Slaying Victim Remembered as Warm, Loving

Sherri Dally’s savage and lonely death cast a pall over her memorial service Saturday, despite the scores of people who packed a Ventura chapel to remember her as warm and loving in life.

More than 150 friends and relatives gathered at the Ivy Lawn Memorial Park chapel to grieve for the 35-year-old Ventura mother, housewife and day-care center owner found beaten and stabbed in a ditch north of the city June 3, one month after her abduction from a Target store parking lot.

“Sherri can rest now,” said John Avila, a childhood friend of both Sherri and her husband Michael. “She can rest assured, knowing that justice will be served.”

Police have so far filed no charges in the case. They arrested, and then released without charging, Diana Haun of Port Hueneme in connection with Dally’s alleged kidnapping and subsequent death. Friends say Haun had an affair with Sherri Dally’s husband, who filed for legal separation a week after his wife’s disappearance. Michael Dally withdrew the petition after his wife’s body was found.

Dressed in a gray sports jacket with dark pants, a gray shirt and dark gray tie, Michael Dally, 36, sat in the chapel’s front pew facing a large, black-framed photograph of his wife. Dally smiled and appeared relaxed as he greeted family members at the chapel before the service, accompanied by his two sons, Devon, 8, and Max, 6, who wore matching short-sleeve print shirts.

Unlike his wife’s immediate family, Dally did not speak during the memorial service. Seated on the other side of the aisle, Sherri Dally’s mother, father, brother and other family members were plainly emotional and broke into tears as they spoke of her during the service.

Dally rose to accompany his wife’s mother, Karlyne, and her brother, Scott, to place an urn containing the slain woman’s ashes and other mementos on a chapel shelf. At that moment, Sherri Dally’s father, Ken Guess, ventured across the aisle to hug members of his son-in-law’s family.

After the hourlong service, the family acknowledged mourners as they left the chapel. Dally left through a side door without joining the family or speaking to reporters.

Sherri Dally’s mother and father thanked police and those who searched for their daughter’s body for both their help and condolences.

“Sherri was a beautiful, sweet daughter. I’ll miss her more than words can say,” Ken Guess said. “My house looks like a floral arrangement and that’s comforting to know.”

One of the primary organizers of the search for Sherri Dally was Avila, who said he was fired Friday as head of security at the Target store where the woman disappeared. Management called his role in helping organize search efforts “detrimental behavior,” Avila said. He said he will retain a lawyer and study his options. Target officials could not be reached for comment.

During the memorial service, officiating Presbyterian minister Dan Stevens referred to the “dark cloud” hanging over everyone present. He urged mourners to allow memories of Sherri Dally to provide needed light.

“We are gathered here today to be reminded that the shortest way to the sunrise is not chasing the sunset,” he said. “But the shortest way to the sunrise is to walk through the darkness. . . . And we gather as well in memory of Sherri whose life was a gift and whose death is tragic and a great loss. Sherri was a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a granddaughter and an aunt. We gather to grieve, and grief is very important.”

Many in the crowd wept as they listened to the words of “One Sweet Day,” the recent hit by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men and one of Sherri Dally’s favorite songs: “I know you’re shining down on me from heaven like so many friends we’ve lost along the way.”

Said Scott Guess: “I was only 14 months old when my sister was born and I’ve never known life without her. Now I do.”