Searchers Find Remains of Woman

Volunteers searching for the body of a missing Ventura woman presumed dead found the remains Saturday of an adult female skeleton off Canada Larga Road, just north of the Ventura city limits, police said.

Ventura Police Lt. Steve Bowman said the remains, which were found near the roadway about 5 p.m. by a search party of friends and relatives, have not yet been identified. But they may be the remains of the missing woman, he said.

Investigators will scour the site for further evidence today.

Sherri Dally, 35, was last seen getting into a blue-green Nissan Altima in an East Main Street parking lot. Witnesses reported seeing. Dally and a short, blond-haired woman leaving in the blue-green car at the time of Dally’s disappearance May 6.

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

Two weeks after Dally’s disappearance, police arrested Diana J. Haun, 35, of Port Hueneme, on suspicion of Dally’s kidnapping and homicide.

But authorities released Haun from jail on May 23, saying they did not have enough evidence to charge her. They did say, however, that she remained a suspect in the case. Neighbors and co-workers at an Oxnard grocery store have said Haun and the missing woman’s husband, Michael Dally, were romantically linked. For a time, Dally and Haun worked together in the same Vons supermarket on Rose Avenue in Oxnard. At the time of her disappearance, Dally was running a day-care center out of her home.

Frustrated that efforts by police to find Dally had turned up nothing in the first weeks after her disappearance, friends and family of the missing woman have been scouring the countryside for her body.

Before searching, they consulted a psychic who told them that the body would be found near water-but not near the ocean.

Michael Dally was unavailable for comment Saturday. One week after his wife’s disappearance, Dally filed for a legal separation, claiming irreconcilable differences and seeking custody of their two sons, Devon, 8, and Max, 6. He said he took the unusual move to protect his children.

Sherri Dally’s parents have offered a $4,000 reward to anyone with information leading to an arrest or information on their daughter’s whereabouts.