Memorial for Woman Killed in Dog Attack

S A N   F R A N C I S C O, Feb. 1, 2001 -- A memorial service will be held tonight for a woman mauled to death by a 120-pound dog that authorities say was part of a white supremacist gang's plan to breed vicious beasts to be sold as drug lab watchdogs, and the woman who raised the animal says she warned the new owners that he was dangerous.

Diane Whipple, 33, the coach of the St. Mary's College women's lacrosse team, was attacked last week as she came home from shopping, her arms full of groceries, by a dog named Bane that was bigger than she was.

Bane's owner said every time she managed to pull him off his victim and Whipple tried to get to her door, the dog again broke free and went for the woman's throat.

The dog has been killed, and another dog, 113-pound Hera, that is owned by the same couple and may have joined in the attack is being held by animal control officials while its fate is decided.

But the case does not end there.

According to District Attorney Terrence Hallinan, the owners — both of whom are lawyers — could face serious charges in the attack, because the woman who raised the dogs said she warned the attorneys the dogs were vicious. He said the case could be considered a homicide before the investigation is concluded.

"The lawyers were told that I felt they should have been put down before they left my property, because they showed aggression just through the fence," Janet Coumbs told ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. She said was persuaded to raise the dogs by two prison inmates she met after a friend suggested that she visit people in jails to offer them comfort.

Trouble From the Start

The lawyers — Robert Noel, 59, and his wife Marjorie Knoller, 45 — had represented the two inmates, both of whom are members of the Aryan Brotherhood white supremacist group. The two convicts wanted to breed the powerful dogs, called Canarios, for use in dog fights and to be sold as guard dogs to methamphetamine labs, and planned to run the operation from prison, officials said.

Noel and Knoller recently adopted one of the convicts involved in the case, Paul "Cornfed" Schneider, 38.

Coumbs said she was alerted right away that the dogs might be a problem. When she went to pick the puppies up at the airport after she agreed to take them, a worker warned her.

"The guy at the airport told me, he goes, 'Lady, you got Cujo in a cage there,'" she said.

She finally gave up on the dogs when they started killing her chickens and sheep, and Noel and Knoller took them. Coumbs said she made it clear to the two that the dogs were dangerous.

Noel sent an 18-page letter to Hallinan on Wednesday in which he said Whipple wouldn't have been attacked if she had stayed in her apartment when she saw that Knoller and the dogs were in the hall outside her door, according to The Associated Press.

Could Attack Have Been Avoided?

In the letter, Noel gave a detailed account of his wife's version of the fatal attack. He said Whipple just stared at the dog and the woman instead of going into her apartment, even though her door was open and she could see her neighbor was fighting to restrain Bane, who was leashed.

When the dog lunged, Knoller prevented him from reaching the woman by jumping on her herself, pushing them both into Whipple's apartment, the letter said, but when she then tried to pulled the dog out of the apartment, Whipple started to crawl into the hallway.

Knoller managed to keep herself between the dog and the lacrosse coach until Whipple hit her in the face, and then Bane lunged for her throat and killed her, the letter quoted by the AP said.

Noel said the dog could have been set off by phermone-based cosmetics or perhaps by steriods that Whipple was using, and charged that police and paramedics did not respond fast enough.

"During the next 5 to 7 minutes no one from the P.D. or fire department worked on Ms. Whipple, they simply let her lie where she was," Noel wrote.

He also accused the district attorney's office of treating him and his wife unfairly.