Member of Dally Search Party Tells of Grisly Find

Drawn by a foul smell originating from the bottom of a ravine on the outskirts of Ventura, members of a volunteer search party last year scrambled down the steep gully and discovered a grisly scene.

Scattered in a dumping ground of used appliances, metal drums and other unwanted things, a member of the search party testified Tuesday, were the bones and tattered clothes of Ventura mother Sherri Dally.

“We noticed a sandal halfway down,� Ventura engineer Steven Maheux recalled, describing how he descended into the brush-choked canyon using a rope that was too short.

When he reached the end, Maheux said, he jumped and landed in a moist, soiled area littered with debris.

“I immediately saw what appeared to me to be a spinal cord,� Maheux testified. “I hollered that to the group.�

Maheux was the first witness in the Diana Haun murder trial to testify about the discovery of Dally’s skeletal remains on June 1, 1996--26 days after the mother of two disappeared from the parking lot of a Target store in Ventura.

In addition to Maheux, several other witnesses were called by the prosecution Tuesday:

* Mary Oliver, the defendant’s younger sister, continued to testify about conversations she had with Haun after Dally’s disappearance on May 6, including a phone call overheard by police in which she told Haun: “Mike just called. They found the body.�

* A Ventura physician offered his opinion about what could have caused injuries to Haun’s face, neck and wrist that were observed a few days after Dally’s abduction.

* A local cyclist who works at a Ventura bicycle repair shop testified about the type of damage typically seen in car-versus-bike accidents.

Haun told her sister she was hurt on May 6 when a truck bumped her rear wheel while she was bicycling in Camarillo.

The 36-year-old grocery clerk is accused of kidnapping Dally, the wife of her longtime lover, that morning. She is also charged with murder and conspiracy for allegedly planning the slaying with boyfriend Michael Dally.

Prosecutors further allege that Haun dumped Dally’s body into the ravine off Canada Larga Road, between Ventura and Ojai.

It was during a slow drive up that winding road late in the afternoon of June 1 that searchers were drawn toward a gully by a strong odor of rotting flesh, Maheux said.

Rattlesnakes buzzing in the brush initially kept them at bay, he said. But at a spot where they found a pair of sunglasses in the dirt, the searchers attempted to check out the source of the smell.

*

That odor turned out to be from a dead dog that someone had placed in a trash bag and dropped into the ravine, Maheux said. But while investigating the stench, searchers stumbled upon what appeared to be human bones, he said.

Attorneys explained during jury selection that Dally’s remains were scattered by animals--a condition supported by Maheux’s testimony.

He said one of the victim’s leg bones was detached. He also said Dally’s blond hair, her scalp, was separated from the other remains.

Maheux and another searcher were the first to venture into the bottom of the ravine, he said, explaining that it was almost impossible to reach the site without a rope.

Upon further examination of the area, Maheux said, he found a pair of black shorts with a braided belt still buckled as well as a dark-colored bra still clasped in the back.

At the time, Maheux said he lifted the shorts up with a stick for a friend of Dally’s to see and possibly identify.

“She got this frightened look,� Maheux said, recalling that the friend immediately noted that Sherri Dally typically wore a braided belt.

During his search, Maheux said, he also observed various skeletal remains, including a spine, a pelvis, a leg bone and an arm bone with a shiny object around it.

*

In court Tuesday, Maheux identified that object as a watch. Two weeks ago, Karlyne Guess, Sherri Dally’s mother, identified the same watch as belonging to her daughter.

Earlier in the day, the defendant’s sister, Mary Oliver, returned to the witness stand for cross-examination. Oliver told the jury that after her arrest, Haun proclaimed her innocence during a phone conversation from jail.

After Haun’s arrest, Oliver said, she began receiving numerous phone calls from co-defendant Michael Dally.

“Every time he called me, I told him not to call me,� she said.

One such phone call came “in the middle of the night� about the same time Dally’s remains were discovered, Oliver said.

Although she initially told prosecutor Lela Henke-Dobroth on Tuesday that she did not remember such a conversation, Oliver said her memory was refreshed by a tape recording of a subsequent call she placed to her sister.

Police captured that brief conversation during a wiretap of Haun’s phone line, and prosecutors played it for the jury Tuesday.

During the call, Oliver is heard saying these words: “Hello, Diana? . . . Mike just called. They found the body.�

On the tape, Haun is heard making a small noise and then saying: “Really?�

“He just called right now,� Oliver responds.

In a follow-up question, Henke-Dobroth asked Oliver why she made a reference to “the body� when on Monday she had testified that it was her understanding from conversations with Michael Dally that his wife had run away.

*

Oliver said she was only repeating to her sister what Dally had told her on the phone that night.

On Monday, Oliver testified about statements her sister made to her about her whereabouts on the day Sherri Dally disappeared.

Oliver told jurors that her younger sister told her that she was not at the Target parking lot on May 6, when Dally was seen by eyewitnesses getting into a blue-green car driven by a blond woman.

Instead, Oliver testified, her sister said she was sunbathing at the beach near Ventura Harbor in the morning and riding her bike in Camarillo in the afternoon.

It was during that bike ride along Las Posas Road, Oliver testified, that Haun was injured in a collision with a small pickup truck.

Oliver said her sister told her that she flipped over the handlebars of her bike and landed on her backside along the dirt shoulder of the road.

But two prosecution witnesses took issue with that account Tuesday.

First, Dr. Nat Baumer testified that the injuries to Haun’s face and wrist--depicted in a photograph taken on May 8, 1996--were inconsistent with injuries typically seen in bike accidents.

Instead, he said, the abrasions on her forehead look like scratches from fingernails and the bruises on her wrist appear to have been caused by someone grabbing her.

Baumer also said that a discolored area seen on a driver’s license photo of Haun taken by the Department of Motor Vehicles on May 9, 1996, could be a birthmark or a bruise of some kind.

*

But on cross-examination, Baumer acknowledged that pictures do not always depict what a doctor would see in an actual examination. He also said it was possible that the marks could have come from a different source--and Deputy Public Defender Neil Quinn offered one suggestion.

“Sir, do you know what a hickey is?� Quinn asked.

“It’s a nonmedical term, but, yes,� the doctor answered.

Is it possible, Quinn continued, that the mark on Haun’s clavicle area could have been caused by suction on her skin?

Not really, Baumer said, because the apparent bruising was not in an oval shape and did not appear from the photograph to be a deep-tissue bruise consistent with a hickey.

Ventura bicyclist Jeff Byers was among the last witnesses to testify Tuesday afternoon.

The Cycle Scene employee said he was asked by police to examine Haun’s 10-year-old bicycle to check for damage consistent with a car-versus-bike collision.

“I saw a few dings on the handlebars,� he said, “and a few scratches here and there--nothing major.�

On cross-examination, Byers said that it was possible that little damage would be evident if a person was only frightened by an approaching vehicle and fell onto the side of the road.

In an accident involving a car colliding with the rear wheel of a bicycle, however, Byers said, the cyclist would typically walk away with scrapes to the legs and visible damage to the bike.

“Usually,� he said, “I would see a wheel that would not be round anymore.�