Sister Offers Haun Alibi for Time of Kidnapping

Establishing an alibi for her accused sister, Mary Oliver told a jury Monday that Diana Haun was sunbathing on a Ventura beach and bicycling in Camarillo on the day Sherri Dally was abducted from a Target parking lot.

Oliver testified that her younger sister told her that on May 6, 1996, she ate breakfast at a fast-food restaurant and then rode her bicycle to Ventura Harbor, where she lounged on the beach until nearly noon.

Haun later went on a bike ride in Camarillo, Oliver said, and was hurt when a truck bumped her rear wheel, knocking her into the dirt.

An Oxnard resident, Oliver said she pressed her sister on her whereabouts that day after Haun was arrested in connection with the disappearance of Sherri Dally.

“She was being accused of doing a murder,” Oliver explained. “We wanted to be sure we knew what she did that day.”

In addition to Oliver’s testimony Monday:

* Prosecutors began to present evidence about the discovery of Sherri Dally’s remains in the bottom of a steep canyon north of Ventura.

* They also called a detective to the witness stand who told the jury about a curious phone call he heard during a wiretap on the home phone of co-defendant Michael Dally.

“I have a small problem,” Dally is heard saying on tape to someone at his mortgage company. “You see, my wife has recently died.” The call was made about two weeks after Sherri Dally disappeared and four days before her body was found.

* Outside the jury’s presence Monday, prosecutors also urged that knives taken from Haun’s bedside table and two knife catalogs found in her home be shown to the jury. Judge Frederick A. Jones had previously ruled the items inadmissible.

But after defense attorneys questioned Haun’s mother, Kiku, about kitchen cutlery Aug. 11, prosecutors argued that testimony about the weapon-style knives found in Haun’s bedroom should be allowed.

* Jones also tentatively ruled Monday to allow Haun’s books on the subjects of witchcraft, spirituality and spell-casting to be shown to the jury.

*

Oliver took the witness stand Monday afternoon.

Her testimony places Haun miles away from the Target parking lot in Ventura where witnesses said they saw Sherri Dally at 9:30 a.m. get into the back seat of a blue-green car driven by a blond woman--a woman prosecutors allege was Haun wearing a wig and disguise.

But Oliver told jurors that her sister was not at Target that day.

During a phone conversation from jail, Oliver said her sister recounted every place she had been on May 6, 1996, beginning with the fast-food breakfast.

At 9 a.m., the hour in which Dally was abducted, Oliver said her sister was sunbathing on the beach.

At 11 a.m., the time prosecutors say the defendant was cleaning up the car after the stabbing of Sherri Dally, Oliver said Haun received a message on her pager from Michael Dally and called him from a pay phone at the beach.

Haun rode home around noon, Oliver said. She took a shower and spoke to Michael Dally again before leaving for a second bike ride to Camarillo, the sister said.

About 1:30 p.m., Oliver said her sister received a second pager message from Michael Dally and called him from a pay phone in Camarillo. They spoke for 30 minutes, she testified.

On her way back to Port Hueneme, Oliver said her sister had a bike accident on Los Posas Road. A pickup hit her back tire, tossing her off the bike and into a soft dirt area alongside the road, Oliver said.

The only injury Haun suffered was a cut to her face, Oliver testified. Her sister reported to work 15 minutes after her 3 p.m. start time, according to earlier testimony.

On direct examination, Oliver told prosecutor Lela Henke-Dobroth that she took notes of the conversation in a journal. Oliver said she never discussed with her sister the blue-green car that authorities say she rented a day before the kidnapping.

At one point, Henke-Dobroth questioned the sister about a cryptic phone message Haun left on Oliver’s answering machine not long after Dally’s disappearance.

“Hello? Mary?” the message began, according to a tape recording obtained during a police wiretap. “Remember what we talked about in the car? . . . Don’t tell Gilbert, especially, OK?”

Henke-Dobroth asked Oliver what specifically Haun did not want her sister to share with Gilbert Oliver, her husband of 15 years.

“I don’t remember,” Mary Oliver said, explaining that the sisters had a general conversation about not discussing the case with other people.

“Mr. Quinn told Diana not to discuss the case with anybody,” Oliver said of her sister’s public defender, Neil Quinn. “And we’d been discussing it.”

On cross-examination, which began late Monday afternoon and is scheduled to continue this morning, Oliver said she did not approve of her sister’s relationship with Michael Dally, the married father of two.

*

She told the jury that Haun was in love with Dally and wanted to marry him. But, she said, her sister was not in a hurry to advance the relationship to that point.

“She didn’t have a problem waiting,” Oliver said, explaining that the couple had discussed holding off on marriage until Dally’s two children were older and could decide which parent they wanted to live with.

In other testimony Monday, Dr. Michael Bowers, a dentist and forensic odontologist, told the jury he identified skeletal remains discovered in a steep ravine off Canada Larga Road as being Sherri Dally’s.

Bowers explained that he matched Dally’s dental records with teeth and other remains found scattered at the bottom of a brush-covered slope.

Michael McKendry, an investigator for the district attorney’s office, testified about his participation in two searches of Haun’s home in which he found waterproof matches and Super Glue on a bookshelf in the defendant’s bedroom--items that, along with a camping ax and a tan pantsuit, police say were purchased by Haun from a K mart store before Dally’s disappearance.

*

Authorities allege Haun conspired with her lover, Michael Dally, to kill Sherri Dally and used those items during the commission of the crime. Haun and Michael Dally both face murder and kidnapping charges, plus allegations that the slaying of Sherri Dally was committed for financial gain and was accomplished while they were lying in wait.

If convicted, the pair--who will undergo separate trials--could face the death penalty.