Defense Attorneys Deny That Dally Confessed to Murdering His Wife

Contradicting published reports, attorneys for murder suspect Diana Haun said Thursday that her co-defendant, Michael Dally, never confessed to killing his wife.

Rather, the acquaintance cited in a recent newspaper article as the person to whom Dally allegedly confessed was intoxicated and made several untrue or misleading statements during a phone call to a crisis counselor, attorneys said.

“The defense is confident that at the time of trial it will be clearly shown that Mike Dally confessed neither to his own or Diana Haun’s involvement in the death of his wife, as suggested in recent news articles,” Deputy Public Defender Neil B. Quinn said in a prepared statement.

The one-page news release is the first public statement defense attorneys have made about the allegation because they were previously prohibited from commenting by a gag order.

That order was modified Wednesday by Superior Court Judge Frederick A. Jones after defense attorneys protested about being unable to respond to such reports.

“This is how jurors get tainted unconsciously,” Quinn said Thursday. “It is exactly this kind of stuff that can fester in people’s subconscious.”

Defense attorneys were blindsided two weeks ago by an article in which hotline counselor Claire Connelly said a distraught Ventura woman called and said that a close friend had admitted to killing his wife. Connelly concluded that the woman was referring to Michael Dally.

According to Connelly, the Ventura woman called at 2 a.m. on July 19, grieving for her dead son and angry that a friend had burdened her by confessing to participating in his wife’s killing.

The Ventura woman, later interviewed by The Times, denied that Dally implicated himself in his wife’s death. She said she told that to the Ventura County Grand Jury when she testified last month.

She told investigators on two occasions after the late-night phone call that Dally never made any type of admission, Quinn said in his written statement.

Quinn also said the Ventura woman was intoxicated during the telephone call and that she had told police five days after Sherri Dally was reported missing that she had a “vision” of her alive.

Connelly, who now lives in Connecticut, said she was flown back to Ventura County by the district attorney’s office to place a follow-up call to the woman. During a taped conversation, she talked to the woman about a slaying victim found off Canada Larga Road in Ventura. That is the area where Sherri Dally’s body was found.

When Connelly asked if that victim was the one her friend confessed to killing, she said the Ventura woman answered: “Yes.”

But Quinn’s statement said that the counselor’s recounting of what the Ventura woman said in the recorded phone call is inconsistent with what is actually on the tape.

Dally, 36, and Haun, 35, pleaded not guilty this week to the kidnap-murder of Sherri Dally, who was abducted May 6 and stabbed and beaten to death. A search party found her skeletal remains in a narrow ravine June 1.

Dally and Haun, who have been having an affair for the past two years, are charged with murder, kidnapping and related charges and allegations.

Two special circumstances make the pair eligible for the death penalty if convicted, although prosecutors have not decided whether to request it.

Dally and Haun have been given separate trial dates for early next year, but prosecutors are seeking to try them together.