Public Asked to Help in Case of Missing Wife

The Police Department and murder suspect Diana J. Haun’s public defender both publicly appealed Friday for help in solving the disappearance and presumed slaying of a Ventura mother of two.

“Because our access to the results of the official investigation has been denied, we have a limited ability to investigate,” Deputy Public Defender Neil Quinn said in a prepared statement. He asked that anyone with any information on the case call his office at 654-2837.

At the same time, the Ventura Police Department also made a public plea for information and released a photograph of the 1995 Nissan Altima rental car they believe Sherri Renee Dally was abducted in outside a Ventura strip mall.

“Anyone who might have seen the vehicle, either with Sherri Dally in it, or under any type of circumstances or location, [is] requested to call the Ventura Police Department,” Lt. Carl Handy said in his own prepared statement.

Police have drawn blood from Dally’s 8-year-old son hoping to see if it is a genetic match to blood found in the car, said Dally’s husband, Michael.

Handy said the car was rented at Oxnard Airport but declined to say who rented it. The Times incorrectly reported Friday that the car had been rented from an Enterprise Rent-a-Car dealership in Thousand Oaks.

Dally, 35, was last seen getting into a car in an East Main Street parking lot May 6. On May 18 police arrested Haun and implicated her in Dally’s presumed abduction and slaying. Neighbors and co-workers at an Oxnard grocery store say Haun and Michael Dally have been romantically linked.

Police served search warrants at both Haun’s Port Hueneme home and at Dally’s house last Saturday, court records show. But a judge ordered the warrants sealed and investigators would not disclose what they seized.

On Thursday, authorities said they did not have enough evidence to charge Haun and released her from jail, but they said she remains a suspect in the case.

“Because the authorities are denying Ms. Haun and our office access to the circumstances leading to her arrest, we have no basis upon which to judge whether her arrest was supported by probable cause or not,” Quinn said. “The fact that she was released supports our hope that the continuing investigation has disclosed facts which have caused the authorities to reevaluate their belief that she may be involved.”

Haun was not at home Friday and Quinn declined to discuss her whereabouts.