The Life She Wanted

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Speaker 4 I'm Lester Holt.

Speaker 5 Tonight on Dateline, a mother of two vanishes in broad daylight.

Speaker 4 And for one detective, it's personal.

Speaker 3 Sherry was an extremely devoted mother.

Speaker 3 Why would she go missing?

Speaker 3 This case took on life of its own. Because you knew her? Absolutely.

Speaker 6 You can't sleep.

Speaker 3 You can't eat.

Speaker 6 It's just worry. Where is she?

Speaker 7 We had various witnesses that saw her getting into this car. There were handcuffs involved, a badge involved.

Speaker 7 Something was terribly wrong here.

Speaker 8 Who the heck is this woman and what does she have to do with Sherry?

Speaker 9 She is not the kind of person to commit any kind of crime.

Speaker 3 Something this diabolical had to come from somebody else. Yes.

Speaker 7 There was no escape for her. Sheer terror from the very beginning.

Speaker 4 Here's Josh Mankiewicz with the life she wanted.

Speaker 3 It all happened so quickly. In the parking lot of a Target on a bright Monday morning, a woman was handcuffed, bundled into a car, driven away.

Speaker 3 It left behind a mystery that would expose a troubled marriage, some devious manipulations, and the darkest corners of people's lives.

Speaker 3 You think to yourself, how could I have been that wrong about someone?

Speaker 10 Absolutely.

Speaker 7 You know, it's a perfect storm.

Speaker 3 This little street of modest homes in Ventura, California was just the perfect place. Nothing fancy, but close enough to the ocean to feel the salt air.
Young families grew up together here.

Speaker 3 And in this neighborhood, there were only friends. At least, until it all changed.

Speaker 3 May 6th, 1996, nurse Kristen Best received a phone call at work. It was the husband of her friend Sherry Daly, who also took care of Kristen's girls after school.

Speaker 10 I got a a call from Mike that Sherry had just not shown up to pick up the kids at school.

Speaker 3 And that wasn't like her.

Speaker 10 No.

Speaker 3 So that day, Sherry's husband Mike had to pick up the kids because for some reason, Sherry was a no-show.

Speaker 3 She wouldn't just fail to discharge her responsibilities.

Speaker 10 Absolutely. She was completely responsible.
Completely responsible. And you thought what? I didn't know what to think.

Speaker 3 When Kristen left work, she got back on the phone with Mike.

Speaker 10 He told me he was calling hospitals and looking for a Jane Doe.

Speaker 3 Mike called the Ventura Police Department, too. My wife brought my boys off at school at 8.30 this morning.
She's been missing since. I called the hospitals.
I called the high patrol.

Speaker 11 Where was she supposed to be?

Speaker 11 At home.

Speaker 3 At home with her boys and the children she watched after school.

Speaker 3 The officer wanted Mike to rule out all possibilities and told Mike he should call Sherry's family before filing a missing persons report.

Speaker 3 And so Mike did. He called Sherry's parents' house, they live 90 miles north, and then called the officer right back.

Speaker 3 Nobody's at home up there.

Speaker 3 Unusual.

Speaker 3 The officer took Sherry's information.

Speaker 11 What is her mental condition? She has any psychological report? No. Perfect health.

Speaker 11 Mentally? Perfect.

Speaker 11 She's stronger than I am. Will she have any scars marks or tattoos? No.

Speaker 11 No tattoos.

Speaker 11 No scars.

Speaker 11 Just a pair of beautiful blue eyes.

Speaker 3 Where could Sherry Dally be? Debbie English, who lived two doors down the street from Mike and Sherry, was pulling into her driveway when she saw Mike's family.

Speaker 6 They told me that Sherry didn't come to pick up the kids from school and they asked me do you know where she would have gone and I said well it's Monday she would have went to Target.

Speaker 3 Suburban life tends to find its own rhythm and on Mondays after dropping off the boys at school Sherry ran errands that usually included a stop at Target.

Speaker 3 So Mike's sister and niece went to Target and in the parking lot, they found Sherry's 15-passenger van, which she used to transport all all her daycare kids. What they did not find was Sherry.

Speaker 3 The van was empty, driver's door unlocked. And inside, Sherry's keys and a gift she'd bought for her mom, Carlene Guess.

Speaker 3 Carlene, who at this point still had no idea Sherry was missing. Around 8.30 p.m.
when Sherry's parents got home, Her mom listened to a voicemail that Mike had left on their landline.

Speaker 8 He said, this is Mike. Give me a call.
Something's happened to Sherry.

Speaker 3 All kinds of terrible things entered Carlene's mind.

Speaker 8 I thought, was she in an accident? Did she have appendix attack?

Speaker 3 Carlene called Mike back, and in an instant, her fears were replaced by one even worse.

Speaker 8 He said, she's gone.

Speaker 5 When we come back, Sherry Dowley captured on camera.

Speaker 13 Detectives uncover security video from inside the the store.

Speaker 3 Was she being followed?

Speaker 10 I was concerned that Sherry was maybe abducted or something worse.

Speaker 3 In a target parking lot sat Sherry Dally's van, her personal belongings inside. But no Sherry.
It didn't make sense.

Speaker 3 Everything about that scenario went against who Sherry was and who she'd been her whole life.

Speaker 3 Sherry Guess, as she was known until she married, was the youngest in her family.

Speaker 8 Number two, the completion of our family. We had a boy.
And 14 months later, we had our little girl.

Speaker 3 Sherry's mother, Carlene, says Sherry was sweet, but never a pushover.

Speaker 8 Spunky. She pretty much put up her dukes when she thought they should be.
She was a feisty little girl.

Speaker 3 Carlene also says it was no surprise that Sherry grew up to run a daycare.

Speaker 8 She loved, loved, loved kids and babies and animals.

Speaker 3 Sounds like she was guaranteed to be a wife and mom someday.

Speaker 8 That was

Speaker 3 her goal.

Speaker 3 In high school, Sherry met the guy who would make it happen, Mike Dally. Back then, everyone called him Hawaiian Mike, even though he was a local boy.

Speaker 8 She was so excited because she was going to be able to go out on a date with Hawaiian Mike.

Speaker 3 Big man on campus. Yes.
What did you think of Hawaiian Mike?

Speaker 8 I thought he was a nice-looking young man. He had good manners.
When I... told him, you know, what her curfew was, she was in on time.

Speaker 8 One thing that really impressed me was on Sherry's 18th birthday, he had delivered 17 red roses and and to come and take her out to dinner that night, then he brought the 18th rose.

Speaker 3 In person.

Speaker 3 He's got game. Yeah, I thought, well, this is, this guy is pretty cool here.
And she was clearly crazy about it. Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 3 After high school, they moved in together and in 1982 got married. Mike worked full-time at a grocery store called Von's.
Sherry worked there too. And then came the babies.

Speaker 3 Life seemed to be working out just as Sherry had imagined.

Speaker 3 Her plan was married by 21, babies by 24.

Speaker 8 Just about.

Speaker 3 Did she deliver on that?

Speaker 8 Yeah, she did, I think, pretty much.

Speaker 3 Mike and Sherry lived down the street from his parents, on that block where life seemed so perfect. It's where they met neighbors Debbie and Larry English.

Speaker 6 I met Sherry when she had Devin and we had Robert, and we'd take the kids out to play, and they were the the same age and we just started talking and we got to be friends that way.

Speaker 12 Thank you Sherry. Say hi.
We were

Speaker 3 two families growing up together.

Speaker 3 When we were with them we had some real good times.

Speaker 6 We were good friends, just couples, you know, with our kids. And then we both opened up daycares and we ran them side by side.

Speaker 3 That's how Kristen best met Sherry. Kristen had just moved to the area and needed help with her girls.

Speaker 3 She was at the Vons where Mike worked, checking out, when she mentioned she was looking for a daycare.

Speaker 10 He happened to be there and said, oh, my wife's starting up a daycare. And when I called Sherry, she said, I don't have any curriculum.
Your kids will play. I'll take good care of them.

Speaker 10 Just from there, Sherry just became, you know, just a trusted, sweet friend in Ventura. It was a real blessing for my kids to be at her home.

Speaker 3 And home was exactly where Sherry loved to be, with Mike and her two boys.

Speaker 3 Until that Monday in May 1996, when Sherry went on that routine run to Target and didn't return. Her friend Kristen, who'd been helping Mike look for Sherry, let her mind go to a very dark place.

Speaker 10 I was concerned that Sherry was maybe abducted or something worse.

Speaker 3 Sherry's friend Debbie told police about a conversation she'd had with Sherry a few weeks prior when Sherry said a scuzzy-looking man had followed her around at the Target.

Speaker 3 By then, Ventura PD had checked out Sherry's van. They found neither blood nor signs of any struggle.
Police also pulled Target security video and there was Sherry at the register.

Speaker 3 and then exiting the store at 9.22 a.m.

Speaker 3 The cameras caught nothing unusual inside the store, but outside, people in the target parking lot saw something else.

Speaker 13 Coming up, a witness with an alarming story.

Speaker 3 She saw this person being arrested in the parking lot that matched the description of Sherry. Arrested, like

Speaker 3 cuffed and locked up. Like, car pulls up, somebody gets out, walks up to Sherry, and puts handcuffs on her.

Speaker 16 When dateline continues.

Speaker 3 Losing a child, even for a few minutes, can make any parent breathless with fear.

Speaker 12 Are we there, Dave?

Speaker 3 And it doesn't matter if your child is 5 or 35,

Speaker 3 as Sherry Dally was when she disappeared. For her mom, Carlene Guess, it was simply torture.
There's no feeling like that, is there?

Speaker 8 No.

Speaker 8 And it never changes. We We just wanted to find her.
Let's get her home.

Speaker 3 Cell phones were a rarity back then, so Carlene did what she could.

Speaker 8 I wanted my phone that she knew open.

Speaker 8 And I wouldn't let anybody call on that phone line that she knew. The second day, I had a new phone line put in.

Speaker 3 While Sherry's mother was waiting on the phone company, Detectives from the Ventura, California PD were hearing about her daughter's case in their morning briefing. Detective Matt Harville was there.

Speaker 3 One of the big items on that watch report was this missing person. And the sergeant actually pronounced the person's name Sherry Daly.

Speaker 3 And I thought, well, that's kind of pretty close to somebody that I've known from high school. And I said, well, is it Sherry Daly?

Speaker 3 Turned out it was Sherry, Harville's friend from high school. Eventually, every detective they had was put on the case.
Only one had a personal connection.

Speaker 3 You knew her in high school, which means you also knew Mike in high school. I knew Mike, yes.
Mike was kind of the big man on campus kind of guy. He acted like that.

Speaker 3 He drove a black Monte Carlo. I went to Ventura High School.
There was a street that bifurcated the school, divided in half, and he would cruise down that street at lunchtime. Yeah, he was that guy.

Speaker 5 He was that guy.

Speaker 3 Matt Harvel thought he was the right detective to talk to that guy. I let the group know, the detectives and the sergeant know that I know Sherry, I know Mike.

Speaker 3 I would be probably the logical choice to go over and speak to Mike about his missing wife.

Speaker 3 Before Harville and his partner, Detective Sean Conroy, could head out, an officer who'd been listening in on the briefing spoke up.

Speaker 3 The officer said, her sister had been at the target the day Sherry was seen on security video buying a gift for her mom.

Speaker 3 And then, outside the store, the officer's sister witnessed something that caught her attention. Saw this person being arrested in the parking lot that matched the description of Sherry.
Arrested like

Speaker 3 cuffed and locked up.

Speaker 3 Cuffed and locked up. Like car pulls up as Sherry's getting in her van.
Somebody gets out, walks up to Sherry, and puts handcuffs on her. Not a marked car.
So presumably a detective.

Speaker 3 Not a marked car, exactly. Presumably a detective.
The detective's a man or a woman? Female. Other witnesses later described the detective as a blonde.

Speaker 3 And she holds Sherry's head as Sherry's getting put in the car. Just like you'd see on TV.
Sherry Dally arrested? Hard to believe, thought Harvel.

Speaker 3 Boy, that doesn't sound like the person I knew over the years. I presume you guys would know if your organization, the Ventura Police Department, had her in custody.
Right, we would.

Speaker 3 How many other law enforcement agencies are around that might have taken her into custody? That could be a very long list. It could be the Oxnard Police Department, Simi Valley.

Speaker 3 It could be a federal organization, California Department of Justice. Detective Conroy was relieved.
He thought they'd find Sherry quickly because one of those agencies must have something on her.

Speaker 9 We started running her name to see if there were any outstanding warrants.

Speaker 3 Nothing turned up. Harvill and Conroy hoped their visit with Mike Dalley would provide some answers.

Speaker 3 When you're talking to Mike, does he remember you from high school? Does he say, hey, how you been? I didn't know you were a cop now. No, he knew I was a cop, but yeah, you know, he knew me.

Speaker 3 Hey, Matt, how you doing? We walked around the house. I looked for signs.
Well, maybe there's a domestic here. Maybe they have a fight.
Things are thrown around. Nothing like that.

Speaker 3 house was clean um nothing out of place mike said he didn't know what had happened to his wife i'm guessing that when you talk to mike one of the questions you ask him is who did not like your wife who was angry at her who who wouldn't who might have done her some harm i don't know everybody likes her that seemed to be true seemed to be true yeah it's very true yeah i asked him if they had any issues any problems and no nothing nothing out of the ordinary i think he said something like you know the the normal stuff between husbands and wives well that covers a lot of ground, doesn't it?

Speaker 3 That does cover a lot of ground, absolutely.

Speaker 3 Then Detective Harville explained to Mike Dalley how these cases usually go. I told him, you know, Mike, your wife is missing.

Speaker 3 And the way we normally conduct these investigations is we look closest to the home. We start there and work our way out.
So we're going to do a deep dive into

Speaker 3 your relationship with your wife and what's going on in your life. I got to say, I love the question just in terms of tradecraft.
Hey, look, this is how we do it.

Speaker 3 We start close to home and we go outward. So, we're gonna look at you and your relations with your wife.
Is there anything that's gonna surprise me? Because you must get all kinds of answers to that.

Speaker 3 You do, you get all kinds of answers.

Speaker 3 The answer he received that day was one Matt Harvill did not expect.

Speaker 3 Coming up, is there anything that you know about?

Speaker 13 He says, Well, I do have this girlfriend, Mike Dalley comes clean.

Speaker 3 An extramarital affair.

Speaker 6 When she found found out, she came to me and I just held her while she cried.

Speaker 3 In any investigation, detectives need to learn everything they can about the victim and those closest to them. Sometimes that requires digging.

Speaker 3 Other times, an honest answer to a simple question is all they need. Detective Harville tried asking a simple question of Mike Dally.

Speaker 3 Is there anything that's going to surprise me or anything that I should know about? Yeah, and he says, well, I do have this girlfriend.

Speaker 3 A girlfriend? Oh, yes. And it got better.
Mike said her name was Diana, but her last name? Mike said he just couldn't recall it.

Speaker 3 Where does she live? I don't know, but I can give you her phone number. So he gave me her phone number.

Speaker 3 So you're having an extramarital affair, but you you don't know the last name of the woman you're doing it with, and you don't know where she lives. Right.

Speaker 3 It's the ultimate no-strings-attached relationship. That would be the ultimate.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Harville and Conroy took that information back to the station and compared notes with other detectives. Turns out, when Mike reported Sherry missing, he never mentioned a girlfriend.

Speaker 3 By their extramarital phone? No. Mike also told another officer he and Sherry had just returned from a jet ski trip and everything was going along fine.

Speaker 3 However, Sherry's mother had noticed Mike being short and dismissive with Sherry sometimes. And truth is, Carlene had wondered if Sherry was the one who had something else going on.

Speaker 8 I thought, it's not like her, but maybe she had a boyfriend and just decided that she wasn't going to put up with Michael anymore.

Speaker 3 And in some part of your head, you're thinking, I hope that's true.

Speaker 8 I did. I thought, I hope that's where she is.

Speaker 3 Sherry's friend and neighbor, Debbie English, said Sherry had talked about walking out on Mike.

Speaker 6 She said, I ought to just go and leave for a couple days, not tell him where I've gone so he could see how it feels the way he's doing me.

Speaker 3 Because Sherry did know about Diana with no last name, and Sherry had told Debbie all about her.

Speaker 6 When she found out, she came to me and she was crying and told me what had happened. And I just held her while she cried.

Speaker 3 Kristen also knew about Diana and said she was afraid of what Sherry might do.

Speaker 10 Sherry was a strong girl and could take somebody down. You know, I used to say Sherry, I don't want you to end up in jail, you know.

Speaker 3 You thought she might physically attack Diana.

Speaker 3 I did. According to her friends, Sherry did confront Diana after Sherry heard Diana not only wanted Mike, but the kids too.

Speaker 3 And so Sherry gave Diana a peace of her mind.

Speaker 6 And she told her she'd never get him, just to back off. And she told her, you weren't getting Mike either.
She would fight her for Mike.

Speaker 3 Because in Sherry's mind, the problem here is Diana's the interloper and Mike is blameless. Absolutely.

Speaker 10 The problem was Diana. You know, if Diana would just go away, then everything would be back to normal.

Speaker 3 Well, that didn't happen. Diana didn't go away.
But now Sherry had. The question was, where?

Speaker 3 Sherry was last seen exiting Target. Security cameras confirmed that.

Speaker 3 Then there were the witness reports of a woman believed to be Sherry, who was arrested just outside of Target by a blonde female cop.

Speaker 3 Except, detectives couldn't find any record of that arrest anywhere. And now there were some things about the arrest itself that just didn't feel right to these detectives.

Speaker 3 First of all, the arresting officer seemed to be working solo.

Speaker 3 Typically, if I was going to go out and make an arrest, I'd have a partner with me because I don't know how the person's going to respond. And this officer was alone.
Alone.

Speaker 3 Then there was the car the officer put Sherry into. Back then, nearly every cop drove a Ford Crown Victoria.

Speaker 3 Not this one. It wasn't a Crown Victoria.
Which was at the time certainly the preferred car of all law enforcement. You always knew there's a cop in the parking lot if you saw a Crown Vic.

Speaker 3 Another anomaly. Sherry's driver's license was found inside her van.
And if if Sherry had been taken into custody, it's hard to believe that her ID, her driver's license, wouldn't go with her.

Speaker 9 Yes, exactly. I mean, that's one of the common things that you collect from a person to get all their correct information so you know they're not lying to you.

Speaker 3 To police, what witnesses saw outside the target was beginning to look less like an arrest and more like an abduction.

Speaker 9 That is such a bold move. I mean, what kind of motivation would a person have to take that kind of risk, to do that in a public place, and to go forward with that plan.

Speaker 3 It's like something out of a movie.

Speaker 9 It's like something out of a bad movie

Speaker 9 because it was reckless.

Speaker 3 So who was that blonde woman who'd handcuffed Sherry Dally?

Speaker 3 And where did she take her?

Speaker 3 Detectives wondered if Mike's girlfriend Diana could have had anything to do with it. With only a first name and a phone number, Harville and Conroy set out to find her.

Speaker 3 And we started researching that phone number. Who does it belong to? So we looked it up, got an an address in Port Wynemie that goes with that phone number.

Speaker 3 First name, Diana. Last name, Han.

Speaker 3 Harville and Conroy began their first full day on the case with a drive down the coast to Port Wynemie to knock on her door.

Speaker 15 Coming up.

Speaker 3 There's Diana standing in front of us in a very short black negligee. And she's not alone.
She's not alone. Lily was telling the truth about having an affair.
We confirmed it right there.

Speaker 4 Detectives would also confirm something else about Mike Daly.

Speaker 9 He had a rock-solid alibi.

Speaker 16 When dateline continues.

Speaker 3 After Sherry Daley went missing, Detective Matt Harvill told her husband Mike. how homicide detectives start close to home, meaning they'd have to look at Mike.

Speaker 3 When they did, detectives confirmed Mike was at work at the same time Sherry was getting cuffed and taken from the target parking lot.

Speaker 9 He was stocking the shelves at Bonds, and he had a rock-solid alibi.

Speaker 3 There was the matter of Mike's girlfriend, Diana. That kind of thing never plays well with homicide detectives.
However, it's common for guilty husbands to avoid mentioning their secret lives.

Speaker 3 Not Mike. He'd been quite candid about Diana.

Speaker 3 Although he said he didn't know her address or her last name. Didn't matter.
Harville and Conroy were detectives after all. And they found Diana's home address.

Speaker 3 We drive out to Diana Hahn's house and we get there and the first thing that strikes me as we pull up is Mike's van is in her driveway.

Speaker 3 And he's not only with his girlfriend, he's found out where she lives. It was a miracle.

Speaker 3 It was a party waiting to happen.

Speaker 9 We go up to the door, we knock and nobody's answering.

Speaker 3 Detective Conroy called Diana's home phone. She picked up, and he said something along the lines of, it's the police.
We're outside.

Speaker 3 Moments later, the door opened up, and there's Diana standing in front of us in a

Speaker 3 very short black negligee. Just out of bed.
Apparently so. And she's not alone.
She's not alone.

Speaker 9 And Matt and I step into the residence and Matt just calls out, you know, hey, Michael, come on out here.

Speaker 3 And Mike came walking out of the back part of the house wearing a pair of boxer shorts. Well, he was telling the truth about having an affair.
He wasn't lying about that.

Speaker 3 And we confirmed it right there.

Speaker 3 So, yes, Mike was honest.

Speaker 3 That did not get him off police radar.

Speaker 9 Because he's supposed to be at home waiting for the phone to ring, you know, in case a hospital called that they had his wife or for just anything when he's actually at the very first opportunity spending the night with his his girlfriend.

Speaker 3 Detectives wanted to find out if Mike's girlfriend knew anything about Sherry's disappearance. Mike offered to drive Diana to the police station.

Speaker 3 It was there that detectives separated the lovebirds and sat Diana in an interview room.

Speaker 9 What our goal in that interview was to establish a baseline of her activities on the day of the abduction. So we asked her to fill out a yellow legal pad with all of her activities.

Speaker 3 Diana said she was alone most of the day. She put in there, she went on this long bike ride.
That was a big chunk of her day. That was the day Sherry disappeared.

Speaker 3 That's the day that Sherry disappeared. By Diana's account, this bike ride took her nowhere close to the place where Sherry was last seen.

Speaker 3 What's more, the eyewitnesses described the person who put Sherry in the car as a white female with blonde hair.

Speaker 3 It was hardly an accurate description of Diana Hahn. Long dark hair.

Speaker 17 Long dark hair.

Speaker 3 And she's half Asian? Half Asian.

Speaker 3 She doesn't sound at all like the person that arrested Sherry Dally.

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 3 Detectives ran Diana's name and found nothing alarming. Diana Hahn had no criminal record.
No. Never been in trouble with the law in any way.

Speaker 9 No, nothing.

Speaker 3 At 35, Diana Hahn lived with her mother. At one time, she'd had ambitions to be an actress or model.

Speaker 3 In a 1992 TV movie called She Woke Up, Diana is an extra in the background of this restaurant scene,

Speaker 3 but you can't spot her.

Speaker 3 She now worked in the deli department at the same Vons as Mike Dally.

Speaker 3 Police spoke with colleagues who said Diana told them that she occasionally practiced witchcraft.

Speaker 3 Aside from that, It seemed the most exciting thing in Diana's life was the spell she'd cast on Mike Dalley. Diana told police she was fully aware that Mike had two boys and that he was married.

Speaker 3 She also told them Sherry was well aware of her.

Speaker 3 She did admit to the confrontations that they had had words, so she knows Sherry and Sherry definitely knows her.

Speaker 3 If the person who handcuffed Sherry was Diana Hahn, wouldn't Sherry have recognized her and refused to go along?

Speaker 3 Two days into their investigation, Diana Hahn was coming off as too soft-spoken and too meek to be a kidnapper. Because she's not aggressive.
She's not mean.

Speaker 9 No, she hasn't threatened anybody. She's never been in physical confrontations.

Speaker 3 At the same time, in the world outside that little room, the story of what happened to Sherry was spreading. And soon it caught the attention of someone who knew Diana.

Speaker 3 And that moment changed the course of this investigation.

Speaker 9 A coworker of hers called into the detective bay and spoke to another detective.

Speaker 3 Diana's coworker told the detective she'd seen Diana the day after Sherry was reported missing and she'd noticed something peculiar.

Speaker 9 She said her face was all red and she looked like she'd been in a fight and there are scratches on her forehead.

Speaker 3 The detective hung up the phone and went to the interview room where Harville and Conroy were questioning Diana.

Speaker 9 He knocks on the door and he goes, you know, did you see the scratches? And we were looking and she had her hair done in kind of a, you know, surfer wave over the forehead deal.

Speaker 9 And, you know, so we hadn't seen them. We go back in and we say, hey, you know, you know, move your hair to the side.

Speaker 3 There they were. Diana said she could explain.
She got the scratches during her long bike ride the day Sherry disappeared.

Speaker 3 She says she was riding back to her house and a couple guys in a black pickup truck ran her off the road and

Speaker 3 she crashed. She had road rash on her hands? No road rash on her hands.
Or any other injuries that might be associated with falling off a bicycle?

Speaker 3 No raspberries on the elbow or the knees, nothing like that.

Speaker 3 Still, with no real evidence, there was nothing detectives could do at that point. And so they let Diana Hahn walk right out of the police station, along with Mike Dalley.

Speaker 15 Coming up.

Speaker 8 Wherever she was, she was being held against her will, or worse.

Speaker 13 Frantic searches for Sherry and a rental car brings in a brand new lead.

Speaker 3 The rear of your mirror had been broken off. Suggesting a fight inside the car? That's definitely what we believed.

Speaker 3 Sherry Dally had vanished. Her case was all over the local news.

Speaker 18 Our top story here at 5.30 today, the search for a missing woman in Ventura. She's a mother of two.
She also runs a daycare center in her home.

Speaker 3 Sherry's husband, Mike, spoke with reporters.

Speaker 19 This is so bizarre. And everybody, my neighbors, our friends, they all just can't believe it because they all know her and say, no, she'd never leave the boys for any reason.

Speaker 3 Even Sherry's boys went on TV.

Speaker 3 Los Angeles station, KTTV, was there when Mike took his sons to hand out flyers at the Target where Sherry was last seen.

Speaker 12 Miss you, Mom?

Speaker 3 Everyone who loved Sherry was holding their breath.

Speaker 8 Every time the phone rings.

Speaker 3 You're grabbing it. Yep.

Speaker 8 Every call you hope is her. Your brain is saying one thing, your heart is saying another.
And then we get to the weekend and it's Sunday is Mother's Day and Monday was my birthday.

Speaker 3 And you didn't hear from her. And I didn't hear from her.

Speaker 8 And I knew

Speaker 8 that wherever she was, she was being held against her will. or worse.

Speaker 3 Soon the whole town seemed to be coming together to to find Sherry Dalley.

Speaker 10 People talked about it all the time. And so there was community people who wanted to help find Sherry.

Speaker 3 Chris then helped organize search parties.

Speaker 20 We all have kids. We all, you know, if you're a mother you can identify with a daughter missing and I think that there's just concerned people and that's that's the big connection here.

Speaker 3 The target parking lot where Sherry was last seen became their command center.

Speaker 3 And we just would split up into groups and covered, you know, different parts of the of the county as the weeks went on they all knew the odds were increasingly longer that sherry was still alive we were looking at the river bottoms and out in the rural areas places where a body might turn up yes absolutely debbie and larry searched too we were hoping we would find her But as far as Deb and I are concerned, we were hoping it wouldn't be us.

Speaker 3 We didn't want to see her in any kind of bad condition.

Speaker 6 No, you want to find her, but you don't want to be the one to do it.

Speaker 3 Carlene hoped Sherry would be found alive.

Speaker 3 Detective Harvill knew.

Speaker 3 All the signs pointed the other way.

Speaker 3 Carlene asked if we thought that Sherry was dead, and

Speaker 3 it wasn't looking good. And you were honest about that.
I was honest about that.

Speaker 3 I really was.

Speaker 3 Harvill felt he had to be because for him, this case was different.

Speaker 3 Most homicides, I arrive on scene and we have the decedent. I didn't know the decedent beforehand, so I can't put a personality, a voice, anything to that unfortunate victim.

Speaker 3 Sherry was a different story. You know, I can put a voice to it.
I can put a smile. I can put a kind word to this person.
Does that make your job easier or harder? It didn't make it easier.

Speaker 3 I would say it added another level of almost pressure to what I was doing. I mean, I needed to do the best I could for this person that I knew as a friend.

Speaker 3 All the while, detectives just kept at it. They knew they needed to find the car Sherry had been put into.

Speaker 3 Witnesses described it as a small teal-colored sedan. Detectives looked high and low.
Two of the detectives that were working in this case, it went to local rental places.

Speaker 3 And one of the closest was the Oxenard Airport and just started going from counter to counter. It took a while, but they found it.

Speaker 3 The budget fleet contained a blue-green Nissan Altima that had been rented out during the time Sherry was abducted. And according to budget records, it was returned damaged.

Speaker 3 The rearview mirror had been broken off. The inside rearview mirror.
Inside rearview mirror. Suggesting a fight inside the car?

Speaker 3 That's definitely what we believed, that a fight had occurred inside the car.

Speaker 3 By this time, the car had already been repaired and rented to another customer. It was one more day before detectives got their hands on it.

Speaker 3 When they did, they could see with their naked eyes stains that to them looked like blood under the floor mat in the back seat.

Speaker 9 The crime scene investigators cut the seats and peeled it back, and you could see the blood had soaked into the seats.

Speaker 3 Also inside the car, some strands of blonde hair. Detectives believe the blood found inside the sedan had to belong to Sherry Dally.

Speaker 3 And to them, that confirmed the worst. Once you get that evidence back from the car, you know.
We know. Sherry Dally's dead.
Yes. The only question is where she is.
Where is she?

Speaker 3 So, who to ask?

Speaker 3 Maybe the person who'd rented the car. Budget faxed over the rental agreement.
And the name on the contract?

Speaker 3 Come on. You've already guessed.

Speaker 15 Coming up.

Speaker 12 Have you ever seen that car before?

Speaker 2 That's why I should rent a car.

Speaker 12 Except that you rent your vehicle.

Speaker 17 Diana Hahn in the interrogation room.

Speaker 12 If you don't help us find Sherry, it's not going to be pretty, Diana. I can guarantee you it will not be pretty.

Speaker 16 When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 12 Stay true to my word, here we are.

Speaker 3 This conversation sounds like two people chatting it up at a bar.

Speaker 12 You have a very interesting look, I have to tell you.

Speaker 3 In reality, it was anything but casual.

Speaker 3 Detectives were questioning Diana Hahn again, now that they learned she had rented this car that seemed to be the one used in Sherry's abduction.

Speaker 3 There was, at first, no mention of any rental car, just some questions about what Diana was like in school.

Speaker 12 Don't tell me you're a wallflower. And basically, I'm sorry.

Speaker 12 When Jenny buying, I made it for Shiny.

Speaker 3 Diana told them she had only one friend growing up, and that these days, Mike Dalley was her closest friend. And then, more than a half hour after it began, This interview got serious.

Speaker 3 They showed her some photos.

Speaker 12 I've ever seen their car before.

Speaker 3 And a document.

Speaker 12 That's one of the rent car.

Speaker 12 Except if you rent your vehicle.

Speaker 9 Diana Hahn had not only signed it, but had initialed it, you know, because I said, do you want this wave or no initial here? In like five different places.

Speaker 3 The form even had Vons

Speaker 3 written in as her workplace.

Speaker 9 It was...

Speaker 9 The big break in the case.

Speaker 3 It's not exactly a signed confession, but it's pretty close.

Speaker 9 Well, it basically said, take a big old look at me.

Speaker 3 They read Diana her Miranda rights. You have reckoned.

Speaker 3 She did not ask for an attorney, so they kept going.

Speaker 3 Detectives told Diana how at that exact moment other cops were searching her home. They also told her they didn't believe her bike ride alibi.
They asked again and again,

Speaker 3 where is Sherry?

Speaker 12 If you don't help us find Sherry, it's not going to be pretty, Diana. I can guarantee you it will not be pretty.

Speaker 12 This is your opportunity to show us,

Speaker 12 to show everybody that you do care, that you have a hearty.

Speaker 3 Diana sat quietly.

Speaker 12 You need to take us to Sherry. We need to walk out this door.

Speaker 12 We need to go get in the car.

Speaker 12 You need to point the way and take us to Sherry.

Speaker 12 That is the only thing you can do that is going to help with this investigation right now.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 The interview was going nowhere. Conroy and Harvill got up to leave the room.
And then Conroy had another question.

Speaker 12 Can I take your purse?

Speaker 12 Is it under warrant, too?

Speaker 12 No, but you're under arrest.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but that gave us access to the purse.

Speaker 3 And that was a seminal moment in the investigation with Dianah Hahn.

Speaker 3 In her bag was a startling piece of evidence. A photograph of Diana and Mike Dally with his two boys.
Essentially, a family photo. Except,

Speaker 3 they weren't a family. At the time, he's still married to and living with the mother of those kids.
Exactly. You're the one who said.

Speaker 3 After they saw that picture, the detectives went back in and confronted Diana.

Speaker 12 What kind of woman gets her picture taken?

Speaker 12 With two kids and their father?

Speaker 12 Was it on Christmas Eve? What kind of woman does that?

Speaker 3 I think

Speaker 3 being the photo, that's realizing her dream. That's the life she wanted.
That's the life she wanted. There was just one thing standing between her and her dream.

Speaker 12 A piece of paper.

Speaker 12 What piece of paper? Divorce paper.

Speaker 3 There was no evidence Mike Dalley had ever filed for divorce. And by now, detectives had spoken with Diana's colleagues, who told them some odd stories.

Speaker 12 Have you ever told anybody that you want to make a human sacrifice?

Speaker 12 No.

Speaker 12 You haven't? Not those exact words.

Speaker 3 Diana said she couldn't remember her exact words, but a woman at work did.

Speaker 12 Did you tell her that you had a friend who had a birthday coming up and that you wanted to perform a human sacrifice for this person's birthday?

Speaker 12 No.

Speaker 3 Detectives knew Sherry had disappeared just weeks before Mike's birthday, and so they wondered, instead of buying Mike a tie or some aftershave, maybe Diana's gift was murder.

Speaker 3 Because said detectives, Diana was obsessed with becoming Mike's wife and mother to his children.

Speaker 12 What would you be willing to do for him?

Speaker 12 Would you do anything for him?

Speaker 12 Where would you draw the line?

Speaker 12 I don't know.

Speaker 3 Mike himself, you'll remember, had an alibi. He was at work when Sherry was abducted and he could prove it.
Still, detectives had reason to wonder if he might be involved.

Speaker 3 They pushed Diana, trying to see if she would say anything to implicate Mike.

Speaker 9 I know we said at some point he's going to leave you holding the bag. That's the plan.
He has a rock-solid alibi.

Speaker 3 You know, you don't.

Speaker 9 At some point,

Speaker 9 he's going to have to give you up. You know, you're going to take the fall.

Speaker 12 Diane's a toy. Diane's like a jet ski.

Speaker 12 Diane's like a jet ski. Diane is something to be taken out, played with, put away, and left until he is ready to come play again.
Don't you see?

Speaker 12 Don't you see what's going on?

Speaker 12 But he takes care of me.

Speaker 3 They kept chipping away at Diana as she tried to defend Mike, her married lover.

Speaker 12 He's always been good to me. No, he has not.
The man has been awful

Speaker 12 to you. You don't want to see it bad in him because, you know, you're desperate.
I'm sorry.

Speaker 12 You are desperately in love with him.

Speaker 3 You guys are rolling out the heavy artillery.

Speaker 3 He's using you. He's taking advantage of you.
He's going to get you to take the fall for something that's his idea. It really is almost like watching a TV show.

Speaker 3 Except, it doesn't work. It didn't work.

Speaker 3 She wasn't giving us an inch.

Speaker 3 They needed a different strategy. And one soon presented itself.
Mike had come in to talk with detectives that day, and he was in the room next door.

Speaker 3 And while Detective Conroy was filling out Diana's arrest paperwork, Diana heard Mike's voice.

Speaker 12 Mike is here.

Speaker 3 Um, yeah.

Speaker 12 Will I be able to see him? I don't know. We'll have to see how it goes.
Would you like to see him?

Speaker 3 Sometimes we put two potential suspects in the room together, and then something incriminating comes out.

Speaker 3 Sometimes

Speaker 3 that does happen.

Speaker 15 Coming up.

Speaker 13 Things heat up in the interrogation room, but not the way detectives expected.

Speaker 3 Diana was almost in a trance. He just pumped her up.
It was amazing to watch.

Speaker 3 Police already knew Mike Dalley and Diana Hahn were lovers.

Speaker 3 Now they were hoping to find out if Mike and Diana were also partners in murder. So they let the couple bond in an interrogation room.

Speaker 3 It was clear Mike and Diana knew this was not a private conversation because, as they spoke, they sometimes whispered.

Speaker 3 At other times, it appeared Mike wanted the detectives to hear exactly what he and Diana were saying.

Speaker 12 I can't.

Speaker 3 I cannot believe.

Speaker 12 I cannot believe that she would have seen you. She could have recognized

Speaker 3 She, meaning Sherry, who knew Diana by sight, and who certainly would never have willingly gotten into a car with her. Mike tried to reassure Diana, or maybe

Speaker 3 he was trying to help her get her story straight here.

Speaker 3 You can only tell them the truth.

Speaker 3 Okay?

Speaker 3 That's all you can do is tell them the truth.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 it'll be alright.

Speaker 3 If you weren't there, you weren't there.

Speaker 3 On a video feed, Detective Harville watched it all unfold like a soap opera. Diane was almost

Speaker 3 in a trance. He came in there and he just pumped her up.

Speaker 3 You could see her just almost physically just get pumped up as he's getting her to focus on him. She's like drawing from his strength.
Absolutely. It was amazing to watch.

Speaker 3 Diana and Mike seemed to have their very own love language.

Speaker 3 Mike told Diana the detectives had it all wrong. Diana wasn't guilty of anything

Speaker 3 because

Speaker 3 Sherry was not dead.

Speaker 3 The only thing I know for sure is that she's missing. That's all I know for sure.

Speaker 3 Mike told Diana not to worry about getting locked up. Unless they have any real solid evidence,

Speaker 3 they can only watch up for 24 hours.

Speaker 3 Detectives hoped putting Mike and Diana together might cause him to incriminate himself or cause her to crack and confess.

Speaker 3 Mike's behavior certainly made them suspicious, but it was nothing for which he could be arrested.

Speaker 3 Out.

Speaker 3 As for getting Diana to crack?

Speaker 3 We go back in there, and it was like we were back at the beginning of the interview.

Speaker 3 I mean, all the ground that we gained was just gone. Detective Conroy tried again.

Speaker 3 This time he confronted Diana about a piece of paper they'd found in her purse, one that had Sherry's name on it, along with banking information.

Speaker 3 Diana explained she was simply helping Mike pull money out of Sherry's account because Mike was struggling financially.

Speaker 12 You cannot be that naive to call up and impersonate a person who is missing, kidnapped,

Speaker 12 to try to get money from the account. That's not what we

Speaker 12 think she ran him.

Speaker 12 She ran him. Left him with all his bills.
Left him with all the bills.

Speaker 12 That's the line that he's selling you.

Speaker 3 We were looking for a way to get her to

Speaker 3 let go of Mike. And start seeing the world the way it really was.
Exactly. This is going to be a reality check.
This is reality hitting you fast and hard.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 Mike's not here to save you. None of it worked.
Diana Hahn didn't spill. She may have saved Mike, but not herself.

Speaker 3 Sherry's mom heard the news: an arrest in her daughter's case. And you thought what?

Speaker 8 Who the heck is this woman and what does she have to do with Sherry?

Speaker 3 You've never heard that name before. Nope.
Couldn't tell you anything about it, man because they don't know anything.

Speaker 3 Mike did not seem eager to answer reporters' questions.

Speaker 19 I have nothing to say.

Speaker 14 There's nothing going on. Did you know Miss Tan at all?

Speaker 9 Like I said, guys, you guys know as much about this thing as I do right now.

Speaker 14 I mean, she may have been the one who actually killed your wife.

Speaker 3 Then, just days after Diana's arrest, Diana, do you feel as though you could falsely accuse

Speaker 3 me? She was released.

Speaker 3 Sherry's good friend, Debbie, was astonished.

Speaker 6 How could they let her go? You know, we all know she did it.

Speaker 3 The Ventura County District Attorney's Office decided there was not enough evidence to charge Diana Hahn with a murder in which there was no body.

Speaker 3 You might think detectives would be upset by the DA's decision.

Speaker 3 You would be wrong. You're not disappointed by that.
You're okay with that. I thought that was great.

Speaker 9 And not only that, but when she was released, it was a media zoo at County Jail.

Speaker 3 That meant all of Ventura would get a good look at Diana Hahn. And it turned out, that was was just what this investigation needed.

Speaker 18 Coming up, a new witness.

Speaker 7 I recognized her face right away.

Speaker 6 She purchased a wig.

Speaker 3 What color?

Speaker 19 Blonde.

Speaker 3 Bullseye. Diana Hahn fooled her enough to get the handcuffs on her and get her out of that parking lot.

Speaker 16 When date line continues.

Speaker 3 Police suspected Diana Hahn of posing as a detective and kidnapping her romantic rival, Sherry Dally, in broad daylight. The question was,

Speaker 3 why didn't Sherry recognize Diana and just walk the other way?

Speaker 3 When police searched Diana's home, they thought they'd found their answer. There were photos in there of Diana Hahn made up

Speaker 3 to the point where I didn't recognize the person that photo as being Diana Hahn.

Speaker 3 Photos like this headshot, which indicated maybe Diana had learned enough in her brief modeling and acting days to pull off a disguise.

Speaker 3 It was certainly true that tying her to the crime scene had been a reach.

Speaker 3 Eyewitness descriptions did not match Diana until she got out of jail and her picture appeared on the local news. I recognized her face right away.

Speaker 3 NBC station KNBC interviewed this woman after she spoke with detectives. Recognized the picture of Dianahan and even commented about the family photo that was in Diana's wallet.

Speaker 3 Yes, this one.

Speaker 3 So the new witness had seen Diana all right. But even more important was where the witness worked at a shop that sold wigs.

Speaker 6 She She purchased a wig.

Speaker 3 What color? Marvelous. Blonde.
Yes.

Speaker 3 Remember the blonde hair found in the rental car? Lab tests revealed it wasn't Sherry Dally's. It wasn't even human.
It was from a wig.

Speaker 3 Detectives also found a store that had sold Diana Hawn handcuffs and a badge.

Speaker 3 And they also found something most killers don't do. Write personal checks.
What kind of murderer does all their prep work and pays by check? Not a very smart one.

Speaker 3 Diana also wrote a check to Kmart, where she bought a ladies' jacket, sunglasses, and an axe.

Speaker 3 There's also another witness who was walking through the parking lot. He was very detailed in what she told us.
Definitely a female. Females wearing like pancake makeup, obviously disguised.

Speaker 3 Obvious to that witness.

Speaker 3 Maybe not to Sherry Dally. Sherry had seen Diana Hahn face to face.
She knew her and

Speaker 3 didn't just know her, I think hated her.

Speaker 3 And Diana Hahn still fooled her. Dianah Hahn fooled her for a brief period of time.
Dianah Hahn was out of context. And she changed her appearance enough that it fooled Sherry.
Exactly.

Speaker 3 Enough to get the handcuffs on her and get her out of that parking lot.

Speaker 3 All of that added up to a lot of circumstantial evidence against Diana Hahn, but not enough to rearrest her. Police needed to find Sherry.
Detectives believed she wasn't far away.

Speaker 3 Records from Budget revealed Diana only drove that teal Alto 126 miles over the three days she had it.

Speaker 3 It allowed us to give the volunteer searchers some parameters for where they needed to look. Like, this isn't going to be in Reno.
Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 3 California's Ventura County is nearly twice the size of the state of Rhode Island, meaning there was a lot of rugged terrain still to search.

Speaker 3 Sherry's friends and people she'd never even met had been out on foot weekend after weekend, turning up nothing.

Speaker 3 They never gave up.

Speaker 3 On Saturday, June 1st, Four weeks after Sherry disappeared, her friend Kristen was again out with a search party.

Speaker 10 Parked the car and we walked along this area for about 45 minutes. And then I saw

Speaker 10 her sunglasses on the side.

Speaker 10 And

Speaker 10 I knew they were her sunglasses.

Speaker 3 At the side of the road was a steep drop.

Speaker 10 So a couple of the guys from our group went down into the ravine.

Speaker 3 The guys held up a pair of black shorts.

Speaker 10 And I just said, that's hers. You know,

Speaker 14 that's hers. Volunteers who had had been combing this area for weeks found Sherry Dolly's skeletal remains here.

Speaker 3 Detectives had already seen the bloodstains inside the rental car and had learned of the broken mirror that had been repaired. Soon, Sherry's autopsy report completed the picture.

Speaker 9 I believe that there was a hellacious fight in that car.

Speaker 3 Police believe before the car was out of the target parking lot, Sherry Daly figured out who was driving.

Speaker 3 That has to be a horrible moment of realization for Sherry. This person who's just arrested her isn't a police officer.
It's her husband's girlfriend.

Speaker 3 I can't imagine what was going through Sherry's mind at that moment.

Speaker 3 The detectives suspect Sherry somehow slipped her handcuffs to the front. And the fight was on.

Speaker 9 Sherry Dally

Speaker 9 bravely fought for her life and fought for her family.

Speaker 3 Sherry's hands are handcuffed, but she's grabbing on to Diana Hahn. She couldn't drive through town with Sherry fighting her from the backseat of the car.

Speaker 9 So Diana Hahn was forced at that time to subdue her.

Speaker 3 These detectives believe that by the time the Tiel Nissan exited that parking lot, the fight was over. And Sherry Dally was either dead or close to it.

Speaker 3 She was beaten and she was stabbed. She was stabbed.
Absolutely. There were some nick marks on ribs, which

Speaker 3 the medical examiner was able to conclude were caused by a knife.

Speaker 3 There were knife holes in the bits of clothing found with Sherry's remains.

Speaker 3 Now, those who loved Sherry could say goodbye. Mike came to that memorial and brought along his and Sherry's boys.

Speaker 8 He came in reasonably late,

Speaker 8 with a kid in each hand, and

Speaker 8 we just swaggered on in and sat down.

Speaker 3 Mike's swagger was apparent to detectives, who were also in attendance. Does he know he's under suspicion at that point? He has to.
I'm sure he does.

Speaker 3 They also knew it was unlikely the girl voted most shy in school had planned a brutal, complicated murder on her own.

Speaker 3 Detectives were convinced Mike was deeply involved in this.

Speaker 3 I believe that Mike thought he was Teflon-Coded.

Speaker 3 I think all the way through this, he thought he was just Teflon-Coded. This was going to slide right off him.

Speaker 3 In the same way that he sort of felt he never had to even hide his relationship with Diana Hahn. Exactly.
He didn't make us hunt for it. If you're committing a murder, you sort of have

Speaker 3 two ways to go, right? You can try to guarantee that you'll never be a suspect. which is pretty tough if you're the victim's husband.

Speaker 3 Or you can try to guarantee that there will never be a good enough case against you. Right.
And I think Michael believed that he was smarter than we were. Well, he was wrong about that.
Yes, he was.

Speaker 13 Coming up, a look inside Sherry's marriage, and the view is dark.

Speaker 6 He had this pillow of Diana Han on his bed. He wouldn't let her remove that from the bed.

Speaker 3 So every time she gets in that bed, there's three people in it.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

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Speaker 3 When Diana Hahn was released from jail, many people close to Sherry Dally were frustrated at the thought that somehow Diana had won.

Speaker 6 She wanted to get rid of Sherry so she could have Mike.

Speaker 3 Sherry's friends wanted Diana back behind bars. And after her release, produced some new witnesses.
They soon got their wish.

Speaker 17 A frowning Diana Han being transferred from the Ventura police station to the county jail. It's not the first time she's been in custody, but officials believe this time she'll stay there.

Speaker 3 Sherry's friends also hope to see Mike. heading to the county jail.

Speaker 6 He didn't love Diana Han.

Speaker 3 He didn't love her at all. You don't think so?

Speaker 6 No, he used her as a pawn.

Speaker 3 He wanted her to do his dirty work. Once it was done, he would pretty much be free and clear.
Mike still had that alibi. But remember what Detective Matt Harvill told Mike right from the start.

Speaker 3 They told him that we look closest to the home.

Speaker 3 When they did, They found that Sherry Dally's life was hell.

Speaker 3 Courtesy of her husband. There was no evidence of physical abuse

Speaker 3 by Mike against Sherry, but there was plenty of evidence of all other kinds of abuse. The picture that we put together was that it was an extremely emotional, abusive marriage.

Speaker 3 Sherry would get up at 2 in the morning to warm Mike's shower water. She was more of

Speaker 3 a role of servant than a wife. And her friend said he was mean.

Speaker 6 He used to tell her she was fat all the time.

Speaker 3 With other people around?

Speaker 6 Yes, he didn't care. He'd abuse her verbally that way.
He'd make her feel like she was worthless.

Speaker 3 Police learned Mike would get phone calls and then just disappear. sometimes for days.
Mike often told Sherry the call was from a guy named Alex.

Speaker 3 He would describe Alex as a guy he worked with at Von's. Yes.

Speaker 3 Sherry's friends say Alex occasionally called the house, even speaking with Sherry before she'd passed the phone to her husband.

Speaker 3 At one point, detectives learned Mike even moved in with his work buddy Alex.

Speaker 3 How long until she figured out that was actually the other woman impersonating a man?

Speaker 6 Maybe six months or more.

Speaker 6 When she found out she caught them together.

Speaker 3 Alex, it turned out, was Diana Hahn.

Speaker 3 And in that instant, I guess, realized the phone calls, the disappearances, the

Speaker 3 Alex that didn't really exist. That was all about Diana Hahn and her husband getting together.

Speaker 6 Yes.

Speaker 3 Friends told detectives that after about five months of living with Diana, Mike moved back home.

Speaker 3 And Sherry somehow felt the onus was on her

Speaker 3 to change herself to keep Mike.

Speaker 6 She wanted to lose weight. She changed the way she dressed.
She started wearing makeup. She had to make herself more attracted to Mike.

Speaker 3 And then there was the pillow.

Speaker 6 He had this pillow of Diana Hahn on his bed.

Speaker 3 A pillow with Diana's photo on it, on their bed. Sherry could not avoid seeing it.

Speaker 6 He wouldn't let her remove that from the bed and that was their bed, but that pillow had to stay on that bed.

Speaker 3 So every time she gets in that bed, there's three people in it.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 3 How incredibly insulting. It was.

Speaker 3 By her last Christmas, her friends say Sherry was pretty much emotionally depleted. And the psychological torture was not over.

Speaker 6 It was Christmas Day in the afternoon.

Speaker 3 And Sherry comes to your house and she's crying?

Speaker 6 She wasn't crying, she was just upset. We tried to get her to stay and she was really upset and sad.

Speaker 3 Sherry confided in her good friends that Mike had taken off to spend Christmas Day with Diana

Speaker 3 and he took the boys.

Speaker 3 This is way past the place where a lot of women would just say, if you're going to leave me on Christmas Day to go to your girlfriends,

Speaker 3 You shouldn't come back.

Speaker 6 Yeah, they would have, but Sherry didn't. She just didn't want to be without Mike.
Mike was her the one she wanted and that's who she was trying to keep.

Speaker 3 Sherry kept all of this from her mother.

Speaker 3 Carlene only learned of it after Sherry was murdered. I have trouble believing that you brought her up to say yes to everything.
Oh no.

Speaker 3 So what's going on?

Speaker 8 Hindsight, he's the puppeteer and she was the puppet.

Speaker 3 And Sherry was somehow convinced this is the price of a happy marriage. Exactly.

Speaker 8 This spunky little kid that would, you know, if there was a race to be run at the turkey trot for the Parks and Recreation Department, doggone, she was going to win. And she did.

Speaker 8 And then all of a sudden, she became a meek,

Speaker 8 controlled woman.

Speaker 8 Emotional domestic violence.

Speaker 3 That's what this was.

Speaker 8 That's what this was.

Speaker 3 Emotional abuse isn't proof of murder. Though there was plenty of circumstantial evidence, like Mike never joining in any of those searches when Sherry was missing.

Speaker 3 And we already know he wasn't waiting by the phone to hear from either Sherry or the cops.

Speaker 10 Mike actually called to tell me that he was just needed to get away and he was going down to Dana Point or somewhere to jet ski.

Speaker 3 Wait a second, wait a second. With his wife missing? Right.

Speaker 3 His indifference spoke volumes.

Speaker 3 And there was this:

Speaker 3 the best evidence

Speaker 3 I I believe against Michael is

Speaker 3 how did Dianah Hahn

Speaker 3 know

Speaker 3 when to be a target

Speaker 3 when Sherry was going to be there? That could only have come from Mike. That could only have come from Mike.

Speaker 4 Coming up, the trial begins.

Speaker 13 Was Diana Hahn a killer?

Speaker 3 Sherry's blood in the car she rented. Blonde hair that comes from a wig.
Correct. And she doesn't have an alibi.
Right.

Speaker 7 Not a a plausible one.

Speaker 3 And the defense?

Speaker 13 Just wait till you hear that one. When Dateline continues.

Speaker 3 Mike Dally was living life a free man, raising his and Sherry's boys. Diana Hawn was in the slammer, waiting for trial.
She and Mike spent a lot of time putting pen to paper.

Speaker 3 We both know that we are, as all centuries passed, destined to be together. Your man and cubs are waiting for you to come home.

Speaker 3 The theme of these letters would seem to be undying love.

Speaker 3 Prosecutor Lila Henke-Dobroth saw something else. Evidence of Mike's control of Diana.

Speaker 7 They were writing letters back and forth and back and forth, very supportive of one another, expressing their love and what they were going to do when Diana got out of jail and how they were going to be together.

Speaker 7 And you will be the mother of my children. And he constantly said things to feed her encouragement to be strong.
Be strong, Didite.

Speaker 3 And don't talk. And don't talk.
We'll walk out.

Speaker 7 We'll live happily ever after.

Speaker 3 Maybe Mike didn't know it, but you probably do. That wasn't going to happen.

Speaker 3 November 15th, 1996. Police had spent six months in a deep dive into Mike Dalley's life, and now they had enough for an arrest.

Speaker 6 I just happened to walk to the front door, and all these police cars, unmarked and regular ones, came and they just zoomed right in front of his house.

Speaker 3 Mike was arrested. for his wife's murder.

Speaker 6 They went in, brought him out in handcuffs. It looked like they pulled him out of bed.
But I mean, that was a happy day.

Speaker 3 It was happiness leavened with worry. Larry and Debbie weren't confident that Mike Dalley would be convicted.
They believed he was a murderer and they were afraid of him.

Speaker 3 So after years of living on that perfect little block near the ocean, The Englishes decided it was time to leave.

Speaker 3 I couldn't live there anymore. You've lived in Ventura for how long, Debbie?

Speaker 6 Well, I was born and raised there.

Speaker 3 And you were going to leave your hometown because

Speaker 3 Mike might get acquitted.

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 3 August 4th, 1997, Diana Hahn's murder trial began. And with that, it appeared Mike and Diana's undying love was no more.

Speaker 3 Diana's attorney pointed the finger at Mike and then rolled out for the jury a defense that maybe maybe they hadn't heard before. Maybe no one had heard it before.
Yes, Diana was blinded by love.

Speaker 3 And yes, she bought the items used in Sherry's abduction. But it wasn't Diana in that parking lot.
It wasn't Diana who killed Sherry. Diana could never kill anyone because

Speaker 3 she was a vegetarian.

Speaker 3 According to the prosecutor, the evidence told a different story of an obsessed woman who was into witchcraft and wanted to give her man a human sacrifice, his own wife.

Speaker 3 Sherry's blood in the car she rented. Blonde hair that comes from a wig.
Correct.

Speaker 3 You find the place where she bought a badge and handcuffs. And she doesn't have an alibi for the time of the abduction.
Right.

Speaker 7 Not a plausible one.

Speaker 3 Remember, Diana had said the injuries to her face came from a bicycle crash. At trial, her attorney acknowledged that was a lie, but he did not say what the real story was.

Speaker 3 The jury deliberated for nearly five days.

Speaker 24 We, the jury, in the above entitled action, find Diana J. Hahn guilty of willful, deliberate, premeditated murder.

Speaker 3 They convicted Diana of murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy. and sentenced her to life without parole.
Mike Dalley, Diana's lover and perhaps co-conspirator, went on trial a few months later.

Speaker 3 Proving that Michael Dalley is a terrible husband, a terrible man,

Speaker 3 terrible in almost every way I can think of. That's a lot easier than proving that he's guilty of conspiring with Diana Hahn for Sherry's murder.

Speaker 7 Yes, it is.

Speaker 3 Mike's attorney told the jury this murder was all Diana Hahn's doing. She wanted Mike, and that meant getting Sherry out of the way.

Speaker 3 Michael Dalley had set this up so that his fingerprints weren't going to be anywhere on this.

Speaker 3 He didn't do the abduction. He wasn't in the car, didn't rent the car, wasn't at the scene of wherever Sherry was killed, was not present when her body was dumped.

Speaker 3 He had gotten Diana Hahn to take all the risks.

Speaker 7 Well, his physical fingerprints weren't on it, but clearly he was

Speaker 7 conspiring with her than planning with her the whole time.

Speaker 3 The prosecutor said Mike's work alibi was one part of a very involved plan.

Speaker 7 He's at work. He's doing his job.
He's talking to his co-workers. Nothing unusual.

Speaker 3 And he's clearly not leaving for a period of time.

Speaker 7 Never left the store. Clearly there.

Speaker 3 If the plan was for Mike to be at work while the kidnapping was done by a woman, well, that worked for a while. Then the kidnapping galvanized the community.

Speaker 2 First, the searchers.

Speaker 21 We're looking at maybe a 40-50 mile radius.

Speaker 3 And then a different part of the community.

Speaker 7 People came forward that maybe you wouldn't think necessarily would want to become involved.

Speaker 3 Street criminals made it clear that if Mike had a whole second life with Diana Hahn, He had a third life as one of them. He did drugs.
He sold drugs. And he hired prostitutes.

Speaker 3 When you're such a terrible guy that you treat your drug dealer and your prostitutes badly, so badly that they are willing to talk to the cops about you,

Speaker 3 that's some indication of what kind of person you are. Exactly.
There was one woman in particular who spoke of an evening she spent with Mike while Sherry was still missing.

Speaker 3 Michael Dowley drives to the location overlooking the drop, the ravine where her body is. And he's there with a prostitute and some cocaine he bought.

Speaker 7 That's correct.

Speaker 3 Of course, that woman had no idea Sherry's body was so close by.

Speaker 3 The prosecutor says, Mike Dalley had to know. This is him getting some kind of thrill out of having sex and doing drugs right almost on top of his wife's body.

Speaker 7 In your face, Sherry Dally.

Speaker 7 I know where you are. I did it.
And here I am.

Speaker 3 And there was a witness named Sally, someone Mike had worked with years earlier. Mike had started seeing Sally on the side, just like Diana Hahn.

Speaker 3 What's more, Sally testified, Mike had asked her to kill Sherry.

Speaker 7 And she said, Michael Dally had

Speaker 7 tried to co-opt me into abducting and murdering his wife. when we were boyfriend girlfriend and I broke off the relationship.

Speaker 3 So she's essentially saying I was Diana Hahn before Diana Hahn was Diana Hahn.

Speaker 7 Exactly.

Speaker 7 She gave us very specific, detailed facts about what Michael Dalley wanted to have done to his wife, how he wanted to have her tortured, he wanted her to feel pain, he wanted her to be stabbed, he wanted her tossed over a cliff so they couldn't find the body, because if you can't find a body, you can't be prosecuted.

Speaker 3 How many of those things that Sally described ended up happening to Sherry Dalley?

Speaker 7 Every single one of them.

Speaker 3 If the prosecutor was correct, Mike Dally was a diabolical puppet master, someone who'd found the perfect marionette in Diana Hahn.

Speaker 3 We wondered what Diana would have to say about that. Hello, Diana.
Yeah. It's Josh Mankowitz from Dateline.
Hi.

Speaker 3 So, we asked her.

Speaker 15 Coming up.

Speaker 3 Okay, so wait a minute. You rented the car, you saw the blood in it, but you have no idea how the blood got there.

Speaker 13 Diana speaks out.

Speaker 11 Trusting him and believing in him, that was a big mistake.

Speaker 4 And the verdict for Mike, what would that be?

Speaker 4 This is Global Tele Link.

Speaker 11 You have a prepaid call from Diana Hawk, an inmate at the Central California Women's Facility.

Speaker 3 For more than 20 years, Diana Hahn has been in prison for the murder of Sherry Daley. Over all of that time, she has maintained her innocence.

Speaker 3 Why'd you kill Sherry Daley? I didn't. You didn't?

Speaker 3 Diana Hahn told me she could never kill, and she wouldn't have done it for her boyfriend, Mike.

Speaker 3 Did Michael Dalley ever ask you to kill his wife? Yeah, he did, and I told him no.

Speaker 3 I said, you know, no.

Speaker 3 Because thou shalt not kill. And did you ever tell Sherry Daly? Did you ever think about that?

Speaker 11 No, because

Speaker 11 he had told me what a bad person she was and how she was really bad to him and bad to the kids.

Speaker 3 Did you tell the police?

Speaker 3 I don't remember. Well, they remember, and you did not.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 She admitted she rented the Nissan Altima and bought props to play cop,

Speaker 3 but said it was all for a practical joke, not for a murder. At least, that's what she says Mike told her.
Who is that in the wig and the rental car? Who is it that pretended to arrest Jerry Dally?

Speaker 3 I don't know.

Speaker 3 She says Mike or some unnamed co-conspirator picked up the rental car the night before the murder from outside her house. and then returned it late the next day.

Speaker 3 That's when Diana says she saw the stains inside, which she tried to clean up.

Speaker 3 Okay, so wait a minute. So

Speaker 3 you rented the car, you saw the blood in it, you cleaned the blood out of it, but you have no idea how the blood got there.

Speaker 3 I didn't know what it was that was there, because it was brown. But when I started cleaning it, it turned red.
She did not mention that to detectives at the time.

Speaker 3 What she did talk about was the supportive, loving relationship she had with Mike. He's always been good to me.

Speaker 3 Today, Diana Hawn seems to feel a little differently. You feel you should be held responsible for anything here? For trusting him and believing in him, that was a big mistake.

Speaker 3 So felony bad judgment, but not murder. And having an affair,

Speaker 3 that was a big mistake. Now, she says, she thinks Mike was setting her up the whole time.
You think it was Michael's plan to have you take the fall for this?

Speaker 3 After hearing what his former girlfriend had said,

Speaker 3 yeah.

Speaker 3 The former girlfriend who testified at Mike Dally's trial. After the jury heard from that ex-girlfriend and everyone else who testified against Mike, they took four days to deliberate.

Speaker 3 When they finally came back, Sherry's mother, Carlene, was in court.

Speaker 8 And it was,

Speaker 8 hold your breath, you know, and then they came in with the guilty verdicts that every time a verdict was read, the people in the hallway that were waiting would cheer.

Speaker 3 The prosecution wanted Mike sentenced to death, trying to save his own life. He took the stand in the penalty phase to say he had nothing to do with his wife's murder.

Speaker 7 He came across as a sociopath, you know, not caring, a liar.

Speaker 3 A murderer.

Speaker 7 Yeah, a murderer. Yeah.

Speaker 7 Cold-blooded murderer. With no remorse, no regret.

Speaker 3 The jury could not agree on death, so Mike Dalley was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole.

Speaker 3 Even sitting in jail, Mike continued to point the finger at Diana in this interview with TV station KEYT.

Speaker 3 There's only one person

Speaker 3 that knows what happened to Sherry. Who? And that is Diana.

Speaker 7 Can you describe Sherry and Diana's relationship?

Speaker 7 Not good.

Speaker 7 People hated each other. They both wanted me.

Speaker 3 That hate and that desire seem born out of Mike's manipulation. It's as if he had a personal quest to see which of the women in his life he could treat worse.

Speaker 3 In the years since, Carlene has cried and prayed over what happened to her only daughter. And somehow, she's come to forgive Diana Han.

Speaker 3 She sees Diana as a victim of Mike's as well.

Speaker 3 Even though it's Diana who abducts your daughter and who kills her in that car and who pretends to be a police officer and puts handcuffs on her and dumps her body. Yes.

Speaker 3 You've forgiven her.

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 3 Your forgiveness does not extend to Diana Hahn being let out of prison.

Speaker 8 No.

Speaker 8 She needs to stay there for the rest of her life and suffer the consequences.

Speaker 8 Period.

Speaker 8 Michael, I will never forgive.

Speaker 3 And now, in an extra cruel twist of fate, Sherry and Mike's sons, Devin and Max, who were raised by Mike's parents, do not want to be a part of Carlene's life.

Speaker 3 Devin and Max did not respond to our request. for interviews.
There aren't too many punishments worse than cutting a grandmother off from her grandchildren. Yeah.

Speaker 8 Or burying your daughter.

Speaker 3 And you've done both. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Carlene still goes to the spot where Sherry was found.

Speaker 8 There are so many new things.

Speaker 3 So many years later, there's still a memorial. Carlene wishes her daughter had told her more about what was really happening inside the Dally home.

Speaker 8 I've learned a lot about the difference between emotional and physical domestic violence.

Speaker 3 Doesn't always leave bruises, you can see. Nope.

Speaker 3 Carlene hopes telling her daughter's story will help someone else who's trapped in an emotionally abusive relationship to recognize that danger and to do what Sherry Dally could not do:

Speaker 3 get out alive.

Speaker 13 That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again Thursday at 10 9 Central.
And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News.

Speaker 4 I'm Lester Holt for all of us at NBC News.

Speaker 13 Good night.

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