True Crime Campfire - Episode 31: Riding HAI: The Murder of Sherri Dally, Part 1

Episode Date: January 24, 2020

The late, great British author Sir Terry Pratchett once wrote that treating people as things is the only sin there is. To a narcissist, people are things. If you’re a narcissist, you’re the only one who matters—the only one who’s really real. So other people exist to fluff up your ego and help you get what you want. Even if what you want is something so dark that it will destroy the lives of everyone around you, including the eager little puppet you manipulate into the job. Sources:Oxygen's "Snapped: Killer Couples," Episode "Michael Dally and Diana Haun""Forensic Files," Episode "Sign Here""Wicked Attraction," Episode "A Lover's Betrayal"https://apnews.com/11b6e6509ca4ac57c3abe1847f9115d9https://medium.com/@ashleyhorsfall/ventura-crimes-the-murder-of-sherri-dally-38d12c7137dehttps://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1997-09-28-9709280200-story.htmlhttps://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-mar-19-me-30460-story.htmlhttps://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-apr-01-me-34881-story.htmlhttps://www.vcstar.com/story/news/columnists/2018/09/08/colleen-cason-sensational-ventura-murder-case-back-news/1213689002/Follow us, campers!Patreon (patrons get episodes a day early, an extra episode per month, and a free sticker): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfire Facebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. The late great British author Sir Terry Pratchett once wrote that treating people as things is the only sin there is. To a narcissist, people are things. If you're a narcissist, you're the only one who matters, the only one who's really real. So other people exist to fluff up your ego and help you get what you want. Even if what you want is something so dark that it will destroy the lives of everyone around you, including the eager little puppet you manipulate into the job. This is Writing High, the murder of Sherry Dally. So campers, we're in Ventura County, California, June 1, 1996.

Volunteer searchers were yet again looking for Sherry Dally, a 35-year-old, much-beloved wife, friend, and mother of two who had been missing for three weeks. Sherry had gone to Target to buy toothpaste and a Mother's Day gift and hadn't been seen since. The missing persons flyers that had popped up all over Ventura since the day Sherry went missing offered a $4,000 reward for information, and heartbreakingly said Sherry has two boys, age six and eight, who miss their mommy very much. Which just, ouch. God, that's sad. And just as the searchers were about to pack up and leave that June 1st, one of them

happened to glance down into a ravine and saw what looked like human remains. So investigators arrived, and they arrived to find a person. pretty gruesome scene. It was obvious right away that this person had died violently. The head had nearly been severed from the spinal cord. The remnants of clothing had blood all over them. The body was almost skeletonized, but the medical examiner could see that there were broken bones and multiple stab wounds. I think it was 14 stabs. And there was a piece of a serrated knife broken off in the victim's jawbone, which is just horrifying little detail. Awful. So this person had been absolutely brutalized and then seemingly just tossed into a ravine.

Just a terrifying and really lonely, awful way to die. And the body was quickly identified as that of the missing woman Sherry Dally. So police naturally began the investigation where police usually do when a married person is murdered. They question Sherry's husband Michael, who had reported Cherry missing on May 6th, three weeks before the body was found. So let's rewind to then for a minute campers, and then we'll come back to the present. So on the day he'd called to report Sherry missing, Michael Daly had said

he'd become concerned when their two sons' school had called him, to say that Sherry hadn't picked up the boys as she usually did. And that had never happened before. Sherry was a devoted mom, definitely not the type to just leave her kids hanging at school. So that was an immediate flaming red flag. And Michael knew that Sherry went to Target or that she was going to Target that Monday morning. So the first thing he did after picking up his boys from school was head over there. And he was alarmed to find Sherry's van still in the parking lot, keys in the ignition. Her purse was on the passenger seat. Her ID was there. Her target purchases were in the back of the van. So it looked like she had been just about to leave when something happened. But what, what had

happened? Michael had called hospitals, friends, nobody had heard from her. So police had decided to start by going to the Target store where Sherry's van still sat. They got hold of the surveillance footage from that morning, which showed Sherry entering the store, shopping for a while, checking out, and leaving. But unfortunately, in 1996, the parking lot didn't have surveillance cameras. And that was actually pretty common back then. In fact, I can remember right around the time I was in college probably, a big national debate about how we felt about so many surveillance cameras popping up everywhere. Now it's just normal. And we don't even think about it.

But back then, there was a lot of talk of, you know, is this the beginning of Big Brother? And do we really want our privacy violated in that way? And the U.K. was kind of the first, like London was the first big city to really start just putting CCTV everywhere. But that was not common yet in the U.S. in 1996. That's funny to me because in 1996, the quality of a closed circuit television camera. They're still pretty grainy and crappy a lot of the time. It's so grainy. You can't see anything.

Mm-hmm. But police did find a number of witnesses who reported seeing Sherry in the parking lot that morning. And they said that after she'd finished loading her groceries in the back of the van, just as she was getting into the driver's seat, this teal-colored Nissan sedan had driven up behind Sherry's van and, like, blocked it in. And a woman had gotten out of this sedan, and she was kind of conspicuous. Some witnesses described her as a blonde woman, while some said it looked like she was. was wearing a really obvious blonde wig. She had on dark glasses and thick makeup that reminded one witness of stage makeup, which is just weird, right?

And she had on a tan pants suit and a dark top. So the witnesses said that the woman had approached a confused-looking Sherry, flashed what looked like some kind of official ID or badge, and after a few moments of conversation, had directed Sherry to put her hands behind her back. And at that point, the blonde woman had handcuffed her, put her in the back seat of the teal Nissan, and driven away. And, you know, it was a bit of a bizarre scene, what with this kind of odd-looking woman, but the witnesses had all just assumed that, you know, it was an arrest by a plain-closed detective or something. So the investigator's first thought was, hmm, well, this muddies the waters a bit.

This lady might have had some secrets. Maybe she was involved in something illegal. So they wanted to check and see, you know, what she had been arrested for, and maybe they could find her. But they were in for a shock when they checked law enforcement records and found no warrants for Sherry Dalley's arrest, state or federal. Shit. So what had apparently happened here was that Sherry had been kidnapped by someone impersonating a cop. And I don't know about you, Katie, but I find this a bit disturbing. Like, you see a weird-ass-looking woman in, like, you see a weird-ass-looking woman in, like,

stage makeup and a wig in an unmarked, like, Nissan car that doesn't look like a police vehicle. And you just accept at face value that, like, something official and sanctioned and unsketchy has just happened. Like, I mean, maybe we all would. But dang, man. Like, is this that bystander effect that they're always talking about? Or what? Yeah. I think it's probably a combination of a couple things. I think a badge gives you a lot of credence with the public. Yeah. I think if somebody comes to my door and flashes a badge, my first thought might not be this person is lying to me. Oh, yeah. I think that's totally legitimate. Gavin De Becker actually talks about that in that book, The Gift of Fear, that we're always plugging. That we tend to respect

a uniform and a badge and furniture like that. Yeah, exactly. And the second thing is, I think the public in general is less suspicious of a woman. Yeah, I think it very well could have something to do with the fact that it was a woman cop or woman quote unquote cop. If this was a man, I wonder if it would be different. And honestly, I don't know that anyone did anything wrong by not no, absolutely. No, I agree with you. It's just disturbing. It's not like I'm judging them for it, really. It's just kind of like, dang, you know, since we know it was an abduction now. If somebody had called, because I don't know if I would have called the cops. I didn't like, yeah, I probably honestly got to admit I probably wouldn't have either. But like I would have

definitely, and as did these people, remember. it and thought, that's, why is that person so weird looking? Like, why do they have a wig on and pancake makeup? So at least there was that. At least she made herself conspicuous so that people would remember and be able to describe her. But there's something else actually that we can touch on with this. You were talking about how people respect a uniform. And I wish I could remember because I didn't put this in the notes. This is just off the top of my head. So I don't remember where this study was conducted or when. But there was a study. back, and I learned about this in college, so this was probably back in the 90s, because I'm old.

And basically, it was a psychology study that dressed a guy up in, I shit you not, his old high school band uniform. Okay? So not like a cop uniform or anything like that or a military uniform. It was a band uniform. And they put this guy at the entrance to one of the big student parking lots at the university where the study was conducted. and his instructions were just to stand there and when people would pull into the parking lot or try to he would put his hand up and shake his head like nope not allowed

and then they had like a control where there was a person that was trying the same thing but without a uniform on and I think you can probably guess what the results were right the person without the uniform on was getting well the hell are you like or just ignored or people would say what do you tell like what you know and they would question whereas with the band uniform clad dude people would just kind of nod and drive off like not even question it was a dude in a band uniform so we really do tend to assign authority to people in uniforms even if they are

high school band uniforms so it's something that we all probably need to watch because you know yikes so also campers i want you to remember and we have katie to think even though i'm saying this because this is my turn to talk but katy actually wanted me to include include this in here, that you can call 911 to verify that the cop who's trying to detain you or pull you over or take you to a second location is legitimately a cop. Because this does happen. There have been many, many scary cases where cop impersonators have committed sex crimes and murders and things like that. And if it's a real cop, if they're at your door and you're saying, I'm sorry, I'm not going to let you in until I call your precinct. They should understand

why you'd want to do that. Right. You know, a real cop will understand. So, Just remember, you know, a cop uniform does not mean you're dealing with the cop. I can buy one of those uniforms right now online if I wanted to. I can buy a badge online right now if I wanted to. I could be absolutely convincing. So just remember that. And if you're being pulled over, you are allowed to pull into a populated area. You do not have to pull over on some isolated dark road somewhere.

Just turn on your hazard lights, let them know that you see them and that you're, you know, you're compliant. And something to note, because this actually happened to a friend of mine who was a Patreon supporter, so she knows who she is. She was being pulled over by what looked like a unmarked car. And there had been incidents where somebody was impersonating cops on that highway. And so she didn't pull over and it turned out it was that guy. Oh, my God. And just so you know, campers, it is illegal in many, many states.

I didn't get an exact list. I'm sorry. We can find it for the social media. yeah for unmarked cars to do traffic stops so if you are on the highway and being pulled over by an unmarked car take a little bit extra caution because usually it's the black and whites that are doing traffic stops I'll be darn so in some states they're not even allowed to pull you over if they're unmarked that actually makes sense because what the hell are you supposed to know like you know I like just this random cars pulling you over right and it's like like unless it's in a case of like

somebody driving very, very erratically, but if like a traditional, like, oh, you were speeding speed. Yeah, or your registration is expired or something, right. Okay. And here's another thing before we get on with the story. Remember, never, ever go willingly to a second location with an attacker. Now, we realize this is easier said than done because if somebody's got a gun in your face or is threatening you, then that's scary.

but the second location is usually where you're going to be murdered. Yep. If you're going to be murdered. And anybody that holds a weapon up to you and says, if you listen to me and do what I say, I won't hurt you, most likely they're lying. Yes. So run, scream, do what you got to do. It's hard to hit a moving target, remember?

Yep. Don't sue us if you try it and die. But this is something that I've heard a lot of experienced detectives and profilers say. Yes. that you know do not let them take you to a second location because as soon as you get under their control like that you're in much more danger yep so okay back to the story so police quickly discovered that michael dally sherry's husband was working at vaughan's supermarket at the time of the abduction so he had a rock solid alibi they spoke to michael's co-workers and friends

and they got one of their first interesting little tidbits of information michael was having a very obvious, not at all discreet affair with a Vaughn's employee named Diana Hahn. These two were not subtle about it, and we're going to see that in great detail later on, I assure you, more detail perhaps than we would like.

What's more, Diana had words, loud words, in the Vaughn's parking lot with Sherry Dally not long before she disappeared. And Sherry had yelled at her and said, you'll get my husband over my dead body. Yikes. Aminous, right? So this was interesting,

stuff. But there was more. They also learned that Michael was also cheating on his mistress, Diana. So it wasn't just that he was cheating on his wife. He was also cheating on his mistress with sex workers and just kind of casual lovers on the side like one night stands and stuff. This guy could not keep it in his pants. Plus, Diana was dark hair. She was half Japanese and the witnesses had described a blonde woman. So this left a lot of possible suspect. angry husbands, boyfriends, etc., etc. You know, one investigator posited, you know, it could be a situation where he hadn't been paying a sex worker

like he was supposed to, and somebody got mad at him and decided to, you know, teach him a lesson by abducting his wife or something. I think that sounds pretty ridiculous, but whatever. It left a lot of other suspects besides his mistress, Diana. But let's put a pin in all of that for just a moment, and as we usually do, get some background on Michael, Sherry, and Mistress Diana. So Michael Daly had grown up in Ventura County. His dad was Hispanic, a military man, and his mom was Japanese. Michael came from a close family, and his childhood had been very all-American and comfortable. He was an altar boy at church. He was the most popular guy at his high school.

et cetera, et cetera. I hate him already. He was an outgoing, handsome, self-confident dude who seemed to take it as read that he would always get exactly what he wanted. Oh, I know the type.

Oh, don't we all? The worst. So it was in high school where Michael met Sherry guess. He was never hard up for a date. The guy had girls lined up around the block, but when he and Sherry started getting to know each other, he zeroed in on her and the rest was history. Now, Sherry was a good girl, where Michael was outgoing, she was quiet and considerate. And people say she exuded a kind of shy vulnerability that Michael seemed to find

appealing. On the TV show snapped killer couples, the narrator says that Sherry's personality awakened a protective instinct in Michael. But, I wonder if it wasn't about something else entirely. Yeah, I think that might have been part of it. Some guys do love a woman who makes them feel like the big, strong protector. But I wonder if it wasn't more about, like, wanting someone he could control. Because it sounds to me like Sherry was not the type of person to question Michael much or say no to him or show interest in any other men or whatever. So it could have been any of that.

Yeah, good point. whatever the reason. Michael and Sherry were joined at the hip from pretty much day one. And they moved in together after high school. Marriage followed soon after that. And in 1988, they had their first child, a little boy. And they had a second one two years later. To support the family, Michael got a job as a manager at the Vaughn's grocery store. Sherry stayed home with the kids. Supporting four people on one income isn't easy, so they struggled with with money a bit, always living paycheck to paycheck. And the more stressful things got, the more Michael's mind started to wander.

The nice way to put this would be to say that Michael was too adventurous spirit to be tied down by the suburban married with children life. It probably would have been better if he could have figured that out before he got married and had two kids, but, you know, whatever. He was a free spirit. He wanted some excitement in his life. The less nice way would be to say that Michael Daly seems to be a giant man baby with a bad case of Peter Pan syndrome. Not to mention a wandering eye and a wandering wangang.

He'd always had that, by the way. He'd never been faithful to Sherry for very long. Sometimes she knew about it. Sometimes she didn't, but she was madly in love with the guy. Oh. He was her first and only love. She'd never been with anyone else. She always forgave him, despite the fact that he kept right on doing the stuff that hurt her.

Sherry. Girl. Sherry. You deserved so much better. I know it kills me. Now, I want to shove this jack waggon. in into a locker already. I don't know about y'all. I would like in on that, please. Yes. Tag team. Anyway, however you want to look at it, by the time he met Diana Hahn in 1993,

Michael was chafing against his life with Sherry and the kids in a big way. He was fantasizing about getting into trouble. And Diana popped into his life to provide it like a genie out of a bottle. Diana Hahn grew up in Port Winemi in Ventura County, and she was a bit of a troubled kid. Like Michael, her mom was Japanese, her dad was white, and it seemed like Diana didn't quite feel like she belonged among all the beach-going blonde cheerleader types at her school. She didn't have a whole lot of self-confidence, which is weird to me given how pretty she is. She is pretty. There you go. And that's tough at any. age, especially your teenage years. And then, when she was 15, Diana was in gym class

when a basketball backboard fell down on top of her and knocked her out. Dang. Yeah, that's so scary. Yikes. She ended up in a coma in intensive care for several days. And interestingly enough, when she came out of the coma, Diana seemed to be a changed person. I've heard of this happening, by the way. And there's even weirder stuff than personality changes. Like, you can come out of a coma and suddenly have a different accent and stuff. It's just bizarre. Speakers are weird. Yeah. I've heard of all of those things and it's flipping weird.

Now, I don't know if it was the head injury or a different perspective that comes with a near-death experience or what, but where she had been a shrinking violet before, she now projected an air of self-confidence. She started dressing differently, wearing makeup. She came out of her shell and started socializing. It's like the movie She's All That come to life or some shit Something like that

She took off her glasses And waved her hair out of the ponytail And took her hair down Right In slow motion, obviously Suddenly all the guys noticed her But that's like literally what happened Yeah

But that's the thing is Yeah she was always pretty The pretty girl's always pretty Even if she's wearing glasses Anyway, I could rant about this all day She became more extroverted I think is the main thing And more confident

Because confidence is sexy Like, there's no doubt about that. She found her inner confidence, which I think is the most important. Yeah. Suddenly, Invisible Diana was getting noticed by both boys and other girls. She got folded right into the popular crowd, and guys started coming out of the woodwork to date her. And the girl who had sort of blended in with the scenery before her accident now set her sights on a career as a model. She quickly had some success.

She had an uncanny ability to pull off vastly different looks like a chameleon. Interesting. Right? It made her valuable as a model because she wasn't limited to one particular vibe. And when she was modeling, she was on top of the world. I mean, who wouldn't be? I imagine all that attention felt really good to the girl who felt inferior growing up. She was smart, too.

After she graduated from high school, she went to college and got great grades her first year. but her main focus was her modeling career. Yeah, and it's really a huge change. I mean, if you think about somebody that's super introverted and shy and has low self-esteem, and then they go from that to wanting to be a model, which I can't think of many more careers that put you out into the public eye that much, you know? I mean, it's like now suddenly it's like, look at me, look at me, look at me. Right.

So really just like a 180. And, you know, she was very beautiful, but it shouldn't surprise anybody to hear that Southern California is chock full of irritatingly beautiful women who want a model. It takes a lot to stand out from that crowd and whatever it is apparently Diana did not have enough of it or at least there were just too many

other people that had a little bit more of it. So after some early success, her modeling career flamed out before it even really began. So womp womp she saw that had a much better ending if I remember correctly, right? It's been like forever since I've seen it. I probably actually

haven't seen it. So I probably have just seen like, you know, people talk about it. But like everybody, I enjoy talking about things that I know very little about. It's a national past time. Why shouldn't I enjoy it if everybody else gets to? So in her 20s, Diana bounced around from job to job. She was still getting a little bit of modeling work, but it wasn't enough to live on. So she worked for the postal service for a bit.

She worked as a bank teller. She waitress, stuff like that. And by the time she got to 30, she realized, you know what, the modeling ship has probably sailed because when you're a model like you are past your prime by the time you're like 27 it's ridiculous so and ew like shame on you fashion industry are you serious like isn't the goal supposed to be here's what you might look like in these pretty clothes well guess what people don't die at age 28 so some of us might enjoy seeing people our own age and size and ethnicity and etc. So that's my little, you know,

diss on the fashion industry. It's just gross. None of you care what I think about this. But yeah, it's like just so silly that by 30, she's like, I'm washed up. Anyway, so that must have been a bitter pill to swallow, but many of us have to choke down similar pills, right? And in 1993, when she was 32, Diana started a new job in the deli of a Vaughn's grocery store. I've never been to Avons, I don't think. Is it like a Western chain? Yeah, it's Kroger

In like California and the southwest Gotcha So anyway, it was at this Vons Where she met Michael Dalley Who was the manager And he must have just zeroed right in On Diana Because for all her beauty

On the inside she was still the awkward girl From middle school with low self-esteem I mean you can never really fully That person is always in there somewhere You know, you can certainly You can certainly gain a lot of self-esteem And self-worth but take it for me

you know so that little like awkward kid is still in there somewhere you know might only come out every now and again but she's in there

and she didn't have a lot of experience with relationships and guys like Michael Dally can smell that a mile off remember season one

if you haven't listened to season one of true crime campfire yet oh my God are you missing out it's the most bizarre murder story

you've ever heard in your life and if you have listened remember Bill Bradfield oh yeah exactly the same kind of thing like just zeroing in on the like little wildebeest who's at the edge of the herd feeling kind of insecure about himself so michael was actually the one who hired diana and the wooing began pretty much from minute one and let's be clear about something right now she knew he was married from the start and it did not stop her so just saying so there was obviously a lot of chemistry between them because The first, like, romantic encounter that they had, supposedly, was they made out in the stockroom at Vaughns. And this was just within a few days of their first meeting. Oh, my God.

Making it on the stock room. Ooh, classy. Lay me down on this pile of cat food bags and just take me to paradise, Michael. Lord have mercy. It's not quite as bad as behind the porta-potties in the Claris Schwartz episode, but it's not much better. It's on the scale. It's like there's the porta-potties, and then right there is the stock. Right there is the pile of cat food bags in the stockroom at the Vaughans.

And soon they were stealing away all the time to, you know, bang in the stock room or the supply closet or the backseat of Michael's car in the parking lot or wherever they could find. They just could not seem to keep their hands off each other. And I'm sure they went and did it at Diana's apartment too. And one afternoon, one of their coworkers went looking for them and found them having full on sex in Michael's car in broad daylight in the parking lot of the Vons. Now, how this didn't get both of them fired, I cannot imagine, but it didn't, and they just seem to find it funny, but I'm sure the folks dropping their carts off in the cart corral just really appreciated that, right? Like, can you imagine, like, you're in a hurry, you've had a long day at work, you're trying

to be a good citizen and take your cart back to the corral so it can't go rogue all over the parking lot and bash into somebody's car? You're trying to do the right thing, and suddenly, you look over at a blue station wagon and just boom bear thrusting ass just right there boom boom boom in the back window in front of god and everybody no thank you vons i want a refund i think at the very least you should get a 25 gift card if that happens to you a hundred percent yes grocery store management who's listening to this please take heart so anyway diana and michael got really serious really fast as this would seem to indicate right like really serious like they drew up an actual

contract, physical contract that they signed that said that Diana's body belonged to Michael. And again, I get that there are people who are into this. I'm not trying to laugh at you or anything. It's just because these people are such massive dipshits that were laughing.

Yeah, no, it's Katie's kinkshaming corner. Well, Katie can't change. I'm trying to be diplomatic. I'm king shaming. God damn it. Stop signing sex contracts, people. Okay. Okay, whatever. Sex contracts or whatever. But when you say, my body belongs to you. Okay. Or if you do it, just know that you are risking being on a podcast someday with a couple of assholes like us, telling everybody about it and laughing. Yes. But only if you're as big a dip shit as Michael and Dan. Like, yeah, I mean, if you're cool, we're cool. We're not going to love that. If it's, if that's your thing, whatever, go for it. I don't care. But, like, but, like,

Like, Michael saw, like, Michael probably saw the contract and was like, oh, yes, I actually own this woman. Oh, absolutely. 100%. Yeah. I think he, he thought he owned everybody in his life. Yes. And, yeah. So, all right, don't boss me, Katie.

I'll sign a sex contract if I want. Katie's, Katie's kingshaming corner is closed. We'd literally have to start that. Katie's king shaming corner and spell it, spell corner with a K. No, God, no. Okay. Okay, rewind, rewind. Nope, nope, nope. Somebody is a K name.

I'm terrible idea. I am very aware of the implications. Stupid racist, ruining the party again. Because, you know, that would have been cutesy. Right? But no, apparently we can't. We can't have nice things because he raises pricks. Anyway, onward and upward.

So they signed this contract that her body belonged to him, Barf. And Michael had a fascination with, what he called the dark side. Like, he said he was on the dark side. So, nerd alert. Okay. He's on the dark side. Did he also have cookies?

Is that? During the dark side. We have cookies. So, of course, well, he had loads of cookies. He was working a vons. You're right. Supply all the cookies you'd possibly want for the dark side's regular meeting. So, of course, Diana was immediately fascinated and wanted to play to because she worshiped the

ground that Michael Dally walked on. So she collected books on the occult because Michael had told her he was interested in witchcraft and Satanism and Michael bought her a butterfly knife. And she let Michael bite her neck and suck out her blood.

So, this shit again. How many cases is this now? Where some asshole wants to take somebody's blood. We have got Dyson Koft in his fridge full of blood vials. We've got Kyle Halbert from the Clara Schwartz case in his vampire bollocks. We've got cult leader Terry Hoffman and her weird bloodletting ritual to

like let out the bad vibes from the black lords. And now this dickhead, just bloodletting left and right. And we didn't even do it on purpose. It just keeps popping up. No. And we, we at least, except for the Dias and Hosenkoffed one, at least once during our research process, we text each other and say, I forgot about the blood. No. It's just, it's so many. It's so many cases now. It's enough. It's enough. already with the bloodletting you massive nerds why it just quit it already it's gross plus you're all gonna get hepatitis i'm worried about you now bless her heart sherry had been down this road before with her ass hat husband so she knew something was afoot she was not fooled but of course michael

gas litter is it gaslit or gaslighted i'm not sure but he did that yeah so he gas litter he lied to her about it for months and months and months she knew perfectly well but Friends of Sherry and Michael say Michael definitely seemed really checked out around this time, where before he'd be the center of attention at family gatherings, like performing for the video camera and playing with the kids and everything, now he would just slink off to the garage by himself or he wouldn't be there at all, because he was at Diana's, I guess, and everybody noticed it, and of course, especially Sherry noticed it.

And as cheating assholes often do, Michael emotionally and verbally abused Sherry, telling her she was fat and unattractive. told her no one would ever want her. Ugh. And my theory on this is that they know what they're doing is wrong and they don't like that feeling, you know, that I know I'm in the wrong. People don't like to feel like they're in the wrong. So they just take out that discomfort on their spouse, which is just real nice, right? Yeah.

And Sherry's response, bless her heart, this just kills me, was to tell her friend, I messed up. I got fat and I lost him. It just breaks my heart into smithereens. It's so sad. Damn it, I hate this guy. But this was how Sherry felt about it. And clearly, this Dick Tree had worked hard to tear down her self-esteem, even though she was a lovely woman. She was tall and blonde and kind, and she had beautiful blue eyes.

And she was a great mom. She ran a home daycare, and she was such a hard worker. And she was just somebody who was so beloved. She didn't deserve this bullshit. it, but he was the only man she'd ever been with. So, you know, when that's the case, you don't have a basis of comparison. You've never been with anybody else. So for all you knows, this is how all relationships are, right? It's true. And so Sherry said about trying to win Michael back. She started dressing sex year, and she lost 50 pounds. This is incredibly

difficult for a lot of people and should show a couple things. Both of which, which make me want to put Michael Daly's penis through a wood chipper. I went in on that, too, please. Cut it right off and then make him watch as we slowly feed it through a wood chipper or a paper shredder. Oh, gross. I'm sorry if that was a little vivid, but I really hate this guy. He's the worst. He's the worst.

So, first of all, it shows how convinced she was that his verbal abuse and cheating were her fault. Oh, Sherry. And second, it shows how determined she was to get him back. Sherry, I wish we could go back in time and whisk you away for a weekend of self-esteem building and Michael bashing. Yes, please. Like, maybe literal Michael bashing? Like, I'd like to have Adam with a cricket bat. Anyway, I apologize.

Violence is bad, and we are joking. You should not hit anyone or put anybody's genitalia through a woodchip. we are joking. Jokes. We just hate this guy. After a year or so of sneaking off to the break room at Vons, as romantic as that sounds, Diana was getting tired of being the other woman and Michael was getting tired of the lying. Aw.

Which my heart bleeds for him, poor puppy. So in 1995, Michael finally told Sherry he was in love with a co-worker and wanted to move in with her. I mean, it's big of him, to be honest about that after like a year and a half of telling her, oh, there's nothing going on. Don't worry about it. And letting her think, like, he just wasn't attracted to her anymore or whatever, yeah. Yeah, you're just fat and ugly, and I'd never home because of that. Fucker.

Screw this guy. So he moved out of the house, leaving his kids very hurt and confused, not to mention Sherry, and right into Diana's apartment. And for a while, I'm sure it was all baby oil. and blood suck in and all of that good stuff. But it tends to happen in these situations. Reality soon set in cold, cold reality. And in this case, that cold reality equaled money troubles.

Michael began to realize he couldn't afford to keep up his new lifestyle. He and Diana had been burning up the town, clubbing and bar hopping and pretending they were in their 20s. And on top of that, he was having to pay. rent and a mortgage, and if he and Sherry divorced, he'd have to start paying child support in an alimony, too. This annoying money stuff was gumming up his Peter Pan fantasy. Dang it. So, very reluctantly, Michael moved back home with Sherry and the kids. But he wasn't happy about it.

And what's more, Diana wasn't happy about it. Diana was really not happy about it. She'd been insecure all her life, despite her beauty and her outward facade of confidence, especially when it came to relationships. She wanted to feel loved, and Michael had made her feel that way, adored, wanted, lusted after special. For Diana, it was like a drug. She couldn't bear to part with it now that she'd had a taste.

Michael, going back to his wife and kids, was another failure in what she perceived as a long series of failures. She hadn't been able to make it as a model. She hadn't succeeded in making anything of much of her life. Now, she was losing the one thing that had made her feel alive. This, campers, would not do. So we'll leave it there for Part 1, Campers, but because we release both parts on the same day,

you can go ahead and listen to Part 2 now if you want, or save it for later, whatever creams your twinky. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe. Until we get together again around the true crime campfire. You can follow us on Twitter at TC Campfire, Instagram at True Crime Campfire, and be sure to like our Facebook page. If you want to support the show and get access to extras,

please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com slash true crime campfire.