Diane Whipple, an attractive college lacrosse coach, lived down the hall from a pair of eccentric married lawyers in San Francisco's trendy Pacific Heights neighborhood, but the neighbors had barely been acquainted.

Whipple

The 33-year-old blonde, however, had come to know the couple's dogs.

Bane and Hera, both Presa Canarios raised by the neighbors, Robert Noel and Marjorie Knoller, were fierce-looking pets. Diane Whipple's longtime partner, Sharon Smith, would later say one of them had even bit her girlfriend on the hand.

But when Whipple's path crossed Knoller's on January 26, 2001, it would prove deadly. Whipple was returning from grocery shopping just as Knoller, 46, was returning from the roof with Bane, who outweighed the 110-pound Whipple.

Knoller and Noel

Bane was the more powerful of the couple's two dogs and more difficult to control, so walking him was usually a task Knoller left to her husband, Robert Noel, 60. But on that day, Noel was out of town. Instead of walking Bane on the street, Knoller decided it would be easier for her to take Bane to the roof.

Upon their return, however, Bane charged down the hall at Whipple. According to Knoller's account, Bane began pulling at Whipple's clothes, but she didn't think he was being too aggressive at first. Knoller said she jumped in between her neighbor and the dog, but at some point, Knoller claims, Whipple struck her, causing the dog to react in Knoller's defense. The dog attacked Whipple's throat. Neighbors said they heard Whipple's cries.

Whipple's blood at the scene

While Whipple lay bleeding, Knoller said she got control of Bane and her other dog, Hera, who had come out of the couple's apartment, and forced both dogs inside. She walked back to Whipple's apartment and began to hunt for her keys.

"I noticed that I didn't have my keys. I was kind of jogging back out in the hall to see where my keys were located," Knoller told a grand jury.

By the time Knoller found her keys, police were already arriving on the scene in response to a neighbor's call to 911. Knoller herself never called for help.

Her bizarre reaction touched off a string of oddities displayed by the couple, who were indicted more than a month later

Police rope off the deadly scene

by a grand jury. Their findings even stunned prosecutors when the 19-member panel returned an indictment against murder for second-degree murder. Knoller and Noel were both also indicted on charges of involuntary manslaughter and raising vicious dogs.

What could have been deemed a tragic accident initially has evolved into a criminal case filled with more drama, twists and turns than a soap opera.

Next: Part II — More drama than a soap opera