Dally Said He Saw Wife’s ‘Spirit,’ Relative Testifies

Five days after his wife disappeared, Michael Dally twice called his sister-in-law late at night and in a shaky voice described his wife’s “spirit” drifting through his Ventura home.

“He was shaken on the phone,” Patricia Dally testified Friday, glancing across the courtroom at her brother-in-law. “He said he saw her walking through the house, looking in on him and the boys.”

The two conversations stood in marked contrast to Michael Dally’s demeanor after his wife’s bludgeoned body turned up in a ravine a month later. At a memorial service, he shed no tears and showed no sorrow, the woman said of Dally, who is accused of killing his wife, Sherri.

But the twin phone calls were different.

“They were really weird,” she said. “He just sounded really odd.”

As she spoke, Dally stared at her. The 37-year-old supermarket manager sat with his hands in his lap, dressed in a dark gray suit and flanked by a team of lawyers and investigators.

He is charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy for allegedly planning Sherri’s murder with his longtime lover, Diana Haun. She was convicted of the same charges last fall and sentenced to life in prison.

Prosecutors say Dally hated his wife and wanted her dead. They claim he aimed to avoid a costly divorce and cash out her $50,000 life insurance policy.

Dally has denied any role in the slaying. His attorneys have suggested his girlfriend was a love-crazed “wacko” who acted alone.

Dally’s trial resumed Friday after a two-day break because of juror illness.

Prosecutors called a string of witnesses to testify about the events leading up to the kidnapping of Sherri Dally on May 6, 1996, and her subsequent murder.

Dally’s sister-in-law was a close friend of Sherri’s. On the witness stand, she said she was intimately aware of the problems in the marriage.

During a visit in late April 1996--one week before the murder--Patricia Dally told Sherri she ought to leave her husband and file for divorce. It wasn’t the first time she had suggested it.

“She was pretty edgy,” the sister-in-law testified. “She was frustrated with the home situation. She was trying to understand how things had gotten to the point they had in her marriage.”

Patricia Dally ran down the problems for the jury: Michael Dally’s drug use, his open affair with Haun and the callous way he treated his wife.

At one point during the visit, Michael Dally made a cruel joke about his wife’s loss of 50 pounds, Patricia Dally testified.

“Isn’t it great what a little stress will do?” he said, according to his sister-in-law.

Sherri Dally’s eyes filled with tears but she did not cry.

“The stress was not something she invited,” Dally testified.

On cross-examination, Patricia Dally acknowledged that she disapproved of Michael’s affair with Haun.

But Sherri was always hopeful the situation would improve, she said.

“Her last comment to me was she knew what she should do in her head, but she just couldn’t get it to her heart,” she said.

With family members looking on as she testified for the prosecution, Patricia Dally maintained her composure through much of her hourlong session.

But she nearly broke down when prosecutor Lela Henke-Dobroth posed questions about a silk body pillow that lay on Michael and Sherri’s bed.

The pillow was a gift from Haun. It was decorated with a silk-screen picture of her and drawings of wolves. And despite Sherri Dally’s desire to be rid of the “damn pillow,” her brother-in-law would not allow his wife to remove it, Patricia Dally said.

When questioned about the memorial service, Patricia Dally said Michael “didn’t seem to be showing any emotion.” She described him as “laughing and smiling” and said he “acted like the host of the party.”

But on cross-examination, Dally acknowledged that such behavior was not out of character for her brother-in-law. In fact the only time she saw a crack in his “bravado” was during the two late-night phone calls.

“I wondered if that was Michael Dally on the phone,” she said.

While defense attorney James M. Farley suggested that Dally’s demeanor on the phone may have been a more accurate reflection of how he felt about his loss, prosecutors took a different tack.

“Have you ever seen Michael Dally use drugs?” Henke-Dobroth asked the witness. Patricia Dally said she had.

The prosecutor asked a follow-up question: “Do you know whether Michael Dally was taking drugs that night?”

But Superior Court Judge Charles W. Campbell Jr. sustained a defense objection and the sister-in-law was not allowed to answer.

In other testimony Friday, an employee at an Oxnard wig shop testified that on May 4, 1996, Diana Haun bought a blond wig and paid for it with a personal check.

Sandra Acevedo told jurors she asked Haun why she needed a wig. Haun explained that she “was going to play a trick on somebody.”

A Kmart employee testified about items Haun bought on May 4, 1996, including a camping ax, trash bags and a beige pantsuit.

A Ventura police investigator told jurors some of those items were later found in Haun’s Port Hueneme home. Authorities believe she used them--and the blond wig--to carry out the murder plan.