endangers them, their city officials will make a law against it. Berkeley, if you'll recall, outlawed lawn jockeys in the early 1990's, with a city council person stating that "if it offends even one person, it must be removed." BS makes one believe that the proper authorities will deal with your problems head on for you and that all you need do is hold out, avert your eyes until such time as the next city council meeting, when the proper authorities will address the things that threaten or offend you. BS is what makes candidates and elected officials say things like, "I will fight for you, the working people."

It's concentrated in the East Bay, but it's a Bay Area thing and to a lesser extent, a California thing.


The acceptance of Diane Whipple's death as merely grisly and unfortunate, however, escalated to subdued concern in the eyes of San Franciscans, when the details in the increasingly bizarre case began to trickle in. The police discovered that the dogs, Bane and Hera, had been involved in several unpleasant incidents before the attack on Diane Whipple. Bane had bitten a resident of the apartment building. Both dogs had attacked other dogs in parks and on the streets. It was also learned that the animals' previous caretaker had complained that they had killed other animals and pets on her property in the past.

Robert Noel immediately expressed his sympathy for Diane Whipple's loved ones, adding, in true shyster fashion, that the attack on Whipple might have been her own fault. Noel claims that since Ms. Whipple was an athlete, she may have been taking steroids, which would have caused her to emit a scent that provoked his normally gentle dogs.

Grave injury was a sure bet, bound to happen in this case. The manager of the apartments wanted Noel and Knoller -- or at least their dogs -- out, but Noel and Knoller were lawyers in love and they made it clear that they wouldn't give in without a fight, so the manager reluctantly relented.

The neighbors lived in fear of the dogs, even timing their own outings not to coincide with the Noel/Knoller beasts' forays into the common areas. The residents acted like prey instead of human beings. They felt that surely some agency, animal control, or the city council, someone would eventually step in and deliver them from the menace if it became unbearable. As they waited for "the proper authorities" to deal with the situation, the neighbors gave Noel and Knoller wide berth for being litigious jerks with very big, dangerous dogs. The good people of the Fillmore St. apartment building waited for authorities to deal with Noel and Knoller, but the authorities never came until their building became a crime scene.

But there was also a soft side to Robert Noel and Marjorie Knoller, a childless couple with so much love in their hearts that they were given not only to adopting four-legged killers, but also a two-legged lifer in the California state prison system.

Three days after Diane Whipple succumbed, in a slurry of blood, to their attack dogs, Robert and Marge adopted a boy they could call their very own. On this joyous occasion, their client, Paul 'Cornfed' Schneider, who is 37-years-old and serving a life sentence for aggravated assault and attempted murder at Pelican Bay State Prison, became the couple's only son.

That's not to say that Cornfed Schneider didn't already have a family. He had brothers, lots of them. Aryan brothers, that is. Schneider is a proud member of the Aryan Brotherhood. I suppose that's the twist in this sordid tale that really began to offend Bay Area sensibilities.

Cornfed also shares his lawyers/parents appreciation for canines. In fact, he used his hard-earned settlement from a lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections (he often sues the CDC) to fund a business enterprise he conducted from prison. It was Schneider's money that paid for the Preso Canarios that his "parents" raised along with at least five other dogs. According to prison officials, he was involved in a deal with Mexican drug dealers to raise and sell them for fighting dogs and guard dogs. Schneider denies that, saying he asked his lawyers to raise Bane and Hera so he could hear stories of the dogs happy life even though he, himself, was behind bars and couldn't be there to raise the dogs.

A search of Schneider's cell, yielded drawings and photos of his dogs, as well as nude pictures of his newly adopted mother, Marjorie Knoller. Prosecutors are now expanding the scope of their investigation to determine whether the couple was having sex with the dogs, a bit of a leap from nude photos, but in this case nothing is much of a shocker. Incidentally, sex with animals in California is a misdemeanor.

Robert Noel said the nude photos of his wife found in his adopted son's prison cell were a private matter. He stated that it was nothing deviant and reminded reporters that it wasn't long ago that homosexuals were considered deviant. He added that at least he and his wife weren't Republicans.

© Lynette Warren 2001 All rights reserved


Previously by Lynette Warren...

Pardons for $$$--Hillary's Victim Card (02/23/01)

Gale Norton, Enviro-Capitalist (02/15/01)

The Parting Shot (01/26/01)

Faith vs. Blind Faith (12/27/00)

Under the Mistletoe with Sinn Fein (12/15/00)

Mrs. Clinton Goes to Washington (12/08/00)

It's the Outrage (12/01/00)

The Great Florida Vote Hunt (11/24/00)