Audio By Carbonatix
With a name that sounds like a blaxploitation heroine, author Aphrodite Jones has been energetically kicking publishing-world ass since her first true-crime book, The FBI Killer, appeared on shelves eleven years ago. Among her quintet of compelling best sellers: Cruel Sacrifice, the gruesome tale of four teenage girls in Indiana who tortured and burned their friend alive, and All She Wanted, the story of transgender teen Brandon Teena’s murder, which inspired the film Boys Don’t Cry. Never one to dodge controversy, the intense Jones has taken on another sensational situation in her sixth and latest book, Red Zone: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of the San Francisco Dog Mauling. Digging beneath the surface explanation of neighbors’ pets that turned ferocious, attacking and killing a powerless Diane Whipple as she feverishly attempted to enter her apartment, Jones’s investigation reveals twisted links between the two deadly Presa Canario dogs, their eccentric attorney owners, and a charismatic convicted felon serving time in a maximum-security prison. Jones, who divides her time between Miami and Los Angeles, talked to Miami New Times from a New York City book-tour stop.
New Times: What one thing about this story made you want to write this book?
Jones: The fact that I believe Diane Whipple was killed in that hallway by animals — eaten alive. Because we’re supposed to think about our relationship of man and animal and deal with it on a domestic level and deal with it on a global level and start taking care of our animals domestically and globally. That’s the message ultimately. Diane was a sacrificial lamb in this story.
Why do people excuse a lot of bad animal behavior?
Because animals are extensions of their own personalities and they don’t want to think that their animal is capable of doing something that’s truly bad.
What was the biggest surprise you had working on Red Zone?
That there was actual proof, references, specific references to their [lawyers/defendants Marjorie Knoller and Robert Noel] experimentation with these dogs…. I think it’s possible that bestiality played a role in the slaughter of Diane Whipple. Nobody can convince me otherwise. Those dogs were on drugs, they were being experimented with, they were not being reprimanded, they were allowed to be running loose, they were never ever scolded, they were basically turned into monsters.
Sounds like some of the teenagers you’ve written about.
Exactly!
What did you think about the light involuntary manslaughter sentence Knoller and Noel got?
That’s another tragedy. That’s a travesty.
