Murder Was Birthday Present, Court Told

Skilled in witchcraft and black magic, Diana Haun viciously murdered Sherri Dally as a human sacrifice to mark her lover’s birthday, prosecutors argued as the most notorious murder trial in recent Ventura County history began Monday.

In his opening statement, Ventura County Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Frawley portrayed Haun as a deceptive woman who wanted an inconvenient wife out of the way.

But defense attorney Neil Quinn urged jurors to view his client not as a murderer, but as a guileless woman blinded by love who became an unwitting pawn in Michael Dally’s murder scheme.

“There was planning to kill, but it was not by Diana Haun,” Quinn said in his opening statement. “There was murder, it is true, but not by Diana Haun.”

The trial got underway quickly Monday before a packed and captivated courtroom with the chilling testimony of a key prosecution--and as it turned out, defense--witness who told the jury that Michael Dally talked openly about wanting to kill his wife.

Sallie Lowe had a three-year affair with the 37-year-old supermarket manager between 1989 and 1992. She described Dally as a drug user and occasional pimp who felt trapped in his marriage to Sherri Dally.

“He just wanted her to disappear and be gone,” Lowe testified. “He said, ‘If you could never find the body, somebody could never be charged with murder.’ ”

Dally and Haun are both facing murder, kidnapping and conspiracy charges in connection with the May 1996 slaying of Sherri Dally. They are being tried separately and could face the death penalty if convicted.

Frawley told the jury that Haun and Dally killed the 35-year-old homemaker to avoid a costly divorce, and to cash out Sherri’s $50,000 life insurance policy and a retirement account.

But that was not the only motive in the killing, he said.

“What the evidence will show is that Diana Haun wanted to take Sherri Dally’s place,” Frawley said.

The prosecutor told jurors that Haun purchased a disguise--blond wig, tan pantsuit, handcuffs and security badge--as well as a camping ax, a towel and garbage bags to use during and after the slaying.

Frawley said that on the morning of May 6, 1996, Haun waited in a rental car for Sherri Dally to finish shopping at a Target store.

Haun posed as a security guard, persuading Dally to be handcuffed before stepping inside the car, Frawley said. At some point, Haun fatally stabbed Dally in the face, chest and neck, he said.

Haun then dumped Dally’s beaten and slashed body in a steep ravine north of Ventura.

In addition to the string of circumstantial evidence, Frawley told jurors that they will learn intimate details about the love affair of Haun and Michael Dally, and the emotional trauma that it caused Sherri Dally.

The sinister portrait of Haun painted by Frawley during his hourlong opening statement was contradicted by Quinn, a deputy public defender. Speaking in a soft voice, Quinn told the jury that his client was not capable of committing a murder.

He described her as a vegetarian who could not harm another person, and suggested that she was manipulated and drawn unknowingly into a murder scheme.

“She was blinded by love for Michael Dally,” Quinn said. “She was duped into Michael Dally’s plan.”

Quinn told the jury that during the course of the trial, they will discover that Haun is not completely free of responsibility in the crime. She did purchase a wig and rent a car, Quinn acknowledged.

She did have an affair with Michael Dally and dreamed about a life together with him and his two boys, Quinn said. And after she learned of the crime, she did lie to police about her role, he said.

But Haun did not, Quinn told the jury emphatically, abduct or kill Sherri Dally.

In addition, Quinn argued, the prosecution will be unable to prove that Haun carried out the murder plan because there is no direct, scientific or forensic evidence linking her to the killing.

After Quinn concluded his opening statement Monday afternoon, prosecutors called their first witness: Michael Dally’s former girlfriend, Sallie Lowe.

In a soft voice, she began a two-hour narrative about how she met Dally while working at a Santa Barbara Vons market.

They became friends and eventually lovers, Lowe said, and as time went on she began to see a darker side to Dally.

During their relationship, Lowe said, Sherri Dally became pregnant with her second child, which made Michael angry and depressed.

“He felt completely trapped in that marriage,” she said. “He felt she got pregnant again because he wanted out of the marriage.”

Lowe said that at one point Dally considered divorcing his wife, but after talking with an attorney determined that a divorce would create a financial burden.

He later talked about killing his wife, she said.

“He just wanted her to disappear,” she testified. “There were times he talked about stabbing her with a knife, but not only stabbing her--twisting the knife to cause pain.”

Lowe testified that their relationship ended when Dally choked her one day and refused to let go of her throat. “I lay there in fear of my life,” she said. He released her, Lowe said, after she looked in his eyes and said: “Michael, I love you.”

Before stepping down from the witness stand, Lowe told the jury that she felt ill when she heard news reports about Sherri Dally’s disappearance last year.

“It ripped my heart into threads,” she said. “It sickened me.”