Haun Jury Recommends Life Term

Convinced that Diana Haun was a pawn in her lover’s murder scheme, a jury decided Monday to send the convicted killer to prison for the rest of her days and spare her execution for fatally stabbing her lover’s wife.

The seven-man, five-woman jury spent just three hours deliberating before sentencing Haun, a 36-year-old grocery clerk from Port Hueneme, to life in prison without parole.

Jurors said afterward that despite what prosecutors argued was a coldblooded and carefully plotted murder, they simply were not convinced that Haun was the type of criminal who should be punished by death.

“My feeling was that Diana Haun was not what I would consider the worst of the worst criminals,” said juror John Mostachetti, 43, a Santa Barbara city planner.

“For me personally, I have to ask myself what the death penalty would have accomplished,” he said. “And it certainly was not going to bring Sherri Dally back.”

Dally, a 35-year-old mother of two young boys, was kidnapped and killed on May 6, 1996. Her husband, Michael, faces trial next month for his alleged role in the crime, which prosecutors say was orchestrated by the two lovers to be rid of an inconvenient wife.

The sensational case drew so much publicity in Ventura County that jurors were bused in from neighboring Santa Barbara County for nearly three months to decide Haun’s case.

As the jury’s final verdict was read aloud Monday, Haun bit her lower lip and turned to her two public defenders in tears. Defense attorney Susan Olson held her client’s hand and cried, and her partner, Neil Quinn, tossed his head back in relief and smiled.

The sentence came almost a month to the day after the same jury found Haun guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping and conspiracy in Sherri Dally’s slaying. The jury also found true a special circumstance that Dally was killed for financial gain, propelling the case into a penalty phase.

During that proceeding, prosecutors argued that Haun was a “murderess of uncommon greed” who coldly calculated how, when and where to kill Sherri Dally before stabbing her to death and dumping her body in a steep ravine. Such a vicious crime, they argued, warrants capital punishment.

But defense attorneys pleaded for mercy, arguing that Haun was a vulnerable woman duped by a manipulative lover and should be sentenced only to life in prison. According to jurors, that argument was persuasive.

“What convinced me is what the defense attorney said: We reserve the death penalty for the worst of the worst,” said juror Jim Brock, 37, a systems analyst for the Santa Barbara municipal courts.

“This gal had no prior record,” he said. “Shocking as it was, this was out of love and I don’t think that is the worst of the worst.”

Haun’s prison sentence is expected to be imposed by Superior Court Judge Frederick Jones on Nov. 24--the same day that Michael Dally’s trial is set to begin.

After listening to testimony in Haun’s trial about how Michael Dally abused drugs, used prostitutes, manipulated women and called his wife a barn animal, several jurors said that they would convict him in a heartbeat.

“I’d hang Michael Dally in a minute,” said juror Bert Walker, 74. “He was just a terrible, terrible guy.”

Added juror Margot Collin: “He has been trying to get rid of his wife since 1989, and he talked to several girlfriends about his plan, and nobody bought it until Diana Haun came along.”

Bound by a gag order, prosecutors and defense attorneys declined to comment on the case, given Michael Dally’s pending trial.

But outside the courtroom, Sherri Dally’s 20-year-old niece, Hannah Murray, said she was satisfied with the sentence. Murray, who testified at both phases of the trial, said she had no strong feelings toward her aunt’s killer.

“I’m not going to hate her,” Murray said. “It takes too much energy to hate her. I’m going to invest it in my family.”

And with Haun’s trial over, Murray said the family is now turning its attention to Michael Dally’s trial.

“This was the easy one,” she said.

Sherri Dally disappeared from the parking lot of a Ventura Target store on the morning of May 6, 1996, after witnesses saw her handcuffed by a blond woman and placed into the back seat of a teal-colored car.

Dally’s skeletal remains were found 26 days later, strewn about the bottom of a steep ravine between Ventura and Ojai. She had been stabbed in the chest at least eight times, her face was crushed in three places, and a clear cut to the base of her skull indicated that Dally had also been beheaded.

Almost immediately after the homemaker was reported missing, Ventura police targeted Dally’s husband, Michael, and his mistress, Haun.

She was arrested Aug. 1 and indicted two weeks later by the Ventura County Grand Jury on charges of kidnapping and murder. The charges were later amended after the grand jury indicted Michael Dally in November.

The lovers-turned-co- defendants were scheduled to stand trial together, but in May of this year defense attorneys successfully won a bid to split the trial on the grounds that Haun and Dally would blame the other for the killing.

The judge decided that Haun would be tried first. During the six-week proceeding, which began in August, prosecutors told the jury that Haun was so driven by a desire to replace Sherri Dally that she carried out a calculated and coldblooded killing.

Michael Dally wanted to avoid a financially ruinous divorce and conspired with his lover to eliminate his inconvenient wife, they argued, telling the jury that it was Haun who prepared for and carried out the murder.

Evidence presented at trial showed Haun bought a short, blond wig two days before the killing and told a store clerk that she planned to play a “trick” on someone, the clerk testified.

The same day, Haun bought a tan pantsuit, a camping ax, trash bags and other items at K mart, according to bank records. She also rented a teal-colored Nissan Altima on May 5, court records show.

Authorities later recovered the car and found the back seat soaked with Sherri Dally’s blood, according to DNA test results. A criminalist testified that it appeared that someone had tried to clean the car and scrub away the blood.

Haun’s phone records showed that on the morning of the kidnapping, she made a series of calls to her lover and various businesses in the Ventura County area, including a Camarillo dry cleaner.

By the end of the trial, prosecutors called more than 100 witnesses to testify about the motives and planning behind the kidnap-slaying.

But defense attorneys argued that Haun had been duped into Michael Dally’s murder scheme.

Deputy Public Defender Neil Quinn admitted that his client bought certain items before the crime, but said she was only running errands for Michael Dally and was not aware of his sinister intentions.

He argued that Haun was too squeamish to carry out such a bloody crime and suggested that Michael Dally found a hit man through his ties to drug dealers to kill his wife.

Quinn also said that there was no direct evidence linking Haun to the killing--no fingerprints, hair fibers or witness identifying her as the kidnapper or killer.

But after 4 1/2 days of deliberations, the jury found Haun guilty of murder.

The jury’s verdicts sent the case into a penalty phase, which began Oct. 20 and lasted only two days.

During that proceeding, Sherri Dally’s mother and niece tearfully told the jury about the grief and suffering they have endured as a result of the brutal slaying.

Hannah Murray said Dally’s two boys, Devon, 9, and Max, 7, continue to struggle with the loss of their mother.

Haun’s relatives also testified during the penalty phase, telling the jury that she was an overweight and shy child who became obsessed in her relationship with Michael Dally.

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Correspondents Nick Green, Chris Chi, Richard Warchol and Scott Steepleton contributed to this story.

More Inside

* PUBLIC REACTION: Jurors explain their decision and citizens comment on punishment. B1

* DEAL MAKING: Haun’s sentence could be reduced in exchange for testimony against her lover. B1