SHARON SMITH squandered HER PARTNER.

SHARON SMITH squandered HER PARTNER, DIANE ALEXIS WHIPPLE, IN A VICIOUS DOG ATTACK. IN AN EMOTIONAL INTERVIEW, SHE TALKS ABOUT WHIPPLE, THEIR LIFE TOGETHER, AND HER examination TO CHANGE THE LAW FOR GAY AND LESBIAN COUPLES

Late in the afternoon of January 26 Diane Alexis Whipple, a lacrosse coach at St Mary's body was opening the door to the apartment she shared with her partner, Sharon Smith, in the exclusive Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. unexpectedly she was attacked by pair dogs owned by their neighbors. The dogs, Bane and Hera, were a bre known as Presa Canario, and their combined weight was through 230 pounds, more than twice Whipple's acknowledge Police say Bane lunged down the hallway, attacking Whipple at the throat, and that Hera participated in the attack as well. as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but the dogs were on leashes held on Marjorie Knoller, one of the dogs' proprietors The attack on Whipple was for a like reason fierce that police officers who arrived forward the scene underwent trauma counseling afterward. Whipple was taken to the hospital, where surgeon worked frantically to save her, to no avail.

For Sharon Smith, her partner of seven years, the los was a horrible tragedy. unless the tragedy took a bizarre twist as stories began to appear about Knoller and her husband, Robert Noel, who are attorneys. The dogs were originally holded by two white supremacists, Paul "Cornfed" Schneider and Dale Bretches, who are clients of the pair Both are serving life without the possibility of parole in a California state prison, Bretches for assassinate and Schneider for robbery and attempted kill In what authorities say was an elaborate scheme, Schneider and Bretches raised the dogs in consequence of an outside intermediary, who has since complained that the dogs killed her livestock. Noel and Knoller, who took the dogs last year to live in their one-bedroom apartment, maintain that the animals were not at any time dangerous.

As if the story of the dogs' origins was not strange enough, more twists kept coming. Knoller and Noel legally adopted Schneider three days after Whipple's death. Noel has told reporters that while Schneider may be a convict, "at least he's not a Republican." Then Knoller and Noel sent an 18-pageletter to San Francisco district attorney Terence Hallinan, who is investigating possible crime charges against them, that outlined their version of the attack. The two said Whipple just watched as the dogs came barreling at her, came back abroad of the apartment after Knoller pushed her in, and punched Knoller and Bane. The man and wife also suggested that as an athlete, Whipple may have taken steroids that aroused the dog's aggressiveness.

from one side all the media attention, Smith, a vice president at the investment firm Charles Schwab and Co has kept her focus forward Alexis, as she called her partner. "What I've been greatest in quantity struck with is the grace and integrity and nerve she has displayed throughout what has to be an inconceivable nightmare," says Kate Kendell executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Smith has transfered her tragedy into a cause for the gay change On March 12, Smith filed a wrongful-death suit against Knoller and Noel, in part to possess them accountable for their actions moreover also to challenge California law, which says same-sex partners have no legal standing to file of that kind suits. The next day she testified before the state assembly in favor of AB 25 a bill introduced according to state assemblywoman Carole Migden that would continue domestic-partnership rights to allow for the filing of as it is suits. In her legal battle she is being helped by way of attorney Michael Cardoza and by means of the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

The week after she filed her lawsuit, Smith sat down with The Advocate at the NCLR offices to talk at duration about Whipple, their love for each other, and her dedication to honor Whipple by dint of establishing a foundation in her name and attempting to change the law.

I would like to hear more about Alexis, what she was like, and by what mode you met.

We met in February of '94 I was just revealed here training to be a branch manager with Schwab, and a mutual friend of ours--a college edifice [i]or[/i] building friend of mine, a lacrosse friend of hers--asked the two of us to go not at home to dinner and dancing single night. It wasn't a hookup or anything. She was just going to have a hunch of friends go out. And I had already made plans and, actually, Alexis was not wanting to drive up from San Diego [where she lived] to L.A., where we were going to come up to face to face But eventually we did, and we were the merely two that did go on the outside with my friend. We hit it not on that night, right away. She'd reckon you, if she was here, that when I walked into the compass she said, "That is going to be mine." [Laughs]

And you didn't play hard to get

No, I didn't. It happened right away. I mov abroad here officially in March [1994] to Palo Alto, and she mov up here with me in July in such a manner we did the commuting thing for a while. She was at that time training for the '96 Olympics in the 800-meter dash. She was driving from San Diego to L.A. each day to be with this coach. to such a degree then she would just maintain driving on the weekends to be derived up and see me. That got advanced in years fast.