True Crime Campfire - Episode 32: Riding HAI: The Murder of Sherri Dally, Part 2

Episode Date: January 24, 2020

In part 1, we began the story of Michael and Sherry Dally, high school sweethearts with two kids and one of those “from the outside, everything looked perfect” kind of marriages. But as so often happens in these cases, behind closed doors Sherry Dally was suffering emotional abuse and infidelity at the hands of her attractive husband. Michael had a mistress—former model and current Vons employee Diana Haun, and Diana was IN LOOOVE with Michael. Obsessed with Michael. Made Michael a body pillow with her PICTURE on it with Michael. Yeeikes. When we left you, Michael had made an abortive attempt to leave Sherry and move in with Diana, an attempt that fell flat when he realized how expensive a separation and divorce was going to be. He moved back in with Sherry, and Diana was NOT HAPPY. She was not happy at ALL. 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. So campers, in part one, we began the story of Michael and Sherry Dally, high school sweethearts with two kids and one of those from the outside, everything like. looked perfect kind of marriages. But as so often happens in these cases, behind closed doors, Sherry Dally was suffering emotional abuse and infidelity at the hands of her attractive husband. Michael had a mistress, former model and current Vaughn's employee Diana Hahn, and Diana was in love with Michael. Obsessed with Michael. Made Michael a body pillow with her picture on it, with Michael. Yikes. When we left you, Michael had made an abortive attempt to leave Sherry and move in with Diana, an attempt that fell flat when he realized how expensive a separation

and divorce was going to be. He moved back in with Sherry, and Diana was not happy. She was not happy at all. Join us now for Part 2 of Riding High, the murder of Sherry Dally. And, of course, it didn't take long for Michael and Diana to rev up their affair again. In fact, I'm not convinced it ever actually stopped. No, definitely not. And they were not discreet about it. Obviously, everybody at Vaughn knew about it, and Diana would do shit like, insist Michael take formal holiday portraits with her and his kids. which just knocks me flat.

Unbelievable. You think it's appropriate to introduce your kids to your mistress? Are you from fucking Mars? It's bananas. For the love of God, F.T. Log, stop taking photos with your affair partners, you dumb bitches. But that's the thing, though. It's so gross.

They didn't even try to hide it at the same. point. I think she was proud of it. Like, she wanted everybody to know, like, this man is mine. Because, you know, he's such a catch, because you know he's such a loyal partner. Like, that's the thing that just floors me with this shit. It's like, okay, so you're willing to, like, upend your entire life for this guy who is cheating on his wife with you. What the hell makes you think he's not going to do the same thing to you? And I'm sure there are cases, rare cases, where it really is a heart connection and you meet your soul made and, you know, whatever. Like, I'm sure it happens. Of course it does.

But come on. Like, more often than not, like, come on, he's going to cheat on you, too. Yeah. So what are you doing? Oh, my lord. Anyway, I can't even. And this motherfucker tortured Sherry with it, too. Oh, he sure did.

After begging her to take him back and buckle up for this one, Camper's, because it is bananas. Diana had a body pillow custom made with a picture of herself on it. God. Like a fucking anime wifu pillow. That's exactly what I can think about that. And Michael, this piece of rotting gutter slime, brought this home and into the bed he shared with his poor wife, for God's sake. Can you imagine for us? So, like, anybody out there who is with, like, in a committed relationship and you're monogamous,

just imagine your significant other bringing home a body pillow with a silk-screened, like, image of their, like, lover that they're cheating on you with. And sleeping in the bed with it. Like, it's just hostile. And it shows how absolutely zero respect he had for Sherry that he would just flaunt it like that. He wanted to hurt her. And getting the kids involved. Oh, like that to me, getting the kids involved really hints at the notion that Michael had already, in his mind, begun to swap Diana for Sherry. Like, new mommy was here now, right?

Mm-hmm. Which is exactly what Matt Baker did, by the way. Mm-hmm. Remember? There's so many commonalities, aren't there? When you look at a lot of true crime, you start to see these patterns. It's like the Da Vinci Code, man. It's really like so many patterns.

There's so many commonalities. It's like they play from a playbook. It's crazy. and it's just yeah that's i think what catches our eye all the time because we're like do they not watch these shows obviously not and a lot of the detectives apparently don't either

because i'll often be watching the true crime shows and i'm like how in the hell did you not figure this out sooner and i get that like they were trying to piece all this together as it was unfolding in real time whereas we're presented all the information in this pat little but you know sometimes you really are in a situation where you're like, dude, how did you like, really? Like, don't you read true crime books? I think all detectives should

have to go through a training course where it's just like Anruil, Aphrodite Jones, Catherine Casey, Michael Fleiman, John Glatt, like all the true crime writers, just read their entire libraries and then come back to me, you know? Because you need to see there's patterns, man. So many similarities in these

people in these cases. Speaking of patterns, Diana also scheduled a romantic trip for her and Michael. Yep. On Michael and Sherry's anniversary. Yep. Charming.

Shades of Dr. Martin McNeil there, by the way. Here we go again. Yeah. So remember how the good doctor spent his and his wife's anniversary with his mistress, gypsy? Diana wanted her man all to herself. But Michael had told people for years that he'd never get a divorce. Way too expensive. Especially now that he and Diana had adopted this, pretend we're twelf.

20-something singles lifestyle, and we're spending gobs of cash on nightlife. I've seen at least one account of this case that suggests Michael had a nice little cocaine habit, too. Yeah, and Diana with him. But this is all alleged. Yeah, I think it's just one or two sources. Like, I think one of the true crime shows mentions it in passing, and then maybe one of the articles.

But it's not in all the sources, so it's somewhat questionable. Right. I might be someone saw him somewhere doing Coke. Yeah. If that were true, though, that would have contributed big time to Michael's financial troubles. Oh, yeah. Drugs are pricey. Plus, Michael was possessive about his kids.

He didn't want to lose custody. Same old song and dance campers. We see this all the time. So fast forward to May 6, 1996. Michael told Sherry to be sure to go to Target that day, he needed toothpaste. And of course, we know the rest. The phone call from the school that Sherry hadn't picked up the boys. Michael finding Sherry's van in the Target parking lot.

The calls to the police to report her missing. The call to the news to get word out about his beloved missing wife, etc. By the way, when Michael made the initial missing persons call, he described Sherry for the 911 operator as having blonde hair, no scars or tattoos, just a pair of beautiful blue eyes. Oh, I hate you so much, Michael,

down. Fuck you, man. Just fuck you. So much. He also gave an interview for the news cameras the day after she went missing. He and his little boys were handing out missing person flyers at the target where Sherry was last seen.

He brought his kids to hand out missing person flyers. I have been seething with rage about this case. Disgusting. Like for the news cameras. Like let's make it look really good for the news. Get the little boys out in front of the cameras. Oh, I just want to. Yeah. There's this, there's a clip where it shows, I think one of the sons handing a woman the flyer and saying, have you seen my mommy? Oh my God. It's horrible. And the woman goes, is this your mom? And He goes, yes. And she goes, oh, I'm sorry. Because like, what do you say to that? Yeah.

Which is horrible. And you heard before Campers, several weeks later, we have the finding of Sherry's mutilated body. Yeah. And we glossed over some stuff at the beginning so that we didn't give too much away. But it actually didn't take long for police to start suspecting that Diana and Michael were involved in Sherry's disappearance. They were suspicious long before Sherry's body turned up. Like we said earlier, they found out about the affair really early in the investigation into Sherry's disappearance. Now, the initial interview with Diana Hahn was pretty uneventful. Like, obviously they brought her in because they found out that she was Michael's mistress. She said she'd gone on a long solitary bike ride, the day Sherry went missing, and then sunbated on the beach for hours and rode home, which is not much of an alibi, obviously. And she seemed nervous, emotional.

She kept asking for Michael, barf. And, you know, they were a little suspicious, but there wasn't anything to hold her on, really. So they let her leave. And Michael, too. He admitted to the affair, but, I mean, he had a rock-solid alibi. Like, he was at work.

No question about that. And also, he's not, like, a woman in a blonde wig, right? And then a check of rental agencies turned up a teal Nissan rented the day before Sherry went missing and returned the day after. rented by Diana Hahn, Michael's mistress. Shocked. Yeah.

So they had like a check and her name right there on the form. The car was at the rental agency and when they looked in the backseat, it was covered, like the floorboards and part of the actual backseat upholstery was covered in badly cleaned up wood stains. Like, I mean, really badly cleaned up. Like I've seen pictures. It's like, you didn't even try. Are you kidding me? like you phoned it in is all I'm saying like whoever cleaned up like quote unquote cleaned up those blood stains and a rushed lab test showed that it was in fact sherry dally's blood now there wasn't

enough of it to say for sure that she was dead but it was you know a significant amount of blood nonetheless okay so you're telling me that this dumbass decided to rent a car which I'm assuming was to prevent her car from being seen at the scene right in her own fucking name with a fucking check

with a check I know I love that she paid with a check and then after that dumbassery just was like man I don't need to clean up the blood but they have people for that like you don't think somebody's going to

see the Like, there's a massive amount of blood in the backseat of the car and be like, hmm, you might want to call the police. I mean, it hadn't happened, but it did, like, when they found the car, it was like right after the disappearance. So they hadn't even looked at this car yet. It's the impression I got. I just, this is staggering. Oh, yeah.

It's amazing. Idiocy. Incompetency. You're so stupid. I can't. I'm done. Go on. We love that the murderers are caught, but it's just hard to watch people be in this dome.

That's all I'm saying. Yeah, I just, like, I expect more out of my murderers. Like, be Moriarty, not this bitch. Please, come on. Let's just get one or two Moriarty's in the mix. Story's a little more interesting. We still want you caught. So this was an interesting development.

So, of course, they went to Diana's apartment to ask her about the car rental. And this bitch answered the door in sexy lingerie. Great. To the detectives. And as they're standing there talking to her, they see Michael like poke his head around like from a back room and they're like Michael come on out and he like kind of sheepishly walks out and he's in his boxer shorts like they'd clearly spent the night together this was the day after Michael had just gone on the news to pass out missing persons flyers with his kids and talk about how much he loved Sherry and how badly he wanted her home her and her pair of beautiful blue eyes wow this is the day after so gross so they called them both in for questioning. They spoke to Diana about the rental car in her name, and she said her checkbook had been stolen the day before Sherry went missing, and she hadn't rented

any car, and someone else must have rented the car in her name. Right. And they noticed a scratch on Diana's forehead. She was trying to cover it by sweeping her bangs across, but they noticed it anyway, and she said, oh, you know, when I was on my long bike ride that day, I took a bit of a tumble and that's how I got the scratch on my forehead. So, yeah, again, huh. And Detective Sean Conroy, who, by the way, is a bit of a silver fox. Just FYI.

Showed her a picture of Sherry and asked, do you think she's going to look anything like that when we find her? Ooh, what a question. And he described what Sherry's decomposed body would look like by the time they found her. She's, you know, trying to get into Diana's head, as detectives often do. And it was pretty gruesome.

Like, there's a, there's video of this. He went into great detail about her body will be bloated and all this kind of stuff. And Diana just sat there and just withstood it all. And then the detective filled Diana in on a little bit of info that she was apparently very much unaware of. First, that she was one in a long line of mistresses that Michael had had over the years of his marriage. Didn't know that, did we? And second, then he'd been sleeping with sex work. and other, like, casual flings

while seeing her. Yeah. And the detective actually, and you can tell he's, like, enjoying this, which I think is really funny. Like, he's enjoying, telling this woman that she's been played. He's like, look, he played you. You don't mean anything to him.

He just used you to get his wife out of the way so he could do what he wants to do. And where the description of Sherry's decomposing body had not gotten to Diana, this did. This got under her skin. She was getting visibly upset, putting her head in her hands, getting teary. But she still wouldn't admit that she had anything to do with Sherry's disappearance. Detective Conroy felt like she might just be right on the edge. He just couldn't break through that final barrier, so he decided to try something.

Diana had kept asking to see Michael, and the detective thought that if he let Michael in to talk to her, maybe one of them would say something incriminating. Now, obviously, interrogation rooms are under video surveillance. violence at all times. Now, I don't want to criticize Detective Conroy unduly, especially since he's handsome. But, dude, like, I could have told you not to do this. You have succeeded in breaking this woman down to the point where she's teary and putting her head in her hands. You've got her doubting her soulmate for whom she probably did this in the first place. This is not the time to let him in there with her. Because all he's going to do is fluff her up again, man. Like,

he's just going to tell her how much he loves her and she's got this and she can withstand this interrogation and she's a special sunflower or whatever, etc. Et cetera. And damn, if that is not exactly what happened, and the way it happened is just weird as hell. Because

Michael sat down knees to knees with Diana. He took her head in his hands and for a while he's just like kind of murmuring softly to her and you can't really hear much of it. And then as the detectives sat and watched just I imagine completely bewildered on the surveillance camera, he said, hey, like a black belt in a karate tournament.

Hey! And Ms. Diana said, hi. You know, like kind of half-hearted. And Michael's like, come on, hi! And this was clearly the stuff to give the troops, because Diana's next height was much, much stronger. And they just went back and forth like this for a bed. hey hey until michael seemed you know satisfied that diana wasn't going to give anything up and then he just pieced out so hi so that backfired as i could have told him it would although i

would not have predicted height and now and just so you know from now on true true crime campfire listeners, campers, loves. Whenever we need motivation, whenever we need inspiration, we just have to say, hey, at each other. And we're going to just feel like we can take on the world. I do this to my dog all the time. I know. I love that. Because we actually watched one of the shows about this case when Katie came to visit. And she said, ever since she got home, she's just occasionally been taking Finn's head in her hands and going he loves it. I'm sure he does because it's attention. They love attention.

And now that Diana was all refreshed and rejuvenated and reassured of Michael's eternal love, the detectives realized they still didn't have enough to hold him. No confession, no body. They had Sherry's blood in that rental car in Diana's name. They had the scratch on Diana's head, but it just wasn't enough. So they let Diana and Michael go,

again, what they needed was Sherry's body. And the good news there was hundreds of volunteers were turning up to look for her. And to me, one of the unexpected gifts of a true crime obsession is getting to see stuff like this. People turning up to search for missing strangers. They've never met before in their lives and comfort their worried families. It's just beautiful. And it's like Mr. Rogers, who's one of my personal heroes, said, in times of trouble, look for the helpers. You know, look for the helpers. Because it reminds you that not everybody is awful. awful. Yeah.

And it's lovely. And as we told you at the beginning of the story, Sherry's brutalized body was found on June 1st. Still wearing her wedding ring, by the way. Oh, sad. As heartbreaking as it was for the investigators and the people who loved her, it was a huge step forward towards getting justice for Sherry. Soon after, a search of Diana Hahn's bank records turned up some very interesting. purchasing purchases. She'd gone to several different stores in the days before Sherry's murder and bought essentially a murder kit. A tan pantsuit, like the one the witnesses at Target

had described, rope, an axe. An axe. Now, that describes the near decapitation. Sherry's killer had hacked at her neck repeatedly. That takes rage. Definitely. She'd also bought a blonde wig. And wrote checks for all of it in her own name. Diana, what the hell, woman. It's not looking good, sis. This is Bush League, man. She's so disgusted.

I'm disgusted you, good. You just get out with these people. I can't even gather the words to describe my disgust. She's so stupid. Police arrested Diana, but she, She held her own in the interrogation room, still refusing to admit involvement. It's because height still hadn't worn off, you see. She was still riding high on high.

She was still riding high. Sorry. That's the name of the episode. Oh, my God, it is. We just came up with it. Yes. Or maybe not. I don't know.

But it's funny. I like it. Okay. The question for detectives now was, did Diana do this all on her own? Or was Michael involved as well? Campers, you might notice our rage. So you might be guessing. But let's get to this next story. I'm sure it's really suspenseful. I'm sure we've done a great job of keeping that under our hats. Sometimes we fucking can't. I'm sorry, campers.

This motherfucker, anyway, a woman came forward with a stunning story. She, She said she'd been involved with Michael for several years before he hooked up with Diana, and he hated Sherry. He never stopped talking about how much their marriage sucked, how badly he wanted her out of his life, blah, blah, blah. But he couldn't divorce her because he'd never afford it. Now, what is up with these dudes? Oh, responsibility sucks. Got a murder. I know divorce is expensive, but so is a defense attorney. Not to mention the human cost of taking your kid's mom away from him.

That's the part that floors me. I mean, and then if you get caught, then you've orphaned your children. With minimum, you took one parent away. And worst case scenario, if you get caught, you've taken both parents away. And now what are your kids supposed to do? You know, not to mention the devastation of possibly finding out that, their dad killed their mom. It's just, it's so horrifying.

He's just, he's like probably a psychopath. But Michael started talking about wanting Sherry dead. Not only that, he wanted her to suffer. Yeah. Suffer. Yep. Specifically, he wanted it to hurt, which is, makes him 10 times worse than, because you know, a lot of times that you went,

one of my particular interest is watching those hitman stings. Mm-hmm. where somebody tries to hire a hitman and it's an undercover cop and you get to see these people with the mask off. It's just fascinating to me. There's an oxygen show called Murder for Hire that is my jam. It's fascinating. And, you know, nobody actually dies because they're hitman stings. And so it's great because they save people's lives as a really good show. I'm a big fan. It's just interesting because a lot of times, you know, more often than not as a matter of fact, when I've seen these hitman stings, the people don't want the person to suffer. They just want them

out of the way, which is bad enough. But like the undercover cop as the hitman will always say, so what do you want him to suffer? And most of the time they'll say, oh, absolutely not. Just do it quick. Sometimes they'll say, oh, I don't care either way. But very rarely do you have somebody like Michael Dally who says, I want her to suffer? That is cold right there. That's your kid's mom.

That's your high school sweetheart. The hell, dude. What did she do? Yeah, right? And so one day he looks over to this woman and ask her to kill Sherry for him. Because then he could arrange to be at work so he'd have a rock solid alibi. He said, ah, you could dress like a cop and, you know, quote unquote arrest Sherry. Take her out to the wood, stab her to death, and dump her off a cliff.

You see, they'd never find the body. and then he could collect her on her retirement fund. He'd have the kids and the house and the car and the money and he would be free. That sounds awful familiar to me. That scenario there. Hmm. Hmm. Stabbed and thrown off a cliff?

Yeah. Mm-hmm. So the former mistress had ended things with Michael after that. But when she saw on the news that Sherry Dally's body had been found, she freaked out and realized she had to call the police and tell them what she knew. Yeah, and, you know, bless her for it, but damn it, why do these people never call the cops before? I just don't get this. This is one of my biggest pet peeves in true crime.

This happens all the time. You know, it just, it really just gets under my skin, man. So, Camper's just for the love of God, if somebody asks you to kill somebody for them, or find him a hitman, or says, I'm going to kill my wife, and it's, you know, clearly not just like obviously obviously a joke please for the love of god at least warn the potential victim make an anonymous phone call to the police do something it's a human life people don't tend to talk about killing somebody unless they mean it that's actually true i've read that in like books by people who know these things that when people start talking like that

especially if it comes up multiple times and it's a detailed plan those people are serious More often than not. So don't assume that they're not serious because they probably are. And even if it's, even if it's likely that they aren't, do you really want to risk that somebody could die because you didn't say anything? Come on, man, I just don't get it. I would be on the phone so fast. Mm-hmm. So this was red-hot information.

Oh, yeah. But they needed more than his ex-girlfriend's word. So they ran a check on Michael's phone records and hand. hit petered. Loads of calls back and forth between Michael and Diana on the day of the abduction and murder. They had been in constant communication that day, including during the time of the abduction. Clearly, Michael had been calling the shots from behind the scenes and Diana had been keeping him posted at every step.

Then, they discovered that days before Sherry's murder, Michael had filed for a legal separation from Sherry. He'd also called to check on her retirement fund. It was time to put the habeas grabus on Mr. Dally. The old habeas grattis. Police were interested to see whether Michael and Diana's Tu-Wove would stand up to their murder trials. I'm optimistic. I think their love is eternal. Yeah, I think so too.

So Diana's trial came first. And the prosecution argued that Michael and Diana had conspired to kill Sherry, using the same plan he had proposed to his previous mistress. They said that Diana had dressed up in her fake plain-clothes cop outfit that day, boxed in Sherry's car with her rented Nissan, and told Sherry that the police had found drugs in her house and she was under arrest. Now remember, Sherry had met Diana. They'd had a shouting match in the Vaughn's parking lot. With Sherry saying, you'll take my husband over my dead body. Not to mention the fact that she had to look at Diana's face every night before bedtime. No kidding, right?

As her asshole husband cuddled up to his body pillow with his mistress picture on it. It's like something a 10-year-old boy would do. It's childish. God, it's an asshole. It just boggles the mind as to why he thought that was a good idea. Because he wanted to suffer. you're right so the theory was that diana fooled sherry just long enough to get the handcuffs on her and put her in the back of the nisson they figured the original plan was to drive sherry out to the

woods kill her outside the car and toss her down the ravine but sherry must have recognized diana once she was handcuffed in the back of the car she must freaked out Because the evidence showed that Diana had driven the Nissan around the back of the target, gone around and opened the back door, stabbed Sherry a bunch of times in the back seat in an attempt to kill her and stop her screaming, then drove her out to the woods. But once there, she realized Sherry was still alive. So she pulled her out of the car and finished her with an axe. Sherry fought for her life. That was how Diana got the scratch on her forehead. The murder was beyond brutal.

I can't imagine what Sherry went through in her last moments. Did she have the wherewithal to figure out that her husband had put Diana up to this? Oh, God. She might not have had the ability to think that deeply about it at the time because she might have been in survival mode. Yeah. I hope so. I hope so, too. I hate to think that she figured out that her husband was behind this awful thing. I don't know. Awful. Awful.

Diana's defense was that she hadn't killed Sherry. Someone had stolen her checkbook, and she believed that someone was Michael. So, true love. True love. On display. Her lawyer argued that Michael must have put one of his other lovers up to the murder. or possibly paid a sex worker to do it and frame her, which just, surprisingly, the jury did not buy this and was like, yeah, no. Yeah, they didn't buy it. They found her guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced her to life without parole.

Yeah, and she's lucky she didn't get the death penalty on this one, because, I mean, it was gnarly. Like, that, it's such a brutal murder. Yeah. So Michael's trial came next, and his defense argued that Diana. Diana was obsessed with him and had killed Sherry on her own because he was trying to make things work with the love of his life Sherry, who he adored so much. Yeah, the jury didn't buy that either. So Michael was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

And they both continue to maintain their innocence, yawn, and they both appealed and lost and appealed for clemency and all this jazz. Diana argued in her appeal that the jury was swayed by the fact that police found books on witchcraft in her apartment. She said she wasn't a witch. Apparently she told several people at work that she was, though, and of course we already told you that Michael was supposedly into quote unquote witchcraft and Satanism and blood drinking and whatnot, by which I suspect he meant the stupid horror movie versions of those things and not at all the real versions of those things. And when asked about having told people at Vaughns that she was into witchcraft, she told a reporter, I told a lot of people at work, just don't take me seriously, because I joke around a lot. I just find it's a prankster

And as proof that she was You know a scamp in that manner She talked about an April Fool's joke That she supposedly played on a co-worker at Vons This is astonishing She sent this woman a fake letter Ridiculing this poor woman's body In the style of like a men's magazine

And the woman, bless her heart suspected a male co-worker of sending this little missive And she complained to management Which of course at Vons was Michael Dally which probably explains why nothing came of this. But what an asshole thing to do? Yeah. Just like bitchy, mean, making another woman feel bad about her body.

This is not what we do, ladies. We're supposed to lift each other up. You do not have to knock another queen's crown sideways to make your own shine brighter, okay? Let's just not. That's not. Anyway, so she's a bitch on multiple levels, apparently, and none of this should surprise us. So anyway, Diana, bless your heart. Honey, if you're listening, the jury did not convict you because of your witchcraft books.

They convicted you because there was a flippant mountain of evidence against your dumbass. And because you wrote a check to buy a murder kit. A check. A check. And you put your actual name on the rental car agreement like an absolute dumbass. So that's why. That is why they convicted you. So just get that through your noggin.

Bless your heart, darling. And also, I'm sure this will make you give up on hope and love. But Diana and Michael hate each other now. And occasionally we'll snipe at each other in the media, which just makes me laugh. Fuck you both. Sherry's kids went to Michael's family. They're grown by now. And I just hate this for them so much.

It always kills me when spouse murders involve children, because as they usually do, you know, you lose your mom in the most horrific way possible. And then your dad goes to prison for the rest of his life. And you have to face the fact. that he killed your mother and I don't know how they feel about that because sometimes you know the kids won't believe that and of course they were raised by michael's family not sherry so there's every chance that they have bought michael's side of this story and if so bless their hearts you can't blame them i can't even imagine how i would process something like that so i think they're entitled to feel about this however they feel it i just hate it for them

and i hope they're both doing well they did not deserve any of this and they actually won a $6 million lawsuit against Diana Hahn a few years ago. But I don't know if they've actually seen any money. Probably not. I mean, she didn't have much money to start with and she's in prison now and you don't make much money in prison. So I doubt they'll see much, if any, of that

$6 million settlement. But at least they got, you know, they won. That's a on-paper victory, if nothing else. And in a news article after his conviction, get your barf bags ready, Michael said he loved Cherry deeply and loathed Diana for killing her.

And he said he didn't show much emotion when Cherry went missing because that's how he was raised. He said, and I quote, I keep my love inside of me. I keep my hurt inside of me because it's no one's business. I didn't want sympathy. I didn't want anything from anybody. I'll pause now while you throw up everything you've ever eaten. Ugh. Yeah.

So I have a crazy idea. Perhaps don't commit murder for your romantic partner. Because, A, it's wrong. and B, you will get caught. Yeah. Yeah. And C, if he's cheating on his wife with you, maybe he's not that big catch to start with. Correct.

You ever think of that? Yeah. So just maybe not. And I want to talk before we wrap up a little bit about how, in many ways, this case feels similar to me to the Dyson Koff case. Did you feel that way, too? She reminds me of Linda Henning a lot. Yeah. It's weird.

And, like, in pictures, you can see it a lot in the eyes. Yeah, they both got crazy eyes. Absolutely. I shouldn't say crazy eyes. I mean wild, wild eyes. They are, they are crazy eyes. We don't mean it in the way that, like, gross guys mean it when they're like, oh, she's got crazy eyes. We mean, like, this woman literally murdered somebody.

Yeah. She's got Manson woman eyes like Linda Henney. Yes. Plus, they both used to be models, right? They both grew up in the West. They both fell worshipfully head over heels in love with, you. you know, men who perhaps didn't deserve it. And there were kind of paranormal interests in both cases.

So we had Dyson Koft and his alien nonsense and Michael Daly and his blood drinking and his quote-unquote Satanism, etc. So it's just interesting to me that they just seem similar. Yeah, I think you have in both cases a man that is a little, too big for his britches, where they have convinced, Diasin and Michael have convinced themselves that they are just hotter than sin. God's a gift. God's gift to women. And they found the perfect person to believe it.

Yeah. And they both had that sort of unerring predator's instinct for zeroing in on vulnerable people, just like Bill Bradfield in season one. And Michael is totally like one of those assholes that you kind of can fall prey to when you're like 18 and not very experienced. And he was very handsome too. Yeah. He's kind of hot.

I hate it. I know. I hate it too. But where, you know, you're upset about something. And they're like, don't cry. You're so beautiful. And like for a second, you're like, aw. And then the other side, you're like, wait, no, no, no.

I'm crying about something. something else. But he's totally one of those assholes. And that was very much in evidence in that interrogation video where he's in her face going, hey, like you can see him just blowing her back up like a balloon. It's amazing. So he's, you know, I think definitely he is that type of dude. And I think you said earlier in a text, like he collected women with low self-esteem like

it was his job. And of course, Bill Bradfield was just the same way. And these guys are a thing. yeah for sure and I'm sure there are there people have ever gender like this yeah and these are just the ones that you know murder someone oh yeah these kinds of people manipulate and hurt people all the time there's plenty of them out there just ruin in people's lives without committing any violence but I think when sorry go ahead oh I mean it's just interesting because I think Diozin I think was a force of personality where I think he would just

talk over people and just talk fast and get him to like do the West Wing like talk fast and walk with me thing. And Michael really did, he was very, very charming. He was very, very handsome. So they're two sides of the same coin. Yeah. And he was the most popular guy in his high school and all that kind of jazz. So, you know, I think you said earlier, he took it as red that he would always get everything

he wanted. Yeah. So he was very arrogant, very narcissistic. I think when he decided he wanted Sherry out of his life, he became very single-mindedly devoted to that. And my question for you, before we end, is do you think that he groomed Diana Hahn for this from the start? Because every true crime show that I have seen about this case seems to suggest that he was genuinely in love with Diana, that he wanted to leave Sherry and be with Diana. I am not so sure, because I don't think this guy would know love if he was. he fell over it. So I think he was infatuated with her perhaps, but I wonder if he just saw

vulnerability of the right type. And just like with the previous mistress, you know, hadn't worked on her. She dumped him when he asked her, hey, will you kill my wife for me? I wonder if he just saw her vulnerability when he met her at Vaughn's and started grooming her for this from the start. Yeah, I definitely agree with you because I think his match. Masks slipped a little with the previous mistress where maybe he misjudged her. Maybe that was her wake-up call of like, what the hell am I doing? Yeah. But she obviously had some strength that Diana didn't.

Or maybe Diana was just deluded enough into thinking, if I do this, everything will be okay. Which I don't think so. I think that Diana, because she was prone to bouts of intense rage. Mm-hmm. And I think he probably saw a perfect mark in Diana. That's what I think, too. I think he probably had this in mind from the start. And it was less about him being in love with her and more about, I'm going to make her fall for me.

And then I'm going to get her to kill my wife. So I can go and, you know, slam ass all over town, which he was doing, again, he was cheating on Diana. And their relationship had nothing. Like, they didn't have hobbies. Their relationship was entirely about his fantasy of being untethered. Right. Lots of sex, lots of clubbing, drugs, perhaps. So, yeah, I think so, too. So I disagree with these true crime shows that make it sound like a great love affair.

And obviously, it fell apart immediately when they got caught. They both started sniping at each other immediately. So great love, it was not. So this was a wild one, right, Camper's? You know, we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your door. light your lights and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire. And we want to send a shout out to our newest patron. Thank you so much to Roxanne. We appreciate you to the moon and back.

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