Haun Duped by Lover, Jurors Believe

After weeks of testimony and months of armchair speculation in one of the most closely watched trials in county history, it was all over in minutes.

The jury decided Monday that Diana Haun should spend the rest of her life in prison for kidnapping and murdering a Ventura homemaker.

But if Bert Walker had his way, Haun would be the ninth woman on death row in California.

Walker was the lone juror who believed Haun’s murder of Sherri Dally puts her on par with the Richard Ramirezes and Ted Bundys of the world.

“I think the gal deserved it,” Walker said, “but you can’t fight the whole group.”

The jury deliberated for half an hour, and then took an initial vote, panel members said.

Eight voted for a prison sentence. Three were undecided. And only one--74-year-old Walker--wanted Haun to be executed.

“Most of them knew she did it for financial gain but to a very, very small degree, and they didn’t think that was enough to give her the death penalty for,” Walker said. “I think that they thought [Haun] was such a nice woman, she couldn’t do a thing like that.”

Several members of the panel said they believed Haun was duped by Michael Dally into killing his wife so that he could avoid a costly divorce and marry Haun.

“I really did feel this was a crime of passion and she was under the domination and influence of Michael Dally,” said juror Margot Collin, a 56-year-old librarian. “And if she hadn’t met Michael Dally, she never would have considered anything like that. Love can make us do a lot of crazy things.”

Juror Jim Brock, 37, a computer systems analyst in the Santa Barbara Municipal Court, said he found Haun to be a needy but intelligent individual who lacked common sense. But to kill out of love, he said, doesn’t rank Haun among society’s worst killers.

“Is Charles Manson the worst of the worst? Is Jeffrey Dahmer? Where does Diana Haun lie in that spectrum? My heart goes out to [Sherri and Michael Dally’s two young boys], and I don’t want to negate the gravity of this case. It’s just that the death penalty would not bring Sherri Dally back.”

Still, jurors said they were convinced of her guilt enough to send her away to prison for life.

“She left a paper trail that couldn’t be stopped,” Walker said. “It was good circumstantial evidence. It was powerful circumstantial evidence.”

Said alternate juror Malcolm Robertson, 71: “She was not the brightest person in the world. She made so many foolish mistakes, buying things in her own name with credit cards.”

Members of Sherri Dally’s and Diana Haun’s families declined to talk about the verdict.

A gag order in the case remains in effect for attorneys, investigators, court employees and anyone else involved in the case against Michael Dally, who awaits trial on charges of conspiring with Haun to kidnap and murder his wife.

Haun’s public defenders, Neil Quinn and Susan Olson, were able to say only that they were pleased with the verdict for Haun.

“The judge doesn’t want to compromise these cases and we certainly don’t want to either,” Olson said of the gag order. “These are very serious cases with very serious consequences.”

At the Port Hueneme Vons supermarket on Channel Islands Boulevard where Haun worked as a deli clerk, employee Tami Perez criticized the verdict.

“Why keep someone in prison for life?” Perez said. “It’s a waste. If she killed someone, she should die.”

Like others who have followed the trial, Perez said she is looking ahead to Michael Dally’s trial, which is set to begin Nov. 24--the same day Haun will face a formal sentencing hearing.

As she watched a throng of media waiting for the jury to leave the courthouse, Trini Corona of Oxnard said Haun deserved to die for the killing.

“What [the jury] should have done is put her in the gas chamber,” Corona said. “She should have died. The other one [Sherri Dally] died, didn’t she? They didn’t give her a trial. They just killed her.”

Other trial watchers, however, were more satisfied with the verdict.

Frances Phillips of Ventura, who sat through about half of the trial, said she expected and supports the life prison sentence for Haun.

“I think it’s a very difficult thing to pronounce the death penalty on someone,” Phillips said. “I personally think it’s wrong for anyone to say ‘Killing is wrong, so we’re going to kill you.’ It makes no sense to me.”

Ruth Vomund of Ventura said she too is opposed to the death penalty. An eye for an eye, she said, never seems to even out the initial loss.

Still, she said, serving as a juror in the Haun case would have been a tough call.

“Knowing what [Haun] did, my gut reaction is she doesn’t deserve to live,” Vomund said. “Part of me says she deserves to die. Then the other side says, wait a minute.”

Times correspondents Nick Green and Scott Steepleton contributed to this report.

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