‘I Love My Wife Very Deeply,’ Dally Says

In a last-ditch move to save his own life, convicted killer Michael Dally took the witness stand Monday at the penalty phase of his trial--wiping tears from his eyes and denying any involvement in the 1996 slaying of his wife, Sherri.

“I had nothing to do with the kidnapping, the murder,” Dally said somberly, staring straight at the jury charged with deciding his punishment. “I happen to love my wife very deeply.”

The dramatic decision to testify opened the 37-year-old defendant up to fierce questioning by the prosecution, which appeared to be only warming up Monday afternoon with an aggressive cross-examination set to continue today.

For nearly four hours, Deputy Dist. Atty. Lela Henke-Dobroth challenged Dally with a series of sharp questions suggesting he is liar who hated his wife and wanted her dead.

Henke-Dobroth specifically focused on Dally’s adulterous relationship with co-conspirator Diana Haun, who was found guilty six months ago of fatally stabbing Sherri Dally and dumping her body in a ravine north of the city. She was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

“What were you thinking about, Mr. Dally, when you were having sex with Diana Haun less than 24 hours after she killed your wife?” Henke-Dobroth asked.

“I don’t know,” Dally replied. “I was in love with two women at the same time. I didn’t think one would hurt the other.”

As the afternoon wore on, Dally began to contradict himself and refused to directly answer the prosecutor’s questions. At one point, he denied writing a letter to Haun while they were both in jail, then later admitted he had.

“Why did you deny writing this letter?” Henke-Dobroth asked, referring to a handwritten document previously admitted into evidence.

“Because I didn’t remember writing it,” the defendant responded.

Dally also denied calling his wife obscene names, denied having sex with prostitutes while she was alive, denied telling a former girlfriend he wanted Sherri killed, and denied telling Haun that he was willing to have his vasectomy reversed to father her children--all of which was testified to by witnesses during his seven-week trial.

But the defendant did acknowledge giving his ex-lover a knife before his wife was stabbed to death--an admission that allowed prosecutors to admit into evidence two weapons previously ruled inadmissible.

“I despise Diana Haun now that I know she murdered my wife,” Dally said. “Nobody could ever take Sherri’s place.”

Claims He Was Worried for Wife

Henke-Dobroth took issue with the defendant’s sincerity, however, noting that he never shed a tear during his wife’s memorial service but cried on the witness stand Monday while recalling his love for her.

“Isn’t it true, Mr. Dally, that the only reason there are tears in your eyes is because your life is at stake?” Henke-Dobroth asked.

“No,” Dally shot back. “I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m only here to tell the truth.”

When asked by his own lawyer about the events of May 6, 1996--the day he reported Sherri missing--Dally told the jury that initially he was “very upset and very worried” when his wife didn’t come home.

He assumed that her van had broken down, he said. He told the jury that he called hospitals and the police looking for her. “What else was I supposed was to do?” he asked, wiping away tears.

Anticipating a question from the prosecution, defense attorney James M. Farley asked Dally why he continued to have sexual relations with other women though he claimed to love his wife.

“I made mistakes,” he repeated. “But I loved my wife. I loved her deeply.”

“Are you sorry for those mistakes?” Farley asked.

“More sorry than you will ever know,” Dally said.

Emotional Testimony From Family, Friends

Dally’s statements--delivered in a smooth, cool tone even under harsh questioning--brought a spectacular conclusion to a murder case of unprecedented publicity in Ventura County.

The former grocery store worker was found guilty April 6 of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy for planning his wife’s murder with Haun. He was also convicted of special circumstances that allow the jury to consider the death penalty as punishment in the case.

The penalty phase of his trial began Monday with gut-wrenching testimony from friends and family of Sherri Dally.

One by one, her parents, brother and closest friends tearfully described the heartache they have suffered as a result of her murder--a crime made all the more painful because it was planned by the husband who claimed to love her.

“I walked her down the aisle,” Sherri’s father, Ken Guess, told the jury. “I gave her to someone who said he was going to love and cherish her. I regret that, because he didn’t.”

Sherri’s two closest friends, Debbie English and Kristin Best, told the jury the 35-year-old day-care provider was a unique woman and a superb mother who would have done anything for her family or friends.

Scott Guess, the victim’s older brother, recalled the good times, as well as the anguish his family has suffered over the past two years trying to cope with her murder.

And Sherri’s parents, Ken and Karlyne Guess, testified about the pain of losing their only daughter.

“I think of her daily,” Ken Guess said. “My sweetheart is gone forever.”

They Hoped for Word on Mother’s Day

Sherri was reported missing on May 6, 1996. At the time, Guess said, he hoped “she had come to her senses” and left Michael Dally.

He hoped that she was staying at a woman’s shelter. And he hoped that she would call and tell her parents, who live in Santa Maria, that she was safe. But the phone calls never came.

When Mother’s Day passed and Sherri didn’t send a card or call, Ken Guess said he knew his daughter was gone. Sherri always called on Mother’s Day, he said.

A few weeks later, a search party located her skeletal remains scattered in a steep gully, ravaged by animals. She had been beaten and stabbed to death, and possibly beheaded.

“I was just devastated,” the father said.

Unlike his wife, Ken Guess did not testify at Haun’s trial or during the guilt phase of his son-in-law’s trial. In fact, Monday was only the second time he set foot in the courtroom.

“Nobody won here,” he told the jury at one point. “Nothing good is going to come for the Dally family or our family.”

Karlyne Guess was the final prosecution witness to testify during the penalty trial, which was expected to last only half a day before the defense suddenly announced it planned to put the defendant on the stand.

“She was everything to me,” Karlyne Guess said of her daughter.

The mother identified a series of photographs for the jury, including a portrait of Sherri and Michael Dally taken at the high school prom, before they married.

When asked to identify her daughter’s wedding picture, Karlyne Guess broke into tears.

Later, Guess narrated a 10-minute videotape compiled from snippets of home movies taken at various times during Sherri’s adult life.

The jury leaned forward to watch Sherri--until Monday a voiceless victim to them--coo and cuddle her infant son and laugh as she ran around her parent’s house during a squirt-gun fight with her father.

‘My Boys Are a Part of Me’

At one poignant moment during her testimony Monday, Karlyne Guess recalled watching television after Sherri was reported missing and seeing her then 6-year-old grandson, Max, on the news handing out fliers to shoppers at the Ventura Target store where Sherri had last been seen.

The boy and his brother, Devon, were with their father and his mistress, Haun. And at one point, Guess said, her youngest grandson turned to a stranger and said, “Can you help find my mommy?”

“That hurt me to the core,” Karlyne Guess told the jury. “I don’t know how he could do that to those boys. He doesn’t love those boys. They’re just trophies to him.”

It was a comment seized upon by Dally later when he took the stand.

Defense attorney James M. Farley asked the defendant on direct examination if he loved his children, now ages 10 and 8.

“More than anything on God’s earth,” Dally responded. “My boys are a part of me. They are part of my family, they are part of the Guess family. They are not trophies.”

Boys Said to Miss Both Parents

Dally was the third and final witness called by the defense Monday.

Counselor John Goulet told jurors about more than 80 therapy sessions he has had with Devon and Max since July 1996, a month after their mother’s body was found.

Goulet said the children miss their mother and their father, who has been jailed since November 1996. He said the boys were angered and upset when their father was convicted of murder this month, yet hopeful that they would be able to continue a relationship with him in prison.

The defendant’s father, Larry Dally, also testified briefly about the impact that Michael Dally’s conviction has had on his grandsons, who live with him and his wife, Yaeko, in Ventura.

“They were sad,” the grandfather said. “They don’t believe their dad would do that and I don’t either. . . . They often ask, ‘Do you think Dad is going to come home?’ ”

But the bulk of Monday’s testimony came from the man facing a possible death sentence for the kidnap-murder of Sherri Dally--a man portrayed during his trial as a drug-using, dead-end grocery clerk who preyed on weak women and ultimately convinced one of his conquests, Haun, to kill his wife.

Dally walked to the witness stand at about 11:30 a.m., his hands folded behind his back. As he took a seat, Dally removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes and turned to face the jury.

Keeping His Feelings In

After professing his innocence, Dally acknowledged to the jury that he had made mistakes in his life. But he denied showing no concern after his wife’s disappearance, explaining that he was taught to hold his head high and not express emotion.

“I keep my love inside of me, I keep my hurt inside of me because it’s no one’s business,” he said. “I didn’t want sympathy. I didn’t want anything from anybody.”

* RISKY BUSINESS

Legal experts view the decision to put Michael Dally on the stand as a risky move. B1