08x04 - Sign Here

[bunniefuu]

Narrator: a young woman

Walked out of this department store,

Got into a rental car,

And was never seen again.

The signature on the rental car agreement was a forgery.

Forensic scientists hope that either the handwriting

Or the ink from the pen would solve the mystery.

Nestled in the hills miles northwest of los angeles

Lies ventura, california.

May , , started like most other days

For -year-old sharri dally

As she dropped her two children off at school.

But on this morning, she went shopping before work.

Sharri was expected home by noon.

But she never returned.

Sharri's van was found

In the parking lot of a local store.

It was unlocked

With her purse and items from the store still inside.

At this point, we're still trying to figure out

Where did she go?

Thinking that she might be with a relative

Or there might be --

She might have gone off with some friends for some reason.

We didn't know.

Narrator: detectives asked the store employees

If they had seen anything suspicious.

A security guard recalled seeing sharri in the store

Earlier that morning.

And she stopped and spoke briefly with a friend of hers

Who was head of security

At the department store at that time.

Then she went about her business and did some shopping.

Checked out.

She walked out of the department store

And walked over towards her van.

Narrator: the surveillance camera

Shows that sharri left the store at : a.m.

I mean, sharri's the backbone of our family,

And now she's missing.

Today we're gonna try and do

The base of ventura river bottom.

Narrator: friends and family passed out flyers

Throughout the community.

Television and radio reports asked citizens for information.

One volunteer says today reminds him of the day

They found another ventura county missing woman...

Narrator: many knew sharri dally and her husband, michael,

Since they both grew up in the area.

Karlyne: he was the first real boyfriend she ever had.

She was just so much in love with him

That she could see nothing else.

I mean, the sun rose and set in mike.

Narrator: sharri and mike

Had been married for years and had two small children.

Mike worked as a manager at a grocery store.

A background check

Revealed the couple had a history of marital problems.

We know that he represented to her

That he wanted to make a go of the marriage,

Uh, but his actions did not, uh,

Coincide with his expressed reason

For going back to the home.

Narrator: why?

Friends said michael had a lover,

A woman he worked with who was a former model, diana haun.

He did not keep it a secret.

Um, his co-workers knew about it,

Family members knew about it,

And sharri dally actually learned about it as well.

Narrator: the day after sharri's disappearance,

Investigators decided to question diana haun at her home.

Frawley: she answered the door, uh, in a skimpy outfit --

Obviously, um, been in bed --

And behind her was michael dally...

Just wearing a pair of shorts.

You know, this isn't the best time.

Narrator: naturally, police were suspicious.

I wouldn't expect a concerned husband

To be at his girlfriend's house while his wife is gone,

Has disappeared.

Narrator: soon a witness came forward

Claiming to have seen sharri dally in the parking lot,

And said she appeared to be in some distress.

Narrator: just a few days

After -year-old sharri dally disappeared,

An eyewitness told police

She saw sharri in the store parking lot,

And it looked as if she was being arrested.

She was seen by eyewitnesses standing at her van door,

Opening it...

And a woman approached her.

Sharri turned around, spoke with her briefly,

Just exchanged some words very briefly,

Whereupon sharri turned around.

The woman placed handcuffs on sharri,

Walked her over to the car,

Put her into the back of the car as a police officer would.

The person was described as, um, female wearing a, uh,

Tan pantsuit, blond hair, and sunglasses.

Narrator: this didn't resemble diana haun,

Who was michael dally's lover.

Haun was a brunette, and she didn't own a car

Like the getaway vehicle.

Burt: the description was a teal-colored car.

That, to me, wasn't a common car color

To be seen on the road.

So my attitude was, "it's gotta be a rental."

Narrator: detective burt and his partner

Visited all of the local car rental agencies in the area.

Burt: skip was asking the lady behind the counter,

"Did michael dally, rent a car from you folks?"

And so she gets on the computer,

And nothing comes up for michael dally.

And he asks, "well, what about a diana haun?"

And the lady goes through the computer,

And lo and behold she says,

"Yeah, diana haun rented a car on the th -- may th."

Narrator: may th was the day before sharri disappeared.

We looked at each other, and it was like, "ooooh!"

Narrator: diana haun denied renting the car,

Claiming the signature on the rental agreement wasn't hers.

Furthermore, no one at the car agency

Could positively identify haun

As the person who rented the car.

The rental car had recently been returned.

Burt: we looked in.

You could just look inside the back windows,

And you could see on the rear floorboard

A brownish color in the carpeting.

Narrator: forensic scientists performed tests

On those brownish stains in the back seat.

A phenolphthalein test was positive.

It's a chemical reagent that turns red

When it comes into contact

With the hemoglobin content of blood.

Schaeffer: it appeared as though

This was an area in which, um, blood had pooled or puddled.

An individual sitting in the passenger back seat

Had been leaning forward and bleeding,

Producing blood running and dripping

Into this area on the floor.

Narrator: investigators then used luminol to look for blood

That may have been cleaned from the car and trunk.

Burt: what we were told by the crime lab

Is that when they luminoled the inside of that car,

It lit up like a candle,

Meaning there was blood everywhere --

On the door panels, up into the headliner, everywhere.

Narrator: with blood samples from sharri's parents,

Forensic scientists concluded

That the blood inside the rental car

Was that of sharri dally.

I knew something seriously was wrong

Because I knew she would never leave her children.

I mean, she would never, ever

Have left her children on her own free will.

Narrator: and scientists found something else.

In the back seat of the car were five long pieces

Of what looked like human hair.

Schaeffer: when I examined them microscopically,

I found out they weren't hairs at all.

Narrator: there were unusual arrowhead-shaped designs

On the shafts.

An infrared spectrometer

Identified the molecular structure of the strand

Not as a hair...

But a fiber -- the type used to make wigs.

Was it possible that the woman who abducted sharri dally

Was either in disguise or wasn't a woman at all?

Narrator: days after sharri dally's disappearance

From a store parking lot,

Search volunteers found some bones off of a remote road

Just three miles from where sharri was abducted.

They called about : that saturday evening.

"I want to tell you before it hits the : news,

"Because it's gonna hit the news

That we have found the remains of a woman."

And he said, "kristen" -- was sharri's friend --

"Kristen has positively identified the clothes

As being sharri's."

Narrator: sharri dally's dental records

Were already on hand for identification purposes.

Bowers: the correlation between the dental x-rays,

I felt at the time,

Was sufficient enough to tell the investigators

That even without me taking x-rays of the human remains

That the, uh, the remains were sharri dally.

Narrator: and forensic scientists

Were also able to determine the cause of death.

Henke-dobroth: forensics experts at the crime lab

Were able to map out the different s*ab wounds,

The different tears in sharri's shirt,

Indicating that there were multiple s*ab wounds.

More, in fact, than were located in the bones.

Narrator: sharri suffered a devastating attack.

There was, in the right jaw area,

A piece of metal that was embedded in the bone

That was removed by one of the forensics experts

At our crime lab, jim roberts.

Narrator: roberts analyzed the metal fragment

Using an electron microscope,

Which produced a -dimensional image

And a picture he could identify.

After some study on the microscopes,

We became convinced

That it was part of a serrated knife blade,

Actually the tip of one of the teeth of the serrations.

Narrator: sharri's husband, michael,

Was one of the two suspects in the m*rder.

He said he was at work at the time of her abduction.

Burt: everything pointed to diana,

And we knew mike was at work.

So he has the alibi of not being the hatchet man.

Narrator: michael's mistress, diana haun,

Was the other suspect.

The car used in sharri dally's abduction

Was rented by someone who signed diana haun's name.

Haun denied it was her signature

And insisted someone else had rented the car

And forged her name.

Jack harris is a forensic document examiner

Who specializes in handwriting analysis.

So, if anyone is gonna forge your name,

They're gonna try and make it look like

The signature on the driver's license,

And yet this had a very visible difference.

Narrator: the capital letters on the rental car agreement

Were noticeably different

Than diana haun's known signature sample,

And the writing also had a different slant.

It's a common way of --

The first step in disguising a signature oftentimes.

The questioned signature on the budget rental agreement

Had the little letters,

And then it went straight out to the right.

Narrator: harris then compared

The signature on the car rental agreement

To signatures diana haun signed years earlier.

And in those signatures harris found a surprise.

Diana haun's signatures of a decade earlier

Were strikingly similar

To the signature on the rental car agreement.

Harris: sure enough,

Every so often she went straight out to the right

And, uh, didn't curl back again.

I concluded that, uh, in my best judgment,

She signed the rental agreement and initialed the agreement.

Narrator: harris believes

That in signing the rental car agreement,

Haun thought she was creating a forgery,

But she was unknowingly using her writing style

That she had used years earlier.

And investigators found more forensic evidence.

Henke-dobroth: a lady that worked at a wig store in oxnard

Recognized diana haun

As a person who had purchased a wig from her

Just shortly before sharri dally's abduction.

Narrator: haun had paid for the items with a check.

Detectives searched haun's records and found other checks

Written shortly before sharri's disappearance.

The checks were interestingly written in green ink.

Not too many people carry a green-ink pen in their purse.

When diana haun was arrested,

She -- she was found -- in her purse -- a green-ink pen.

Narrator: detectives sent the checks and the green pen

To a forensic document examiner

Who specialized in ink analysis.

Rile: the first tests that I perform

Are nondestructive in nature,

And they're intended to evaluate the ink formulations --

Not the pen, but the ink formulations.

Narrator: the most common technique in ink comparison

Is to use a video spectral comparator.

Rile: what this instrument does is evaluate inks

In the ultraviolet, invisible,

And infrared portion of the spectrum.

The theory is if it's the same ink formulation,

It should react the same under all conditions examined.

Narrator: infrared lighting

Can identify if two ink samples are the same or different.

The spectral comparator

Showed that the ink on the checks

Was from the same ink batch

As the pen in diana haun's purse.

And diana haun's checkbook

Revealed she had made some other unusual purchases.

Henke-dobroth: based upon

Who those checks had been written to,

The detectives followed up,

Went to another department store and did, in fact,

Learn that diana haun had purchased, uh, an ax,

Lighter fluid, matches, sunglasses --

Various items that would have been used during the abduction.

Narrator: diana haun was arrested

And charged with sharri dally's m*rder.

The question now...

Was michael dally involved?

Henke-dobroth: narcissistic, egotistical sociopath.

Total lack of conscience.

Despicable, disgusting human being.

Narrator: witnesses told police

They saw a blonde woman abduct sharri dally

From a department store parking lot.

The prime suspect, diana haun, was a brunette.

In a search of her home, investigators found evidence

That haun was a master of disguises.

Frawley: when we ex*cuted a search warrant in her room,

We found all kinds of photographs

Showing her in different getups and wigs and makeup,

Um, as she posed for a modeling agency.

We asked diana haun's mother

If she could pick out her daughter in these photographs,

And her mother started shaking her head no,

That this wasn't her daughter.

Narrator: and haun's telephone record

Showed something curious.

Diana and michael spoke by telephone numerous times

Immediately before and after the abduction.

Based on the telephone calls and the forensic evidence,

Prosecutors say diana haun rented the car

Under her own name

Because rental agencies require a valid driver's license.

To conceal her identity,

Haun attempted to forge her own signature,

A forgery detected by the forensic experts.

Haun followed sharri dally

To the department store parking lot.

Haun was wearing a blond wig and sunglasses

To mask her identity.

When sharri left the store,

Haun may have posed as a member of law enforcement

Because witnesses say sharri was handcuffed

And placed into the back seat.

At some point, sharri inevitably recognized diana,

And knew her husband and his mistress

Were going to k*ll her.

The forensic evidence shows that diana k*lled sharri

In the back seat of the rental car,

Threw her body down the deserted ravine,

Put the m*rder weapons in the trunk,

And drove to ventura marina.

There she changed out of her bloody clothes

And called michael from the pay phone

To say the m*rder was done.

From there, haun drove to a car wash

And attempted to clean the blood from the back seat and trunk,

But she was unsuccessful.

Luminol, phenolphthalein, and dna testing

Confirmed that sharri dally was brutally att*cked

In haun's rental car.

The five wig fibers confirmed the disguise.

Forensic handwriting and ink analysis

Also revealed that it was haun's signature

On checks used to purchase the wig and the ax.

You have to be maniacal, you have to be evil,

You have to have something inherently vicious inside of you

To be able to do what she did to sharri dally

And to leave those two young boys without their mother.

Narrator: the telephone calls

Haun placed to michael dally before and after the m*rder

Was evidence of his complicity.

Burt: the night that we arrested michael,

We did a search warrant on his home,

And on the bed, where he and his wife had slept,

Was a full-length pillow

That you can get probably through some company

Where you can actually take somebody's photograph

And have it actually printed on this pillow.

Well, guess whose face was on the pillow?

Diana haun's.

And that pillow was there while sharri was still alive.

I still get hurt for the betrayal.

Um, I think he betrayed us,

And he betrayed sharri in the worst possible way.

And the fact that she loved him,

And he used that love.

"We, the jury in the above entitled action,

Find michael anthony dally guilty..."

[ Cheering ]

Narrator: diana haun and michael dally

Were both convicted of first-degree m*rder

And sentenced to life in prison.

Scott: church life and upbringing

Tells me that I should be able to forgive him.

Unfortunately, god is gonna have to forgive me

For the fact that

I will never be able to offer that forgiveness to him.

Can you describe sharri and diana's relationship?

Not good.

They both hated each other.

They both wanted me.

Karlyne: big fat ego.

And he sat there and said,

"I can't help it if two women love me.

That's not my fault that two women love me."

Um, it -- and I think it was an ego trip.

I think he knew exactly what he was doing

Throughout this whole case.

It was just unfort-- unfortunate for him that he was...

Stupid.

One thing that I'll never forget about this case

Is ken guess saying...

"When sharri and michael got married,

"I walked sharri down the aisle,

"And I left her there and gave my daughter to this man.

And this was the man that k*lled my daughter."

And that's something that I'll always remember him saying,

And I'm sure it's something that he will never forget.

Though the forensics in this case was very vital.

The handwriting analysis

On the checks that diana haun wrote to purchase the items

And the implements that she used to m*rder sharri,

That was key.

If we hadn't found sharri dally's blood in the car

That diana haun had rented,

Um, I don't see how we would have solved the case.