СRIME

Hounded by A Dog Attack.

The owners of a killer canine may face charges.

BY KAREN BRESLAU.

IT WAS HARDLY YOUR TYPICAL ATTORney - client relationship. Nearly every clay San Francisco lawyers Robert Noel and Marjorie Knoller wrote doting letters to inmates Paul Schneider and Dale Bretches about the two dogs diey were caring for on their behalf—the grilled-chicken sandwiches the pair gobbled as treats, where they went for walks, how many people stopped to tickle the rare Presa Canario mastiffs behind the ears. They also sent hundreds of snapshots of "die kids": Hera, the 110-pound female, lolling on die beach under die Golden Gate Bridge, and Bane, die 125-pound male, frolicking in a park. "We really bonded over diese dogs," says Knoller. "We became a family." Knoller, 45, and Noel, 59, even adopted Schneider, 38, who is serving a Unbowed: Noeldigsin life sentence for armed robbery and attempted murder, so they could help him, they say, get better medical care in prison.

The four-parent, two-dog "family" has horrified this famously tolerant city ever since Bane mauled neighbor Diane Whipple to death in the hallway of their apartment building, as she came home with an armload of groceries. Bane was destroyed immediately after the Jan. 26 attack. Late last week a San Francisco court ordered dial Hera could be used for evidence before being euphonized. This week authorities plan to charge the lawyer couple with involuntary manslaughter in Whipple's death. "This was more than a terrible accident," says Assistant District Attorney James Hammer. "The evidence will show-Diane Whipple did not have to die." At issue is whether Noel and Knoller were criminally negligent because they knew how vicious the dogs could be. The couple claim they were "trustees" for the inmate-owners and not legally liable for the dogs' actions. Prosecutors have yet to explain why their prison-cell search warrant listed any photos or correspondence "depicting sexual acts with dogs." Schneider told two newspapers that he kept nude photos of Knoller, his adoptive mother, in his cell. Noel and Knoller denied reports of bestiality as "ludicrous,"

The lawyers have enraged dog-loving San Franciscans—not to mention Whipple's family—with their suggestions that Whipple, a star athlete and popular college coach, may have in some way contributed to the fatal attack. Initially they blamed her "pheromones." Last week Noel told NEWSWEEK that Whip-pie "may have been having her period," perhaps provoking Bane's aggression.

Noel calls Whipple's death "a terrible tragedy." "I'm sorry for that," he says, his eyes filling with tears, "but I'm not going to change the facts to make them feel better." Whipple's domestic partner, Sharon Smith, is planning a civil suit for wrongful death against Knoller and Noel. But the legal system is unlikely to provide closure in a case that has left a young woman dead and posed troubling questions about this "family" that may never be answered in a courtroom.

With AMANDA BERNARD in San Francisco