LOS ANGELES (AP) — In a dramatic day of testimony, dog mauling defendant Marjorie Knoller cried and shouted, voicing anguish over how she said her huge dog was transformed from a docile pet into a vicious killer.

"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.