Hard-Bitten Criminal Now Doing Hard Time

A career criminal on death row. A lawyer battling to bring him home. A teary loved one who claims the cops collared the wrong attacker…

The case against Spokane’s Frankie the Mutt sounds like the plot of a dozen jailhouse movies.

Except Frankie really is a mutt. He’s a white and brown dog of unclear ancestry whose felonious behavior has turned him into a three-time loser.

Police and animal control officers arrested Frankie last Jan. 30 for allegedly chewing up Rosanna Wathen as she strolled through the Gonzaga University district. The attack left deep puncture wounds on her right leg and arm.

Already on the “dangerous dog” registry because of two prior violent episodes, the law says Frankie must die.

But his owner, Victoria Gibson, swears her pet was with her at the time of the crime, which was near her home.

Frankie was in Gibson’s house when the police came searching for Wathen’s attacker. A “beware of dog” sign on her fence piqued the officers’ curiosity. They asked to see her pet, which matched the description. Witnesses later fingered Frankie.

“My dog hasn’t done anything,” Gibson argues. “If there was any chance in a million, I would have him put down.”

Wathen’s attorney, Bruce Kaiser, refers to the Frankie caper as Dead Dog Walking. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that this is the dog.”

Could Gibson be barking up the wrong bush? Or is this a classic example of mistaken doggie identity?

Unfortunately, the law doesn’t allow for line-ups in canine crimes: COP (gazing through a mirrored window): “Thank you, No. 3. Sit. Now I’d like No. 4, the Schnauzer, to stop sniffing the spaniel and step forward. Good boy. Now turn to your right and growl.”

Last week, Gibson filed a lawsuit against the city seeking unspecified damages for Frankie’s wrongful arrest and the emotional distress it has caused her.

Scott Gambill is a third-year law student representing Gibson through Gonzaga University’s legal assistance department. He argues that witnesses often tend to be unreliable and is trying to force the city to free Frankie.

“I certainly don’t want to get him off on a technicality,” he says. “But Frankie’s kind of getting a bum rap, too.”

Doing hard time is no Gravy Train for a predator pooch. Frankie has been imprisoned in solitary confinement at SpokAnimal for 53 days.

That’s 371 days in dog time.

Gibson is allowed visitation, if you can call it that. She says she must feed her pet by squatting over the urine-soaked sewer trough of an adjoining kennel. Then she spoons food to Frankie through a small opening.

She could always hide a file in a Milk Bone.

“He’s like my child,” she says in a thick voice. “My family is my dog.”

Gambill believes the dangerous dog ordinance is unfair because it doesn’t allow for hearings where evidence can be presented and witnesses can be cross-examined.

Assistant City Attorney Mike Piccolo says, however, that he is willing to set up a hearing if he and Gambill can work out the details.

Maybe Gambill should skip all that and go straight for the insanity plea.

Frankie made his first mistake when he lunged at a woman over a year ago. Then, in March 1998, Frankie and another dog broke out of Gibson’s yard and killed a cat.

A woman was bitten as she tried to save the cat. The victim couldn’t say which dog drew her blood and Gibson had Frankie’s unnamed accomplice put to sleep.

To keep Frankie alive, she agreed to jump through all the legal hoops that come with owning a dangerous dog.

She put up better fencing. She bought a $50,000 insurance policy. She agreed to never let Frankie out without being muzzled and hooked to a leash.

Now she needs a miracle or Susan Sarandon to keep Frankie from doing the Kevorkian.

“I think it’s a lot like the human justice system,” Gibson adds. “There are people on death row who aren’t guilty. “You just don’t know which ones are which.”