Red Zone

by Jones, Aphrodite

• ISBN13: 9780060537791
• ISBN10: 0060537795
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-06-12
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

<p>It was the story that shocked the nation and captured headlines for more than a year. In January 2001, Diane Alexis Whipple bled to death in the hallway of her ritzy Pacific Heights apartment building when she was mauled by two Presa Canarios, a vicious breed of attack dog imported from the Canary Islands. After the lethal attack, animal experts testified that the dogs could not have been stopped, explaining that they had entered a frenzy called the "Red Zone."</p><p>Now, <i>New York Times</i> bestselling author Aphrodite Jones shows that the mauling was only one part of a frightening story involving obsession, bestiality, and illegal dog rings. The dogs belonged to Whipple's neighbors, lawyers Marjorie Knoller and Robert Noel, who had been keeping them for a leader of the notorious prison gang the Aryan Brotherhood.</p><p>Jones takes us deep into the bizarre world of Paul "Cornfed" Schneider, a Hannibal Lechter-type character who actually owned the dogs, Bane and Hera. She explains how Noel and Knoller, after being warned about these killer dogs, brought them to the heart of San Francisco, leading the dogs eventually to murder an innocent next-door neighbor. Jones also reveals the shocking L.A.-area whereabouts of the offspring of Bane, the dog most directly involved in the mauling.</p><p>Jones is a masterful investigator and writer who has interviewed the complete cast of characters -- including Robert Noel and Marjorie Knoller during their imprisonment -- and can now tell the full story of what happened in that apartment hallway. <i>Red Zone</i> is a riveting page-turning account of this news-making story that takes us deep into the relationship between man and animal.</p>

Excerpts

Red Zone
The Behind-the-Scenes Story of the San Francisco Dog Mauling

Chapter One

Esther Birkmaier held her breath as she walked toward the peephole of her heavy wooden door. It was a small peephole that allowed her to look at a person's face on the other side, and she was headed there because she could hear strange wild barking. She had gotten up from her dining room table to see what all the racket was, her heart pounding as she moved her head closer inch by inch.

Ever since she was a kid, Esther was afraid of dogs, especially large dogs, and this barking coming from the other end of the hall was giving her a sick feeling. It sounded frantic, but also eerie, and it reminded her of theterrible incident she had with a dog when she was a child. Esther was a frail seventy-something woman, living alone, and strange noises always bothered her. Usually she had nothing to worry about, but this crazed howling was different. It had an energy attached to it that scared her to death.

As Esther stood straining to see out of her peephole, the barking getting progressively worse, she realized it sounded like there were two dogs out there. But she couldn't see them. She had no vision of the ground directly outside her doorway, so she kept scanning the hallway for any kind of image, hoping to catch some kind of glimpse.

The barking and growling was ferocious. Esther couldn't imagine what was going on. It sounded like grumblings. It sounded like wild beasts. Then all of a sudden she heard a voice cry out:

"Help me ... "

And even with the barking getting louder and louder and more vicious, Esther heard the voice again:

"Help me ... "

At that moment Esther's eyes moved toward the other end of the hallway where she could see a body lying on the floor. She could barely make it out, but it appeared to be a woman's body, a woman's body with white clothes, and it was lying on the floor with the top of the head on the threshold of apartment 606. Esther could see the woman's head there and she could see the top part of the body, just about to the waist, but she couldn't see anything more. It appeared the woman was lying facedown, but Esther couldn't be sure. There was a peculiar dark object that covered the rest of the body, and all Esther could identify was lumps of long blond hair.

The dark object that covered the body was not human, at least Esther didn't think so. The dark form seemed to cover the middle part of the woman's body, and Esther kept watching but she wasn't sure what it was she was looking at. Everything looked fuzzy and far away, distorted through the narrow scope of her peephole.

What was weird was that the dark object was very still, the woman's body was very still, yet there was still loud barking coming from the hallway. Esther was shaking, her heart pounding, and she took a step back from the door and tried to compose herself. Then she took a deep breath, went over to her kitchen, and grabbed the phone.

911: What's your emergency?	Esther: There are dogs barking in my hallway and it'svery loud ... I don't know if anyone is hurt ... but.
911: Well, is it an emergency, ma'am?	Esther: I'm really not sure.
911: If it's not an emergency, ma'am, you should callyour local police department.

Esther tried dialing the local number 911 dispatch had given her, but she had no time to wait for someone to pick up. She was getting increasingly panicked as the barking suddenly moved closer to her front door. The next thing she knew, there were bodies crashing against her apartment, there was banging, such hard banging, that Esther thought the crashing might break her door down.

Without thinking, Esther ran back to her door, the crashing getting more furious, and she took a split second to look out again. This time, she could see nothing but groceries scattered out in the hallway. Esther quickly latched the inside chain to her door, hoping that would hold off the wild pounding, hoping the dogs wouldn't break into her apartment. If the door started to break down, she decided, the chain would at least give her enough time to lock herself into her bathroom.

When Esther grabbed the phone a second time to dial 911, the loud banging in the background was obvious, and now she told police she was sure someone was being attacked. She reported that she heard a woman's shrill voice outside yelling, "Get off! Get off!" and told the dispatcher itwas the voice of her longtime neighbor, Marjorie, who owned two very large scary dogs. This time Esther didn't need to say anything more. Police were being sent to the scene right away.

Esther went near her front door one last time, hoping the growling and barking and snarling would stop. But it was endless, it seemed, and it made her heart pound right out of her chest. For Esther, it seemed like an eternity, and police had still not arrived. She was beyond panic, praying that someone would get there, when all of a sudden Esther heard a voice giving commands.

"Stop it!" the voice shrieked. "I said stop it!"

And all at once, the barking, the banging, the snarling, all of it just stopped.

It was quiet when Esther went to her window. She just stood there waiting for police. At first, it must have seemed surreal, as though everything was happening in black and white. Esther stayed glued to her window as she watched two policewomen pull up to her building. It would feel likeforever, but eventually a half-dozen patrol units would arrive and park downstairs on Pacific ...

Red Zone
The Behind-the-Scenes Story of the San Francisco Dog Mauling. Copyright © by Aphrodite Jones. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from Red Zone: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of the San Francisco Dog Mauling by Aphrodite Jones
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