Jurors, Judge to Tour Locations Linked to Haun Murder Trial

To better acquaint them with key scenes in the case, jurors in the Diana Haun murder trial will board a big bus today along with the judge and attorneys to visit 14 locations linked to the kidnap-slaying of Ventura homemaker Sherri Dally.

For the past four weeks, the 12 jurors and six alternates have listened to testimony about the alleged conspiracy behind Dally’s killing, her abduction last year and the steps prosecutors say her killers took to cover up the crime.

The field trip--technically called a jury view--is intended to familiarize jurors with the various locations involved in the case.

First, they will see the Channel Drive home where Dally lived with her two young boys and her husband, Michael, who is also charged with murder and conspiracy in his wife’s killing.

They will drive by the school were Sherri Dally dropped off her children on the morning of May 6, 1996, before going shopping at the Target store on East Main Street in Ventura.

There, the jurors are expected to spend time in the parking lot where witnesses said they saw Dally allow herself to be handcuffed before stepping into the back seat of a blue-green Nissan sedan driven by a blond woman.

Target was the last place that Dally was seen alive. Her skeletal remains were discovered 26 days later in a steep gully off Canada Larga Road.

The remote canyon location will also be a stop on the jury’s tour, which is expected to last more than five hours and span at least three Ventura County cities.

They will visit a Ventura beach where Haun said she was sunbathing while Dally was being kidnapped. However, prosecutors say Haun went to the beach after kidnapping and killing Dally to dispose of incriminating items in a public trash dumpster.

The jury will be bused past a Camarillo dry cleaner shop where an unidentified woman called on the morning of May 6, 1996, asking how to get large amounts of blood out of the back seat of a car.

A Camarillo hardware store, where Haun wrote a personal check for $12 worth of cleaning products that morning, will also be seen by the jury.

They will drive by the Oxnard Vons store where Haun and Michael Dally met, worked and began an adulterous relationship.

And the jury will see the Port Hueneme home where Haun lived prior to her arrest on Aug. 1, 1996. The 36-year-old defendant will come along for the jury view, although she will travel in a separate van with Ventura County sheriff’s deputies.

Security for the jury tour will be handled by a contingent of deputies, Ventura police and officials with the district attorney’s office, Judge Frederick A. Jones said Thursday.

No roads will be closed during the tour, although the Target store on East Main Street will be closed briefly while the jurors visit, Sheriff’s Capt. Bruce Hansen said. No traffic problems are anticipated, he said.

“I can’t say how many people we’ll have out there or the details of what we’ll be doing,” he said. “But it is enough to say that we will have what is necessary.”