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SAN FRANCISCO — At least one other person may have witnessed the fatal mauling of a college lacrosse coach, and the victim’s partner says it wasn’t the first attack. 

An elderly neighbor has come forward, saying she witnessed the fatal attack through a peep hole in her door, San Francisco Police Lt. Henry Hunter said Wednesday. 

The woman, who police have not identified, said she was too scared to go outside, but said the “dogs were banging against her door so hard she put the chain up,” because she was afraid they would break it down, Hunter said. 

Sharon Smith said her partner of seven years, Diane Whipple, a 33-year-old coach at St. Mary’s College, had been bitten once before by one of the mastiff-Canary Island dogs in their apartment foyer.  

Smith said the dog lunged for Whipple’s wrist last month and bit down on her sports watch, which prevented serious injury. 

“She was terrified of the dogs,” Smith said. 

Smith, a vice president at the Charles Schwab investment firm, has hired lawyer and former Alameda County prosecutor Michael Cardoza to monitor the district attorney’s investigation and to ensure the owners, Robert Noel and Marjorie Knoller, are prosecuted. No lawsuits have been filed. 

“I want to see the two of them locked up,” Smith said. “This isn’t a car accident, where it happens, and you grieve and then move on.” 

As Whipple was coming home to the couple’s sixth-floor apartment with groceries Jan. 26, Bane, a 120-pound dog, attacked Whipple, throwing her down on the floor and ripping at her throat with his teeth as Knoller tried to restrain him. Another dog, Hera, tugged at her clothes, police have said. Whipple died later that evening at the hospital. 

The canines involved in Whipple’s death are part of a fighting-dog ring in which dogs were bred for such jobs as protecting illicit drug labs.  

The ring was run by two white supremacist inmates at Pelican Bay State Prison, and in a bizarre twist, Noel and Knoller recently adopted one of the inmates, 38-year-old Paul John Schneider. 

District Attorney Terence Hallinan has said Noel and Knoller could face manslaughter charges in Whipple’s death. 

But Cardoza is hopeful prosecutors will go one step further. He says under a mischievous dog section in the law, second-degree murder charges can be filed. 

“Hopefully, they will bring charges,” he said. “And hopefully, they will be second-degree murder charges against these people.” 

He said he expects to file suit against the couple within the next few weeks. 

Calls to Noel and Knoller were not returned to The Associated Press on Wednesday. 

But Hunter said police have been gathering mixed information about the dogs. 

“We want to be fair. We’re not going out with any preconceived notions. We’re letting the chips fall where they may,” he said. “We have had people say the dogs were friendly and they petted them every day and other people who say, ’These dogs scared the heck out of me.”’ 

Smith said she’s never really met the neighbors who live down the call of their Pacific Heights apartment building, but that even she had a close encounter with one of the dogs last year when she reached down to pet the animal. 

“Robert screamed out ’No!’,” she recalled. “He told me the dog had been in a fight in the park and was spooked. It made me scared of the dogs.”