Haun Acted Alone, Dally Defense Team Insists

Daughter of the devil. Incarnation of evil. A whacked-out witch on a reign of terror who makes Lizzie Borden look downright tame.

Those were the descriptions of convicted killer Diana Haun that were offered in court Friday as Michael Dally’s defense team continued trying to deflect the murder charges against him by blaming Haun for the 1996 slaying of his wife, Sherri.

Prosecutors contend the pair conspired to kill Sherri Dally.

But in his second day of closing arguments, attorney Robert Schwartz told the jury that his client should be acquitted because the evidence shows that Haun acted alone.

“This plan was designed, conceived and carried out by this psycho, crazed, whacked-out witch, Diana Haun,” Schwartz argued during a daylong summation.

He told jurors, who could begin deliberations as early as Monday, that prosecutors failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Michael Dally was involved in his wife’s slaying--or even knew about it.

He said it was Haun--a woman alternately described by opposing sides as an obsessive stalker and an obedient “puppy dog”--who decided to kidnap and stab her lover’s wife to keep him for herself.

“Puppy dog?” Schwartz questioned at one point during his closing argument.

“This is a puppy dog,” he said, pointing first to a poster-size photo of his own brown-eyed pooch, and then to a enlarged mug shot of his client’s bug-eyed mistress.

“This is Diana Haun,” he hollered. “Diana Haun is crazed, mean and the personification of evil. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the real Diana Haun.”

Dally, 37, is charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy. He also faces two special-circumstance allegations that make him eligible for the death penalty if convicted. The allegations are that the killing was committed for financial gain and occurred while the killer was lying in wait.

While the thrust of Schwartz’s summation focused on Haun, he also spent considerable time refuting arguments made by Deputy Dist. Atty. Lela Henke-Dobroth earlier this week. She will offer a rebuttal Monday.

Among the prosecution’s theories is that Sherri Dally was going to leave her husband, prompting Michael Dally to quickly craft a murder scheme with Haun to prevent a financially devastating divorce.

But Schwartz said evidence offered by friends and relatives of Sherri Dally proved just the opposite.

Several friends testified they urged Sherri Dally to leave her husband because of the cruel way he treated her. But they said she was unwilling to leave the marriage.

Confrontation Called Catalyst to Slaying

Schwartz suggested the real catalyst to the slaying was a confrontation between Haun and Sherri Dally days before the killing in which the 35-year-old day-care operator warned Haun, 36, to stay away from her husband.

According to a witness who talked to Sherri Dally about the argument, Haun told her: “I’m not only going to have your husband--I’m going to have your kids as well,” referring to the couple’s two young sons, Devon and Max.

The witness, family friend John Avila, testified Sherri Dally told him she had responded by saying, “Over my dead body.”

That remark set Haun in motion, Schwartz argued. He said his client was totally unaware of his lover’s plan.

During his summation, Schwartz went through a list of witnesses in the case, starting with Michael Dally’s ex-girlfriend, Sallie Lowe.

Lowe had a three-year affair with Dally starting in 1989. She testified that during their relationship, Dally spoke often about how he hated his wife and wanted someone to kill her. She specifically said Dally had told her he wanted Sherri Dally to be pushed off a cliff or stabbed repeatedly.

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Prosecutors have described Lowe’s testimony as critical in establishing Michael Dally’s alleged murderous intent years before Haun had entered the picture. They say it is not a mere coincidence that Sherri Dally was stabbed to death and rolled over the edge of a steep ravine, as Dally allegedly discussed with Lowe.

But Schwartz told jurors that Lowe’s testimony is unreliable. He called her a scorned ex-girlfriend who only came forward with the statements about stab wounds after the coroner had released Sherri Dally’s cause of death.

The lawyer also questioned the credibility of several prostitutes who testified during the trial, suggesting that one had cut a deal for reduced bail by saying she knew the defendant.

“It’s like drawing the get-out-of-jail-free card in Monopoly--’I know Michael Dally,’ ” he said.

According to testimony, Dally had paid for sex with prostitutes for years, including just before and after his wife’s disappearance. Several of the women also said they sold or bought drugs for Dally.

“So what?” Schwartz said in his summation, telling jurors that such evidence has nothing to do with the charges in the case.

At the same time, the defense tried to paint a softer picture of the defendant, whom Schwartz said has been portrayed by prosecutors as the “scum of earth” and “lower than a rat.”

Attempts at Repairing the Dally Marriage

Dally loved his wife and his family, Schwartz said. In fact, Dally moved out of an apartment he shared with Haun in October 1995--after they had lived together five months--because he wanted to go home, the lawyer said.

Just before the slaying, Sherri and Michael Dally were repairing their marriage and spending time together in ways they hadn’t for years, he said. Their new-found happiness, he suggested, made Haun seethe with jealously.

“On May 6, 1996, there was only one person who wanted Sherri Dally to die,” he said, “and it wasn’t Michael Dally.”

The defense team also addressed the two special-circumstance allegations--charges that, paired with a first-degree murder conviction, could send Dally to death row.

On Thursday, defense attorney James Farley talked about the allegation that Sherri Dally was killed while her attacker was lying in wait. He said the evidence is too thin to support such a finding because no one knows when or where Sherri Dally was actually killed.

Under the law, a slaying committed while lying in wait is likened to an ambush-style killing in which there is no interruption of the deadly attack.

In this case, Farley argued, it is impossible to know whether an interruption occurred. Sherri Dally was abducted at 9:30 a.m., handcuffed and put in the back seat of a car. About 12:15 p.m., Haun called a dry cleaner in Camarillo asking how to get a lot of blood out of the back seat of a car.

Jurors were told while it is logical to conclude that Haun beat, stabbed and possibly decapitated her lover’s wife during that 2 1/2-hour window, the lawyers said there is no way of knowing when the killing actually occurred.

As to the financial-gain allegation, Schwartz told jurors Friday there is no evidence that Michael Dally wanted to kill his wife to avoid a costly divorce or to cash out his wife’s $50,000 life insurance policy, as well as other assets, because he was hurting financially.

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To the contrary, Schwartz said, Dally had $9,600 in credit available on his Visa card. Two witnesses testified Dally had a clean credit record. And Schwartz said it was an insurance agent--not Dally--who suggested he take out the policy on his wife.

If Dally wanted money, Schwartz added, he could have divorced his wife and married Haun, who had an annuity worth nearly $1 million.

In the end, he said, Dally was not aware of Haun’s actions and could not believe her capable of such a heinous crime when confronted by police.

Schwartz told jurors that had his client really been involved in a murder, he would have tried to deflect attention by overacting the role of a grieving husband. But Dally didn’t.

“Wouldn’t you want to cover your rear end if you were guilty?” he said.

And the lawyer told jurors that an overall absence of evidence in the case mandates an acquittal.

“This turned out to be a three-haircut trial,” he said of the lengthy case, “without a whisker of evidence.”