UNCONFIRMED REPORTS....MUDD has dismissed Goff testimony...waiting to confirm...
Prosecution Bug Expert Challenges Defense Conclusions
Deliberations May Start Next Week
Updated: 3:28 p.m. PDT July 30, 2002
|
|||||||||
Gavel-to-gavel coverage of the David Westerfield trial will air live on NewsChannel 15 and will be live streamed on TheSanDiego Channel.com
However, as a rebuttal witness for the prosecution, Goff also cast doubt on the earlier testimony for the defense of entomologist Neal Haskell, who said he doubted the child's body was available to insects before Feb. 14.
The defense has contended that there was no way Westerfield could have placed the victim's body where it was found in the East County community of Dehesa, because he was under close surveillance by police beginning Feb. 5.
The Sabre Springs second-grader was determined to be missing Feb. 2. Her body was found Feb. 27.
Goff said forensic entomology provides "estimates of what happened, a minimum amount of time insects were feeding on that body." He said determining a time of death was outside the area of expertise in the field.
Along those lines, Goff (pictured, right) testified that after receiving data from the prosecution, he estimated when insects would have entered the body by using temperature data from Singing Hills Country Club -- which is in the Dehesa Valley -- and Brown Field, which is farther away but provided more complete data.
Goff gave two variables on each.
"The body was available prior to the second of February" using the Singing Hills data, Goff testified, with an absolute minimum date of Feb. 12.
From Brown Field information, the body was found to be available to insects between Feb. 4 and Feb. 9.
"This is an estimate, OK?" Goff warned jurors. "We don't have a stopwatch. We're looking at plus or minus a day."
Goff explained that cold nighttime temperatures could retard the development of the flies, as could ants, which could add time to the estimate.
"Ants are very voracious predators," Goff said. "They can retard decomposition by taking away all of the eggs."
He said Haskell went wrong by adding a temperature from a mass of blow fly maggots in the body.
Goff said data on maggot mass temperatures was unsupported by previous studies.
"By doing this, he comes up with a shorter timeline," Goff said.
Westerfield, 50, is charged with murder, kidnapping and special circumstance allegations that could lead to the death penalty if he's convicted of killing his 7-year-old neighbor. He is also charged with misdemeanor possession of child pornography.
Attorneys spent Monday crafting the jury instructions that Judge William Mudd will give the panel before it begins deliberations.
The final instructions will be discussed after closing arguments, which could happen next week after the defense presents its sur-rebuttal case.
Defense attorney Steven Feldman told the judge that he may call witnesses to rebut the testimony of Goff and Dr. William Rodriguez, who estimated last week that Danielle had been dead for four to six weeks before being found.