00:00:04
[Music]
00:00:06
a young woman walked out of this
00:00:08
department store got into a rental car
00:00:11
and was never seen again
00:00:14
the signature on the rental car
00:00:16
agreement was a forgery
00:00:18
forensic scientists hoped that either
00:00:21
the handwriting or the ink from the pen
00:00:24
would solve the mystery
00:00:26
[Music]
00:00:35
[Music]
00:00:39
[Applause]
00:00:41
[Music]
00:00:55
nestled in the hills 60 miles northwest
00:00:57
of los angeles lies ventura california
00:01:02
[Music]
00:01:03
may 6 1996 started like most other days
00:01:07
for 30 year old sherry dally as she
00:01:09
dropped her two children off at school
00:01:12
but on this morning she went shopping
00:01:15
before work
00:01:16
[Music]
00:01:18
sherry was expected home by noon
00:01:20
but she never returned
00:01:23
911 dispatch my wife brought my wife
00:01:27
8 30 this morning
00:01:28
and she's been missing
00:01:30
what is her first name
00:01:32
sherry dallas
00:01:35
sherry's van was found in the parking
00:01:38
lot of a local store
00:01:40
it was unlocked with her purse and items
00:01:43
from the store still inside
00:01:46
at this point we're still trying to
00:01:48
figure out where did she go
00:01:50
thinking that she might be with a
00:01:51
relative or
00:01:53
there might be
00:01:54
she might have gone off with some
00:01:55
friends for some reason we didn't know
00:01:58
detectives asked the store employees if
00:02:01
they had seen anything suspicious
00:02:06
a security guard recalled seeing sherry
00:02:08
in the store earlier that morning
00:02:11
she stopped and spoke briefly with a
00:02:13
friend of hers who was head of security
00:02:15
of the department store at that time
00:02:17
[Music]
00:02:19
then she went about her business and did
00:02:20
some shopping
00:02:22
checked out she walked out of the the
00:02:25
department store
00:02:27
and walked over towards her van the
00:02:29
surveillance camera shows that cherry
00:02:31
left the store at 9 22 a.m
00:02:35
i mean sherry's the backbone of our
00:02:36
family and now she's missing today we're
00:02:38
going to try and do the base of ventura
00:02:40
river bottom friends and family passed
00:02:43
out flyers throughout the community
00:02:45
[Music]
00:02:46
television and radio reports asked
00:02:48
citizens for information one volunteer
00:02:51
says today reminds him of the day they
00:02:52
found another ventura county missing
00:02:54
woman
00:02:55
many knew sherry dally and her husband
00:02:58
michael since they both grew up in the
00:03:00
area he was the
00:03:02
first real boyfriend she ever had
00:03:04
she was just so much in love with him
00:03:07
that she
00:03:08
could see nothing else i mean the sun
00:03:10
rose and said in mike
00:03:14
sherry and mike had been married for 12
00:03:16
years and had two small children
00:03:19
mike worked as a manager at a grocery
00:03:21
store
00:03:24
a background check revealed the couple
00:03:26
had a history of marital problems
00:03:29
we know that he represented to her that
00:03:30
he wanted to make a go of the marriage
00:03:34
but
00:03:35
his actions did not
00:03:38
coincide with his expressed reason for
00:03:41
going back to the home
00:03:43
why
00:03:44
friends said michael had a lover a woman
00:03:46
he worked with who was a former model
00:03:48
diana hahn
00:03:50
he did not keep it a secret
00:03:53
his co-workers knew about it family
00:03:55
members knew about it and of course
00:03:58
sherry dally actually learned about it
00:04:00
as well
00:04:03
the day after sherry's disappearance
00:04:05
investigators decided to question diana
00:04:08
hahn at her home
00:04:10
she answered the door
00:04:11
in a skimpy outfit obviously obviously
00:04:13
been in bed and
00:04:15
behind her
00:04:17
was michael dally
00:04:19
just wearing a pair of shorts
00:04:24
naturally police were suspicious
00:04:29
i wouldn't expect a concerned husband
00:04:32
to be at his girlfriend's house
00:04:35
while his wife is gone has disappeared
00:04:39
soon a witness came forward claiming to
00:04:42
have seen sherry dally in the parking
00:04:44
lot and said she appeared to be in some
00:04:47
distress
00:04:52
just a few days after 30 year old sherry
00:04:55
dally disappeared an eyewitness told
00:04:57
police she saw sherry in the store
00:05:00
parking lot and it looked as if she was
00:05:02
being
00:05:03
arrested
00:05:04
she was seen by eyewitnesses
00:05:07
standing at her van door opening it
00:05:12
and a woman approached her
00:05:15
sherry turned around spoke with her
00:05:17
briefly just exchanged some words
00:05:19
very briefly
00:05:21
whereupon sherry turned around the woman
00:05:24
placed handcuffs on sherry
00:05:26
walked her over to the car
00:05:29
put her into the back of the car as a
00:05:31
police officer would
00:05:33
the person was described
00:05:36
as a
00:05:38
female wearing a
00:05:39
tan pantsuit
00:05:42
blonde hair
00:05:43
and sunglasses
00:05:45
this didn't resemble diana han who was
00:05:48
michael dally's lover
00:05:49
han was a brunette and she didn't own a
00:05:52
car like the getaway vehicle
00:05:56
the description was a teal colored car
00:05:59
that
00:06:00
to me
00:06:01
wasn't a common car color to be seen on
00:06:04
the road
00:06:06
so
00:06:07
my attitude was it's got to be a rental
00:06:10
detective burt and his partner visited
00:06:12
all of the local car rental agencies in
00:06:15
the area skip was asking the lady behind
00:06:17
the counter did michael dally uh rent a
00:06:19
car from you folks and so she gets on
00:06:21
the computer and nothing comes up from
00:06:23
michael dally
00:06:25
and he asks well what about a diana han
00:06:28
and lady goes to the computer and lo and
00:06:30
behold she says yeah diana hahn rented a
00:06:32
car on the 5th may 5th
00:06:35
may 5th was the day before sherry
00:06:37
disappeared
00:06:39
we looked at each other and it was like
00:06:42
diana hon denied renting the car
00:06:45
claiming the signature on the rental
00:06:47
agreement wasn't hers
00:06:49
furthermore no one at the car agency
00:06:52
could positively identify han as the
00:06:54
person who rented the car
00:06:57
the rental car had recently been
00:06:59
returned
00:07:00
we looked in you could just look inside
00:07:02
the back windows and you could see on
00:07:05
the rear floorboard a brownish color in
00:07:07
the carpeting
00:07:08
forensic scientists performed tests on
00:07:11
those brownish stains in the back seat a
00:07:14
phenolphthalein test was positive it's a
00:07:17
chemical reagent that turns red when it
00:07:19
comes into contact with the hemoglobin
00:07:22
content of blood
00:07:24
it appeared as though this was an area
00:07:26
in which
00:07:27
blood had pooled or puddled
00:07:29
an individual sitting in the passenger
00:07:32
back seat had been leaning forward and
00:07:36
bleeding producing blood
00:07:38
running and dripping into this area on
00:07:40
the floor
00:07:42
investigators then used luminol to look
00:07:44
for blood that may have been cleaned
00:07:46
from the car and trunk
00:07:48
what we were told by the crime lab is
00:07:50
that when they luminal the inside of
00:07:51
that car it lit up like a candle
00:07:54
i mean there was blood everywhere on the
00:07:55
door panels up in the headliner
00:07:57
everywhere
00:07:59
with blood samples from sherry's parents
00:08:02
forensic scientists concluded that the
00:08:05
blood inside the rental car
00:08:08
was that of sherry dally
00:08:10
i knew something seriously was wrong
00:08:12
because i knew she would never leave her
00:08:14
children
00:08:15
i mean she would never
00:08:16
ever have left her children on her own
00:08:18
free will
00:08:20
and scientists found something else
00:08:23
in the back seat of the car were five
00:08:26
long pieces of what looked like human
00:08:29
hair
00:08:30
when i examined them microscopically i
00:08:32
found that they weren't hairs at all
00:08:36
there were unusual arrow head shaped
00:08:38
designs on the shafts
00:08:41
an infrared spectrometer identified the
00:08:43
molecular structure of the strand not as
00:08:46
a hair
00:08:48
but a fiber
00:08:49
the type used to make wigs
00:08:54
was it possible
00:08:55
that the woman who abducted sherry dally
00:08:58
was either in disguise
00:09:00
or wasn't a woman at all
00:09:04
[Music]
00:09:08
25 days after sherry dally's
00:09:10
disappearance from a store parking lot
00:09:13
search volunteers found some bones off
00:09:16
of a remote road
00:09:18
just three miles from where sherry was
00:09:20
abducted they called about 5 30 that
00:09:23
saturday evening
00:09:25
i want to tell you before it hits the
00:09:27
six o'clock news because it's going to
00:09:28
hit the news that we have found
00:09:30
the remains
00:09:32
of
00:09:33
a woman
00:09:34
and he said kristen is with sherry's
00:09:36
friends kristen has positively
00:09:38
identified the clothes
00:09:40
as being sherry's
00:09:42
sherry dally's dental records were
00:09:44
already on hand for identification
00:09:46
purposes the correlation between the
00:09:48
dental x-rays i felt at the time
00:09:51
sufficient enough to tell the
00:09:53
investigators that even without me
00:09:55
taking x-rays of the
00:09:56
human remains at the
00:09:58
other remains were of sherry dally
00:10:02
and forensic scientists were also able
00:10:05
to determine
00:10:06
the cause of death
00:10:09
forensics experts at the crime lab were
00:10:12
able to map out the different stab
00:10:15
wounds different tears in sherry's shirt
00:10:18
indicating that there were multiple stab
00:10:20
wounds
00:10:21
more in fact than were located in the
00:10:24
bones
00:10:25
sherry suffered
00:10:26
a devastating attack
00:10:30
there was in the right jaw area
00:10:33
a piece of metal
00:10:36
that was embedded in the bone that was
00:10:38
removed by one of the forensics experts
00:10:41
at our crime lab jim roberts
00:10:43
roberts analyzed the metal fragment
00:10:45
using an electron microscope which
00:10:47
produced a three-dimensional image and a
00:10:50
picture he could identify
00:10:53
after some study on the microscopes we
00:10:55
became convinced that it was
00:10:57
part of a serrated knife blade actually
00:11:00
the tip of one of the teeth of the
00:11:01
serrations
00:11:02
sherry's husband michael was one of the
00:11:04
two suspects in the murder he said he
00:11:07
was at work at the time of her abduction
00:11:11
everything pointed to diana and we knew
00:11:13
mike was at work so he has the alibi of
00:11:15
not being the hatchet man
00:11:18
michael's mistress diana hahn
00:11:20
was the other suspect
00:11:23
the car used in cherry dally's abduction
00:11:25
was rented by someone who signed diana
00:11:28
hahn's name
00:11:31
han denied it was her signature and
00:11:34
insisted someone else had rented the car
00:11:36
and forged her name
00:11:39
jack harris is a forensic document
00:11:41
examiner who specializes in handwriting
00:11:43
analysis
00:11:45
so if anyone is going to forge your name
00:11:47
they're going to try to make it look
00:11:48
like
00:11:49
the signature on the driver's license
00:11:51
and yet this had a very
00:11:53
visible difference
00:11:55
the capital letters on the rental car
00:11:57
agreement were noticeably different than
00:12:00
diana hahn's known signature sample and
00:12:03
the writing also had a different slant
00:12:06
it's a common way of
00:12:08
first step in in disguising a signature
00:12:10
often times
00:12:12
the question signature on the budget
00:12:14
rental agreement
00:12:15
had the little letters and then it went
00:12:17
straight out to the right
00:12:20
harris then compared the signature on
00:12:22
the car rental agreement to signatures
00:12:24
diana hans signed 10 years earlier
00:12:28
and in those signatures
00:12:30
harris found a surprise
00:12:33
diana hahn's signatures of a decade
00:12:36
earlier were strikingly similar to the
00:12:39
signature on the rental car agreement
00:12:42
sure enough every so often she went
00:12:44
straight out to the right and didn't
00:12:46
curl back again
00:12:48
i concluded that
00:12:50
in my best judgment she signed the
00:12:52
rental agreement and initialed
00:12:54
the agreement
00:12:56
harris believes that in signing the
00:12:59
rental car agreement han thought she was
00:13:01
creating a forgery
00:13:03
but she was unknowingly using her
00:13:06
writing style that she had used years
00:13:09
earlier
00:13:11
and investigators found
00:13:13
more forensic evidence
00:13:15
a lady that worked at a wig store in
00:13:17
oxnard recognized diana hahn as a person
00:13:20
who had purchased a wig from her
00:13:23
just shortly before sherry dally's
00:13:24
abduction
00:13:26
han had paid for the items with a check
00:13:29
detectives searched tom's records and
00:13:32
found other checks written shortly
00:13:34
before sherry's disappearance
00:13:37
the checks were interestingly written in
00:13:39
green ink
00:13:40
not too many people carry a green ink
00:13:43
pen in their purse
00:13:46
when diana hahn was arrested she she was
00:13:48
found in her purse a green ink pen
00:13:52
detectives sent the checks and the green
00:13:55
pen to a forensic document examiner who
00:13:57
specialized in ink analysis
00:14:00
first tests that i perform are
00:14:02
non-destructive in nature and they're
00:14:03
intended to evaluate the ink
00:14:06
formulations not the pen but the ink
00:14:07
formulations
00:14:09
the most common technique in ink
00:14:12
comparison is to use a video spectral
00:14:14
comparator
00:14:16
what this instrument does is evaluate
00:14:18
inks in the ultraviolet visible and
00:14:20
infrared portion of the spectra the
00:14:22
theory is if it's the same ink
00:14:24
formulation it should react the same
00:14:26
under all conditions examined
00:14:28
infrared lighting can identify if two
00:14:32
ink samples are the same or different
00:14:37
the spectral comparator showed that the
00:14:40
ink on the checks was from the same ink
00:14:43
batch as the pen in diana hahn's purse
00:14:47
and diana han's checkbook revealed
00:14:49
she had made some other unusual
00:14:52
purchases
00:14:54
based upon who those checks had been
00:14:56
written to the detectives followed up
00:14:58
went to another department store and did
00:15:01
in fact learn that diana han had
00:15:02
purchased
00:15:04
an ax lighter fluid matches
00:15:07
sunglasses
00:15:09
various items that would have been used
00:15:12
during the abduction
00:15:14
diana hahn was arrested and charged with
00:15:16
sherry dally's murder
00:15:18
the question now
00:15:21
was michael dally involved
00:15:24
narcissistic egotistical sociopath
00:15:28
total lack of conscience
00:15:31
despicable disgusting human being
00:15:38
witnesses told police they saw a blonde
00:15:41
woman abduct sherry dally from a
00:15:42
department store parking lot
00:15:45
the prime suspect diana hahn was a
00:15:47
brunette
00:15:48
in a search of her home investigators
00:15:51
found evidence that han was a master of
00:15:53
disguises
00:15:57
when we executed a search warrant in her
00:15:59
room we found all kinds of photographs
00:16:01
showing her in different get-ups and
00:16:03
wigs and
00:16:04
makeup
00:16:06
as she posed for its modeling agency we
00:16:09
asked diana han's mother if she could
00:16:11
pick out her daughter in any of these
00:16:12
photographs and her mother started
00:16:14
shaking her head no that this wasn't her
00:16:16
daughter and han's telephone record
00:16:19
showed something curious
00:16:22
diana and michael spoke by telephone
00:16:24
numerous times immediately before and
00:16:27
after the abduction
00:16:30
based on the telephone calls and the
00:16:32
forensic evidence
00:16:33
prosecutors say diana hahn rented the
00:16:36
car under her own name because rental
00:16:39
agencies require a valid driver's
00:16:41
license
00:16:42
to conceal her identity han attempted to
00:16:46
forge her own signature
00:16:48
a forgery detected by the forensic
00:16:51
experts
00:16:55
han followed sherry dally to the
00:16:57
department store parking lot
00:17:01
han was wearing
00:17:03
a blonde wig
00:17:04
and sunglasses to mask her identity
00:17:09
when sherry left the store
00:17:11
han may have posed as a member of law
00:17:13
enforcement because witnesses say sherry
00:17:16
was handcuffed and placed into the back
00:17:18
seat
00:17:23
at some point sherry inevitably
00:17:26
recognized diana and knew her husband
00:17:30
and his mistress
00:17:31
were going to kill her
00:17:32
[Music]
00:17:36
the forensic evidence shows that diana
00:17:39
killed sherry in the back seat of the
00:17:41
rental car
00:17:42
threw her body down the deserted ravine
00:17:44
put the murder weapons in the trunk and
00:17:47
drove to ventura marina
00:17:50
there she changed out of her bloody
00:17:51
clothes and called michael from the pay
00:17:54
phone to say
00:17:55
the murder was done
00:18:00
from there
00:18:01
han drove to a car wash and attempted to
00:18:03
clean the blood from the back seat and
00:18:05
trunk
00:18:06
but she was unsuccessful
00:18:09
luminol phenothalene and dna testing
00:18:12
confirmed the cherry daly was brutally
00:18:15
attacked in han's rental car
00:18:18
the five wig fibers confirmed the
00:18:21
disguise
00:18:23
forensic handwriting and ink analysis
00:18:25
also revealed that it was han's
00:18:28
signature on checks used to purchase the
00:18:30
wig and the axe
00:18:32
you have to be maniacal you have to be
00:18:35
evil you have to have something
00:18:37
inherently vicious inside of you
00:18:40
to be able to do what she did to sherry
00:18:41
dally
00:18:42
and to leave those two young boys
00:18:45
without their mother
00:18:48
the telephone calls han placed to
00:18:50
michael dally before and after the
00:18:52
murder
00:18:53
was evidence of his complicity
00:18:56
the night that we arrested michael we
00:18:57
did a search warrant on his home and on
00:18:59
the bed where he and his wife had slept
00:19:02
was a
00:19:04
full-length
00:19:05
pillow that you can get probably through
00:19:08
some company where you can actually take
00:19:09
somebody's photograph
00:19:11
and have it actually
00:19:13
printed on this pillow well guess whose
00:19:16
face was on the pillow
00:19:18
diana hans
00:19:19
and that pillow was there while sherry
00:19:21
was still alive
00:19:24
i still got hurt for the betrayal
00:19:28
i think he betrayed us
00:19:30
and he betrayed sherry
00:19:33
in the worst possible way
00:19:36
and the fact that she loved him and he
00:19:37
used that love
00:19:40
we the jury in the above entitled action
00:19:42
find michael anthony dally guilty
00:19:46
diana hahn and michael dally were both
00:19:49
convicted of first degree murder and
00:19:51
sentenced to life in prison
00:19:53
[Music]
00:19:55
church life and upbringing tells me that
00:19:58
i should be able to forgive him
00:19:59
unfortunately god is going to have to
00:20:01
forgive me for the fact that i will
00:20:02
never be able to offer that forgiveness
00:20:04
to him can you describe sherry and
00:20:07
diana's relationship
00:20:10
not good
00:20:12
people hated each other
00:20:14
they both wanted me
00:20:16
big fat eagle
00:20:17
and he sat there and said i can't help
00:20:19
it if two women love me
00:20:22
it's not my fault that two men women
00:20:24
love me
00:20:26
um and i think it was an eagle trip
00:20:29
i think he knew exactly what he was
00:20:31
doing
00:20:32
throughout this whole case it's just
00:20:34
unfortunate fortunate for him that he
00:20:36
was
00:20:37
[Music]
00:20:39
stupid
00:20:42
one thing that i'll never forget about
00:20:44
this case
00:20:46
is ken guess saying
00:20:50
when sherry and michael got married i
00:20:53
walked cherry down the aisle
00:20:56
and i left her there
00:20:58
and gave my daughter to this man
00:21:01
and this was the man that killed my
00:21:02
daughter
00:21:04
and that's something that i'll always
00:21:06
remember
00:21:07
him saying
00:21:08
and i'm sure it's something that he will
00:21:10
never forget
00:21:12
though the forensics in this case was
00:21:13
very vital
00:21:15
the handwriting analysis on the checks
00:21:17
that diana hahn wrote to purchase the
00:21:19
items and the implements that she used
00:21:21
to murder sherry that was key
00:21:23
we hadn't found sherry dally's
00:21:26
blood in the car that diana hahn had
00:21:28
rented
00:21:29
i don't see how we would have solved the
00:21:31
case
00:21:33
[Music]
00:21:43
[Music]
00:21:47
so
00:21:50
[Music]
00:21:58
[Music]
00:22:07
you
