How an Aryan Brotherhood Inmate Controlled Lives From Prison | The Diane Whipple Case

Tragic Cold Open

A woman lost her life, dangerous dogs were used as intimidation tools. Today we're unpacking how this happened and the warning signs people missed. And today I am joined with best-selling author and investigative journalist Aphrodite Jones, whose latest book, Dog of War, takes a deeper look at the tragic death of Diane Whipple and the disturbing prison connection many people never knew existed. Aphrodite, thank you so much for being here. This is an absolute pleasure. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Tiffany. Pleased to be here. When I read your book, I think my mouth was on the floor for at least 90% of it. It is an absolutely crazy story. It may be the craziest true crime story I've ever written. I think so. Reading so many weird turns. Exactly. I mean, it's just with me thinking you've heard it all, there's more, right? Right. Oh, and you were hilarious in it. You would say like little remarks like that. And I just it would, it was so funny. I loved it. I loved everything about it. So, like for people who think that they know this case, what did we get wrong?

Not Just a Dog Story

Okay, so the thing is, this is not a story about dogs, and it's really not a story about the dog mauling of Diane Whipple either, although that is what precipitated the knowledge that law enforcement got about what was really going on here. So unfortunately, Diane Whipple had to die before we discovered, or the police discovered, that those dogs living next door to her were not regular old dogs. They belonged to the prison gang, the Aryan Brotherhood. And that's a lethal prison gang. I had to look those dogs up. I had never heard of it before. Presonario. Presicanario. It is a strange breed of dog, for sure. It's not recognized by the American cannon clubs to this day. This dog was found by the one of the heads of the Aryan Brotherhood, whose name is Paul Schneider, and he discovered the Presicanario because what he wanted to do is sell the most dangerous dog he could to his associates on the outside, Aryan Brotherhood people who get out and they're still part of it, because Aryan Brotherhood is a blood-in, blood-out gang. You have to kill someone to get in the gang, and you have you will be killed if you leave. So that whether they're inside prison or out, they're part of this organization. It's almost like a crime organization, I want to call it. Almost like it's almost like a cartel, is what I mean. It is definitely a crime organization. So first and foremost, understand that presocinarios were originally used in ancient times in Spain, in the Canary Islands, to take down bulls in bull rings. Okay. They they're like a mastiff, which is a huge dog, combined with a pit ball on steroids, to give the best example of what I could describe them as. And they're not illegal in the United States. However, they've been banned in many countries, in Spain and many countries around the world have banned this breed. Because while people could have the nice presicanario, and I have met someone with a sweet presicanario, for the most part, that's not what people are getting a presicanario for. Never heard of it because people aren't going to go out of their way to find a dog that is so dangerous or potentially dangerous that it could kill somebody. And that's what these dogs are. I mean, yeah, saying it's a pit bull on steroids is a great description of it. I mean, they were eating walls. What kind of dog can eat walls? Walls, so yeah. So the the story here is first and foremost, again, I want to remark that the Aryan Brotherhood, while they had the ideology of white supremacy and all of that ideology that you would expect from Nazi lowriders and skinheads and all of that, their main focus in prison is not so much their ideology, it's more about power. And power means you control those people on the outside and you have control on the inside as well. You know, there are television shows that show this more and more where prison gangs have that. Uh, you know, I think of America Kingstown, I don't know if you've seen it, where the prison gangs are operating on the outside and inside, and they come in and out of prison as well. So Paul Schneider, one of the leaders of the Aryan Brotherhood, decided that, oh, this would be great. I'm gonna sell these dogs to my associates. I'm gonna make thousands of dollars per dog because no one's ever heard of that before. They will be the most fierce dogs in the world, and I'm called the operation dog o' war, which is why that's what the book is called. So

Pelican Bay Dog Scheme

what he did is he was able to woo a unknowing Christian woman to be his pen pal at the Pelican Bay State prison, which by the way is a supermax. I've been up there. And Paul Schneider is the worst of the worst in the supermax prison. If you if you were to ever go there, which you don't want to, it's on the northern tip of California. You actually walk through one after two after three levels and rings of prison cells and facilities before you get to what they call no man's land. So no man's land is what surrounds the security housing unit, or what we call the shoop. All right. And that is it's a strange thing because as I walked along on it, have you ever seen like black tar or stairs that have like a little diamond silver sparkles coming off of it? Yes. You know what I'm talking about? That's what that looks like. And it's it's spread out that kind of black tar with the with the sparkles for a long distance around the shoe. In other words, if someone got out of the security housing unit, right, they would be seen immediately by the tower guards because there's all that empty space around it. So he knows he's never getting out. Never. He has three concurrent life sentences to serve. He stabbed his own attorney at one of his appearances in court. I mean, this is a monster, a real monster, but yet a charmer. They usually are, right? No, they are. Ted Bundy. So now, this woman. I'm just gonna call her by her first name, Janet, because she went on the witness protection program. She wound up there because there were threats against her life and her daughter's life. So this woman agrees to meet Schneider at the prison. She's afraid, but he's got her convinced, you know, I'm in love with you, you're la la. And she's a single mother, you know, living on a farm in Hay Fork, California, which is the middle of nowhere. And ultimately he convinces her to accept Prescipario puppies and raise them, and they'll split the profits. And she doesn't want to do it. She doesn't even know what dogs are. She never had a dog. She has a cat, she's cats and all of her farm animals. But she finally gets convinced and agrees to do it. And she picks the dogs up at the Sacramento Airport, the closest airport. And the guy in the airport says, What you got Cujo in this cage? What are dogs of these dogs in these cages? And she doesn't know what Cujo is. You know, it's a reference to it. You know Cujo? I know Cujo. I mean, for anyone who's watching, if you don't go ahead and tell them who Cujo is. Oh, he's a huge, huge dog. Like monster-ish, they used to kind of call him. So yeah, huge monster dog. So, but they're puppies, and she takes them home and raises them. And as they're getting older, they start doing things that are not good. They can't, they don't stay in their pens, they start eating through fences, they are completely out of control. And she starts tying them to the trees in her farm because she doesn't know what else to do. She's got them chained up on trees, which of course is the very wrong thing you should do to any kind of animal, because now what they're going to do is fight. Because now they're being chained and they're being choked. So these dogs would get out of those chains, get get get run rampant through the farm, and they started eating her livestock, and they started eating her chickens, and then they were eating her sheep. And ultimately, they killed one of her cats. And the daughter said, Mom, I don't want these dogs here anymore. And at the same time, Paul Schneider is keeping tabs on all this via letter and also, you know, he's calling her. She's got her number, she's accepting the collect calls. And he's saying, You're not doing the right thing by these dogs. You don't understand how how impressive these dogs are. You don't understand what you're doing. I'm not going to let you keep these dogs anymore. I'm not going to be in business with you anymore. And Janet is upset because now she's attached to the dogs, even though it doesn't make any sense, right? I mean, they're killing her livestock. They killed her cat. I'd want nothing to do with it. But Janet was is a very sweet woman. I met her. And she was, you know, she wanted to be their mother. She thought she could do this. Well, Paul Schneider calls his two attorney friends, Marjorie Nolar and Robert Noel, who at one time were in the high society of San Francisco, which is the strange part of it, right? Yeah, they were recognized by the bar for helping them mentally ill and everything. Like, how in the hell do you go from being that respected to where they ended up? It's crease of control through prison. It's it's crazy. It is so insane. And you know, not only that, they were invited to fancy events. You see them in the book, this picture of them in black tie and gowns and going to the Getty Mansion. Pacific

Pacific Heights and Escalation

Heights is where they lived and where Diane Warpell was killed, is the ritziest part of San Francisco. This is where Billionaires Row is. This is where the Getys live. This is where, you know, billionaires live. That's what they call it. So Robert Noel and Marjorie Nuller, however, are renters in a building and they live in a one-bedroom apartment, and they're running their office out of that one-bedroom apartment. So there they are there with two gigantic dogs in this small apartment. And next door to them lives Diane Whipple, who is gay, and her partner, Sharon Smith. And in the meantime, Schneider says, you go get those dogs. And when Noah and Noelle went to Hayfork to get the dogs from Janet, they're threatening her. Get us those dogs. Because Janet actually hired a lawyer to fight this. And ultimately, Robert Noel and Marjorie Miller got a veterinarian to come to the farm, meet them, and let them know that these dogs were fit to be taken away with that. And the and the letter that Dr. Donald Martin wrote, which is in the book, it was in evidence, in essence says these dogs are not fit to be around any human beings, no less to be brought into the heart of San Francisco. A one-bedroom apartment. Correct. So yes, they don't care. But they had that warning. And they take the dogs with them too. They get a lot of warnings. Yes, they did. Yes, they did. So when you think about it, at the time that Diane Whipple was killed, this is the most horrifying part of it. And I opened the book with her killing her murder is a murder. Because by the time Diane Whipple was killed, there had been so many incidents around the city of San Francisco involving these dogs that the owners had to know that they were lethal weapons. I mean, there's no excuse for allowing these dogs to be outside and be unleashed. Robert thought it was funny. Every time he would like the dogs would lunge or like do something. He would laugh. He thought it was funny. They thought it was great. They're reporting to Paul Schneider how how frightening their dogs are, how they've frightened all these various people, how strong the dogs are. You know, they're feeding them the right supplements, the best food, and all of that. They're they're now falling in love with Paul Schneider. Which is a whole nother level of crazy.

My God, the stuff she was sending him.

The letters, the cards, the drawings, the twisted medieval love affair they thought they were having is just so nutty. I mean. And you wonder how did that get past prison guards? You know they're reading everything. No, no, no, no, no. They got past prison guards because they were his attorneys. And anything that's marked attorney prime privilege privilege on the outside, the the guards are not allowed to touch. Oh, that's how they got around that. I was thinking about that when I was reading your book. I'm like, how is this not flagged? Right, right. It would have been flagged had it not been confidential legal mail, but it was. So no one knew what was in there. And no one knew what was going on at all. In the meantime, no one knew that these dogs were creating all these horrible incidents all over the city of San Francisco. And it wasn't until Diane Whipple's death when these two dog owners and the dogs were pictured on the local news that everybody started recognizing these people and their dogs. I mean, they're hard to miss. Noelle's huge man, overweight and very tall. They're very distinct-looking people. And the dogs, they're a brindle color. It's a strange color. They're a strange-looking dog. They're gigantic. People are recognized these people and the dogs, and they're realizing, oh my God, those are the dogs that tried to attack my dog, or those are the dogs that went after me, or those are the dogs that were lunging at the mailman, etc. And there were 40 incidents around the city of San Francisco.

No one put the dots together. Yeah. I mean, people were scared to come forward because of the owners.

Right. Well, then, so that's another thing. The dogs, one of the dogs bit a neighbor, David Moser, who reported that not only did he get bit, it wasn't that it broke skin, there was like through the jeans, but still it was a bite. Maybe broke skin, but not, you know, you couldn't see. There wasn't blood, it wasn't a serious dog bite, but it was a bite. And by a 130-pound dog. Okay. That's nice. You know, so Rob Noel was no apologies, no nothing, just that was interesting to him that his neighbor got bit in the head and nail there. It's unbelievable. Like, how do you not say I'm sorry? Oh my god. You know, keep him on a muzzle, do something. No, no, no, no, no. He would deny everything. He didn't do that. It didn't do that. Everything was, nope, my dogs are perfect. Right. Exactly. And everybody else is a liar. Right. So one of the reasons nobody in the building reported it is because Robert Noel and Marjorie Nola were attorneys and they would sue for no reason at all. Sparious lawsuits. So one of those lawsuits, for example, was a plumber came to their apartment to fix the pipes sent by the building management. And the plumber had a German accent. And Robert Noel took offense to it and thought that the plumber was trying to be a Nazi and was insulting his Jewish heritage. Meanwhile, he's become an Area Brotherhood member by association, which, again, all of it fits into the craziness of this story. And so now that word goes around the building pretty fast because they sued the building owner, the property management, and won a settlement. Because no one wants to go to court over this. Because a German person spoke with a German accent in their house while he was fixing pipes. This is how crazy they are. And you know, everyone else in the building realizes they can sue me into oblivion if I say anything. So everybody kept their mouths shut until Diane Wimble was killed. And then the floodgates opened because now people from all over the city are calling animal care and control. You know, they're out of their minds, they know the dogs, they know what happened, they're reporting incidents. In the meantime, when Diane Whible was on the floor, crawling toward her threshold in the hallway where she lived, while those two dogs had her one by the throat and the other by the pants and stripped her nude with 77 bite wounds to her body. Head to toe, the only thing that wasn't bitten were the soles of her feet and her scalp. And Marjorie Nowler never called 911. She's there. The owner's there. You don't call 911? She stepped over the still breathing Diane Whipple to get her keys and get her dogs into her apartment. That was her chief concern. And yes, you should get your dogs in your apartment. Obviously they're they're they're in what we Caesar Long called a red zone when I interviewed him many years ago. But how did they not call 911? Right. I mean help for your next door neighbor. They said that crime scene, and there's photos in the book. How bloody it was, and there's hair and there's shredded clothes everywhere. Like and groceries, because she had just come in from the store. The grocery store. It's just, you know, that part of the story is so horrific. But

Aftermath and Twisted Obsession

then things turn very quickly into strangeness. Because not long after this happens, they go on Good Morning America and have a conversation with Elizabeth Vargas, the then one of the hosts, and tell her they are not responsible for what happened to Diane Ripple, that their dogs are good dogs, and they're fighting to keep this female dog alive. And they're saying, no, they're blaming the victim. I tried so hard to Google to see if I could find a taping of them on there, and I could not find anything. Oh no! I was relentless. I had to see it. Ah, I can't believe it's not up there. It is disgusting. How do you blame the victim? Well, again, you know, this is how crazy they are, okay? They're saying she probably wore some perfume that attracted Bane is the name of the male dog, which by the way, bane of your existence, it means death. Okay, and destruction. That's the name of the one dog. And that's that's the dog that had Diane by her juggler. And they said, you know, she was probably wearing some perfume that attracted Bane, or she could have been using steroids, she was an athlete. Diane Whipple was an athlete, she was a strong 33-year-old, the frost coach. She, among anybody, should have been able to handle these dogs, but you can't.

Now what are you dealing with?

And so with them blaming the victim, now the country gets up in arms. It's not just in California anymore, this story. People are watching, millions of people are watching, and they're furious that these dog owners have the audacity to blame the victim. And as time progresses, and it's not long after Diamond Pool was killed, that they go up to Pelican Bay. Just like an eight-hour drive, it's all the way Northern California, it's on the tip near Oregon. And outside the gates of Pelican Bay, they hold the press conference because people are the press is following them around now. Because they can't believe these crazy people, the crazy story, the 40 people, you know, incidents that have been called in, all of it. I mean, it's the city is in a whirl over this. It's horrible. And they announced that they have adopted the Aryan Brotherhood member Paul Schneider as their son. How did I adopt an inmate? That blew my mind. An adult inmate. Well, we're lawyers and they figured it out. You know, that's the thing. I mean, I don't think anybody else would be thinking, hmm, let me, I like this inmate, you know, Penthouse. Let me adopt her. Right? So sick. So sick. So crazy. So once that happened, now you have three agencies, law enforcement agencies, looking at the case. Because now all that confidential mail gets opened. All right. They get a special master involved. So it's the California Department of Corrections has their own investigative unit, special agents, who I met with and talked about this too. And then the San Francisco Police Department's involved. And also the DA is considering filing manslaughter charges. And DAs have their own investigatory branch, okay? DAI, DI, DA investigators. So there's three forms of government that are now law enforcement that are now after this story of trying to figure out what the Aryan Brotherhood have to do with this. And also, what is their relationship between these dog owners and Paul Schneider and the Aryan Brotherhood? And they start opening the mail. And then when you see that mail and you see I've incorporated some of those letters and some of those photos in the book. Oh yeah. And one has Marjorie's pheromones on them, if you can only imagine what I am saying. Right? It's so disgusting. I mean, she is just gross. Does that smell it?

It's me. So gross. It's horrifying.

It is horrifying. And so it is letters. What comes to understand is that Marjorie Noller and Robert Noel, who are a married couple, have decided they want to be in a triad or a menage à toi with Paul Schneider. And they're hoping to have conjugal business with him. And they're hoping to have somehow get him out of prison, which is a pipe dream. But they think they can, because they're lawyers and they're going to fight for the rest of their lives to be with Paul Schneider, this monster. And as you see in the letters and the photos, Marjorie Noller has become this sex kitten for Paul Schneider in Fantasyland. Oh yeah. And when you see the image of her photo that she sent to Schneider for him to make that drawing, and you see she's standing there posing in like a boostier in the railway. In the foir. In the foyer of the apartment building, right? Which means what? The dogs are there. So if you're taking over the whole foyer of your apartment building, dogs are territorial. In their minds, they own the building.

That's the whole thing is theirs. Which, you know, another violation of everybody else who lives there.

Right? To do. But what should they have to be there in the middle of the night? I don't know how she could be standing there in this crimson cape, ridiculous, in front in front of the big fireplace. I know it is funny, right? Tiffany? She tried so hard. So hard. She's posing like she's Emma Anderson in her best days or something. I just crazy. She puts on a blonde wig, and there's a picture of that as well, where she's showing off her goods to Paul Schneider. And again, this all has to do with being Aryan. That's why the blonde wig. So meanwhile, Robert Noelle is writing letters and signing off with German phrases, and you know, it's just insane. Right. And at one point, she wants him all by herself. Screw the husband. I just want Paul. She's like, the husband's fat and he's a slob, and I want all of you. You and Bane can get it on. And that is a really

Bestiality Rumors and Prior Bite

creepy element here is that they c that they were alluding to the fact that they were having sex with the dogs. Whether or not that ever happened, whether there's bestiality here, we'll never know. But there was a picture of Marjorie half naked or naked near bending down near Bain, which never got entered into evidence. But and there were references to what the DA called the blurring of lines between man and animal. Or humankind to animal, the way he put it, human and animal. Something lines were crossed, whatever they were. Yeah, especially because towards the end it came out that Bain was kind of by Diane's pelvic region, and that might be why he started tearing at her pants because he smelt her vagina. And no, no, no, that was Hera, the female dog. Sarah. Okay. Was that the jugular? Gotcha. Well, you're right. I mean, that's a possibility. I don't think I don't think that that played into this at all. I really don't. I and again, that's kind of an element here that is over the top. There's no world proof of it, but it does exist in the letters. No, the attack on Diane Whipple happened because weeks prior, not long before, Bain bit Diane Whipple on the wrist. And partner freaked out, get home right now because I was bitten by this the dogs that live next door. And when Sharon Smith got home, what happened was Diane had a sports watch on and Bain bit her right on the watch. So the watch prevented any real puncture wounds. There were punctures, but no blood because of the watch. So when Sharon Smith got home, she's like, you know, I'm sorry. You know, what can we do? There's, you know, she's seeing that there's no real bite. She doesn't understand, she wasn't physically there to understand the the ferocity of this dog. But because we

Hallway Mauling Horror

all know, I'm sure you know, that if a dog has attacked and come after you, and then you show fear around that dog, that dog's gonna come after you again. That's what dogs do. Yeah, they can smell it. Exactly. Exactly. And she was scared to death of those dogs for good reason. One bit her. I mean, if I was bit by a 130-pound dog and the other one's 110 pounds, it's 240 pounds of dog that was on Diane Whipple in that hallway as she was desperately trying to get into her apartment door. The one place that you should feel safest in the world. You're in your building, you've gone upstairs in an elevator, you're at your apartment door with your groceries, and comes along two unleashed monster dogs.

And, you know, they shredded her apart.

It's just so sad and so horrific. I could only imagine. You can't, I mean, it's hard to imagine, really. And Di Whipple looms large over the story, but it really is not a story about her. Right? And she's a sacrificial land here. It's it's horrifying. But this is not a story about that. And I think people, when they see the title, they think this is about dogs. It's really not about dogs, it's about the Aryan Brotherhood and about these insane attorneys and this crazy love affair that ultimately resulted in this murder. And the fact that the dog owners were held responsible for murder. That is a first. That was a precedent-setting thing. It's just like now, these days, we had parents held criminally responsible for the actions of their child. That's new. Yeah. Happy to see it because that should be in place. It hadn't been in place. Well, this happened in 2001 and it wasn't in place. And so Governor Gray Davis, who was the governor of California at the time, closed loopholes in the law that uh meant that anybody who store harmed and wounded or killed a person was going to be held criminally responsible. There was no more loophole for that. So it was precedent setting in that regard. And they initially were just gone for manslaughter. They never thought they were going to go for

Overcharging And Casey Anthony

second to being murdered. Because one of the things, if you understand true crime, you understand court, the court system, you can't overcharge a case. It's like Casey Anthony. Casey Anthony, they overcharged and went for the death penalty. And once they did that, a jury can't decide they're going to put this young mother, whoever she is, to death. Of course, there were other mistakes made in the Casey Anthony trial. I'm not going to go there, covered it. You know, it was there for that trial, and it was just horrible the way it was handled. It was here in my county, Pinellas County. I'm like, I swear to God, if I know any of you who are on the jury, if we're not friends anymore. Well, you know, that I want I don't want to digress too far with Casey Anthony. I will say this. They overcharged her to try to get the death penalty. They used evidence that had never been used before, which was smell evidence from the trunk of that car that smelt like death. The jurors never opened up that that can of alleged smell. But unfortunately, Jose Baez, who's a very, I don't want to say creepy attorney. Slimy. Slimy. Slime is a better word. Thank you, Tiffany. You're welcome. Slimy attorney, yeah. Because he represented Harvey Weitstein. So we, you know, the monster, the Hollywood monster, right? Afterward. He came up in that trial and said that this child, Kaylee Anthony, had drowned in the pool, and George Anthony was the one who picked her out of the pool and helped rack her up in a garbage bag and hide her. So this is a theory that you present in your opening statement, which doesn't have to be proven. You can say anything you want, your opening statement. But to come up with this story out of nowhere, well, George Anthony had an affair during the time of looking for Kaylee, when he was looking all over for her with the rest of the world in her wando that were looking for this child for months. And when the woman who had the affair was gone up and testified, she mentioned, she talked about it that George Anthony had come to her apartment, and there was proof of that. He went through a guard gate, whatever. And then when George Anthony got up, because he's not allowed to be in there listening to witness testimony, and they asked him about this, he lied. So now you have a witness who's lied, and it's Casey Anthony's father, and if he lied about now you have this theory that he's the one who found Kaylee dead in a pool and helped, you know, dispose of her body. If even one juror has puts a doubt in their mind, you're done. Right. So Casey Anthony walked free. I mean, I have a theory about that too. You can walk out of a courtroom, but you're not walking really free out of this world when you commit something like that. Same thing, O.J. Simpson, right? Right. He, you know, he walked out of that courtroom in the murder trial, but not only did he get caught in something else, but his life was hit what he cared about most, which is his image and the his fame and his glory, was taken away. It was tainted forever. I'm a person I believe in God. I'm I'm a spiritual person. I think that there's ultimate justice on this earth, no matter what. And just do. I just had that faith. And but in this case with the dog mauling, Robert Noel and Margin Noller had no idea that they'd ever be charged for anything. They were fighting to keep Hera alive. Here's a female dog who was involved in the attack of the murder of a woman, of their next door neighbor, who they couldn't care less what her name was, anything about her. And they're fighting in a in a dangerous dog hearing to keep Hera alive. Well, why? I mean, the head of animal care control told me if I had a dog who was involved in a killing or a lethal incident or a serious dog incident, biting incident, I wouldn't want to have that dog anymore. Right. And for the longest time, Marjorie kept saying that Hara was not involved. It wasn't until they found her clothes in her poop. So yeah, she was involved. She was totally involved. And and Marjorie said, Hera was only chugging at the pants. What? She said that to the police early on. So what part of your dog? One was at Diamond Whipple's throat and the other was at her feet. What part of that means that your second dog wasn't there? Fray. I mean, but then again, she's trying to marry someone from the Aryan Brotherhood. Her son. Her son. He's marrying her son. Does he get any weirder, man? Weird God, it's such a weird story. So now

Grand Jury To Trial

the grand jury is convened. A grand jury's convened, and they're going to decide whether or not these people should be charged with murder, manslaughter. And oddly enough, the grand jury, after hearing all that testimony from the various people who had been attacked, from, you know, from Noelle and Noeller, from all of the various people that were called in that later testified in the trial. So the grand jury asked the prosecution if they could file a second-degree murder charge against Marjorie Noller. Now, again, this is why I was talking about they don't prosecutors don't want to overcharge. Because if you bring a case like that to court and you overcharge, you can risk, you know, losing the case. And then there's double jeopardy. If the jury finds you innocent or not guilty, you can't bring it back. So this is why I mentioned about the Casey Anthony thing being overcharged. You know, that that's kind of what happened there. And she's got double jeopardy. She doesn't ever have to be tried again for this. However, once the grand jury suggested that, the DA decided to go with that charge. And they went after Marjorie Nuller for second degree murder and Robert Noel for manslaughter, which he wasn't even in the building at the time of the attack. So think about that for a moment. This is how serious. And there was trial, and the DA started by saying this case starts and ends at Pelican Bay State Prison. The Super Max. And people were, you know, not knowing, I mean, this was a jury that was at the the case was moved to Los Angeles, you know, the venue was changed. People were like, what do you talk? You know, what do you mean? What's Pelican Bay? You know. And in the course of the trial, Jim Hammer, the DA who handled this case, was able to show the 40 escalating incidents that occurred with these dogs, these prescanarian dogs, and other people who were testifying. And in particular, in what case, there was a dog fight at a park, and Robert Noel got in the midst of the in the middle of the dogs, and Bain severed Robert Noel's finger off. But they're harmless. Hospital where he had to be there for four days to have his finger attached. I mean, what more clues do you need? But they were delusional. These people were delusional. And their defense was these were happy dogs, these are sweet dogs, these are loving dogs. And they had all these happy pictures of Bain and Hera, the female dog, you know, walking around San Francisco and, you know, being playing. And yeah, you can play all you want, but you got that the lethal element in your system. You came from a place where you were killing livestock. What in the world makes you think that this is good? And you were warned numerous times that these dogs, no, number one, should not be in a single apartment. They need a place to roam, a place to grow. Like they're not gonna do well in there. And they just didn't care. They didn't care. They didn't care. All they cared about was satisfying the Aryan Brotherhood, their love. Paul Schneider. And as long as, and in fact, when Dyne Whipple, after she had been bitten by Bain, Robert Noel got in the elevator with Bane and Hera, and he writes a letter to Paul Schneider and says, a timorous mousy blonde was in the elevator when a dynamic duo came in, and she almost had a coronary, a heart attack. And when Jim Hammer mentioned that to Robert Noel and Corr, and he said, Who was that blonde? And he he said, Diane Whipple. Noel didn't care. He didn't care. After this woman had been killed, he didn't care that his dogs frightened Diane Whipple to the point that she almost had a heart attack. And he saw it and he was happy about it. He was a coward. He didn't even want to come up when the police were there for the murder. He was hiding, kind of just watching what was happening. He was well, yes. You're right. Good point. But it wasn't that he was, I want to say he was slimy, more than a coward. He wanted to see what is happening here, because he knew already how many incidents has happened with this dogs, and he sees animal care and control out there. So he's he and he sees them take his dog bane away. So he knows it's a problem with the dogs. And he actually thought, maybe the dogs killed Marjorie. Think of that for a moment. You're gonna keep dogs in your house, your little apartment, who you think are capable of killing your wife? Right. I mean if I have a finger, that's not a love nibble, dude. Well that's just everything about this case from jump was so crazy. And then of course you get to another level of crazy. You know where I'm going? There's there's a couple. I'm not really sure. Well, thank that. Okay, so I'm at the trial. It's been moved the change of venue to Los Angeles. We are there with a full jury, with all the things intact. Judge Warren had come down from San Francisco. That's when they change a venue. The judge comes to the new location. They had to be near a facility because Paul Schneider may have been brought in, and Paul Schneider had known been known to escape or try to escape. Once being brought into court, he had stabbed his attorney inside the courtroom on a previous occasion. So the judge wanted to be near a facility to keep Schneider locked up. Schneider went up not being called to testify, but everyone else did. And the strange thing that happened is that the woman who was representing Marjorie Muller, because they were tried at the same time, but they had two separate attorneys, got down on her hands and knees like a dog in the courtroom and started reenacting the killing. Right. Yes, I I know exactly where you're going with this. Everybody was stunned. I mean, I I've been in courts for 35 years. Not before, not since. Have I ever seen anybody, a lawyer, start to reenact a dog which only helped the shit. Right? And she's banging on the jury box like as if Marjorie was trying to get away and trying to Marjorie did nothing to prevent anything in that dogfight, and we or that killing. And we know that because she did not have a single puncture wound on any of her clothing, on her nothing. The blood on her clothing was from picking her dogs up and taking them away. That's it. But of course, now in the trial, her lawyer is arguing that no, Marjorie got in between the dogs and Diane Whipple. She tried to save Diane Whipple. She was there, she did all she could. No, she didn't. No, she didn't. And the jury

Verdict And Sentencing Twist

saw right through it. And they came back with second-degree murder for Marjorie Knowler and manslaughter for Robert Noel. And Marjorie Knowler was like shrunk down. You know, she couldn't believe she was going to be going to prison. And she was facing a sentence of 15 to life. It's interesting because people don't really understand what second-degree murder is. And so I want to explain that second-degree murder entails a wanton disregard for human life. But it can also entail, and this case crystallized it, negligence to the point, extreme, reckless negligence that meets the criteria of wanton disregard for human life. So to give the right analogy here, I'm going to use a car, a driver in a car. If somebody is driving in a car drunk and they get a DUI and they're punished, right? And then they do it again, and then they get another DUI and they're punished again, whatever the whatever that name is. be and then they go out again with their car and they kill someone they know at that point that this 3,000 pound vehicle is a weapon when they're behind that wheel drunk. And so those are the people who get sentenced to second degree murder.

Right.

It's not pre-planned but you also didn't not try to do it. You didn't care. Want and disregard for human life and you knew you are dangerous. You know that you could kill someone but you want to pretend it's not true. No. You're not going to get away with that. So they give Marjorie Noller secondary murder she's convicted and there's going to be a sentencing hearing up in San Francisco. A month later we all go up to San Francisco. Now we're back there to hear the sentence pronounced and usually that's a matter of course. You know that the judge is going to pronounce the sentence and it's within the guidelines of the sentence. I mean the judge could make it the higher end of it, the lower end of it. And instead Judge Warner comes into the courtroom and he's got this strange look on his face. I want to say like you know somebody who ate the canary it's like what what's going on here? And he starts talking as opposed to just being the judge you know everybody come to order that came to order now he's having this almost a conversation with the courtroom and the jury and saying you know I've thought about this I've had weeks to think about this. And it it what I have decided, what I've determined is that Marjorie Nolar could not have known that her dogs were going to kill a human being so I am going to throw out the jury verdict of second degree murder and change the conviction to manslaughter which means she only has to serve four years in prison just like her husband. I gasped when I read that like out loud it's not heard of I mean can it be done? Obviously it could be done I had to go home and look it up. I was like what how does this happen? This happens and it can be done but it's rare you don't have a jury trial and a whole jury for months weeks on end make a determination and then take their verdict away and as it happened it went to the Court of Appeals in San Francisco and in that district Ninth Circuit and those judges said you know what Judge Warren we want you to rethink your decision to overturn the jury's verdict. And upon rethinking it Judge Warren reinstated the second degree murder. Now at that point

Aftermath And Bigger Picture

it was years later Marjorie Noah had already served time and was out living in Florida with her parents and she got clawed back to California and she's sitting in a women's prison right now in California and she's been there since 2005 and 15 to life and she just tried to get out again on probation in the parole hearing parole board that was February of 2026 this year and she was annoying. Good because you baddie ass behindball not that not just that she's an associate of the Aryan Brotherhood. How do we know who she's in contact with or what she's capable of once she gets out right Paul Schneider he's not dead he's around so it's it's a bizarre story no bizarre is a great word for it and I mean Jesus Christ Robert he passed away in his car living in his car I was like oh my god the fates right again you know the universe has a way here's a guy who at one time was a highly respected worked for the Department of Justice in Washington DC. I mean this guy was not a nobody he was a known criminal attorney he had a solid background what the heck happened to these people that they went over to the dark side you know we will never know right because they don't even probably know what happened it's just like a light switch went on one day and just nobody was home no nobody was exactly I mean so you know this is this is a case where it's hard to believe it happened and it's hard to believe that these this kind of thing can still happen and and I know very recently there was a mauling of a woman who was killed and it was in California I believe and the people the artists are being charged. Was it the same breed or no no no you know I try not to follow that kind of thing because it's upsetting obviously after I went through all this with this particular story. You just hope that people will realize that they are have to they are responsible for the actions of their animals of their children. You can't just say and let everybody run free. That's not the world we live in. No you got to take responsibility exactly and these people did not and you know the idea that they blamed everybody who came forward to say that they were attacked or were pounced at or were growled at or were lunged at by these dogs and say they're all liars I mean that was their defense. Everybody's a liar they're delusional they're delusional they were perfect dogs. They they didn't harm a flinty right because they would go out with the dogs to certain cafes and the dogs had the dog balls put down on the sidewalk for them and then of course they put an extra plate at the table for Paul Schneider because they always had Paul Schneider with them while they were out to dinner or celebrating anything. And you see a picture in the book of them toasting the New Year's in that's right before Diamov was killed with the three champagne glasses and I mean it gets it it's just to the point of complete lunacy I'm just curious if Paul when he would see this stuff like was he intrigued or was he like I think he was both frankly but you know he could he was able to pull this off with Janet who was really an overweight woman that was you know a farm woman that was had nothing going. Oh he was good he was very clever he almost had one woman break him out of prison like he tried yes and there's yes there's more backstory to this he was able to really and that other person Brenda was a horrible woman who had a job she was 45 years old was a good career good job how she wound up becoming an associate of the Area Brotherhood and helping Paul Schneider trying to break him out of prison is beyond. But then again that's part of the lore of this story right he's kind of a Hannibal lector figure I would say in here yeah he loves control and he knows how to manipulate people he's a narcissist I mean they're charming they have evil tendencies and they usually always get their way. Exactly and he did until this happened and then the Aryan Brotherhood turned on him as well because now he did an interview with the Rolling Stone magazine and put light shed light on what the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang was all about. And he was threatened and he got moved into witness protection in the federal system and I'm not sure exactly where he is but I believe he's in the same prison where the Unabar is yeah no I wonder if he let his leg heal up or if he's still keeping a knife in there. Oh my God. You're giving away all the nasty details not you gotta read this book seriously if you want something to make your eyes pop out of your head and your jaw hit the floor you need to buy this book and I'm gonna make sure I put the link to it in the show notes for sure because I couldn't put it down. Every page was holy shit. Like I say I think it's the craziest true crime story I've ever written honestly I don't think there'll be anything as crazy as this there's crazy. I mean you know the Gilboat serial killer horrifying story as it is and I've had some contact with the DA in Suffolk County and the sheriff in Suffolk County it's it's a horrendous story. Absolutely horrendous what this man did to these women these young women that he killed and there's more than eight of them he only admitted to eight but that's a psycho killer. You know that's a Ted Bundy that's a Jeffrey Dahmer kind of thing. There's no rhyme and reason to it but these people are born in a twisted something wrong with their brain I truly believe that childhood trauma not childhood trauma. There's evidence that there's something in the brain that is part of the anatomy of somebody who's able to kill that way. You know it's still we don't know enough about the brain to say but I can tell you that I've studied enough to understand that that there's evidence pointing to that. It's not like you're born a sociopath psycho serial killer. However in this story you have cult normal people that live normal lives how did this happen I think they wanted to be part of something bigger and they were like they got it and not only that they helped shepherd the puppies of the two dogs to Los Angeles I went down to where those dogs landed outside of the airport of LAX and that was a frightening neighborhood and you could see the chain fences all around these homes with warnings about dogs everywhere that's helping the Aryan Brotherhood these dogs were being used to guard meth labs hot farms and heroin labs throughout the state of California by the Aryan Brotherhood that's what they were for unbelievable unbelievable gotta buy the book so I hope I've answered your

Closing Thanks And Book Plug

questions yes so interesting so interesting and I just thank you so much for being here it was an absolute pleasure thank you Tiffany I really appreciate it and I'm glad that we got to meet and talk and hopefully we'll do it again someday yes please okay all right we got it you got all right I'm keeping you on it okay you got it thank you