Officials Reconstruct Scene of Abduction

A team of Ventura police investigators joined prosecutors from the Ventura County district attorney’s office early Monday to reconstruct the scene of murder victim Sherri Dally’s abduction.

Police took the Dally family van into custody earlier as part of the ongoing investigation into the 35-year-old Ventura mother’s May 6 disappearance.

Lt. Carl Handy said Monday that police returned the van to the Target store on East Main Street in Ventura and placed a blue-green car behind it--recreating the scene described by eyewitnesses who saw Dally step into the other car.

“We used the van as a prop basically, so we could take some pictures,” Handy said. “It’s one of those normal things you do on a homicide investigation.”

Investigators would comment no further on the case.

A volunteer search team found Dally’s badly decomposed body in a ditch north of Ventura on June 3, nearly one month after she was last seen getting into a car in the department store parking lot.

Dally, who is survived by her husband and two young sons, was badly beaten and stabbed, according to the county medical examiner’s office.

Even before the body was discovered, police arrested Diana J. Haun, a friend of Dally’s widower, Michael Dally, on suspicion of murder and kidnapping. But no charges have been filed in the case.

Haun was released from custody but remains a top suspect, police said.

Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury attended Monday morning’s reconstruction, but neither he nor his office would comment on when an arrest may be forthcoming in the case.