Westerfield's Fate In Hands Of Jury: VERDICT WATCH BEGINS in Van Dam Murder Case

CourtTV ^ | August 8, 2002 | CourtTV

[FresnoDA]

Jury's hands After two months of hearing evidence, jurors have begun deliberating the fate of David Westerfield, who is accused of kidnapping and killing 7-year-old Danielle van Dam

[UCANSEE2]

Yeah-asking the counter people at a cleaning place if they remember a spot on a jacket strikes me as asking the kid at the fast food place if he remembers taking an order for fries. Kind of a stretch.

I don't think the CLERK's statement of NOT SEEING stains means ANYTHING AT ALL. According to Testimony, evidence, there were OTHER SPOTS on the JACKET LAPEL that were NOT REDDISH BROWN, or didn't show SIMILAR DNA to DANIELLE'S.

[Jaded]

Because as Feldman implied yesterday, there was more to David and Brenda than we have heard. That much falls into place about the RV. Brenda would lie through her teeth about it. Feldman would have been foolish to put David on the stand. Dusek would have twisted anything he said.

[Green]

The ACTUAL TEST that PROVES something IS BLOOD was not done.

Well that makes absolutely no sense at all unless there was some justifiable reason for this. Does the other test positively identifying blood require more of a sample than what was available. I can't think of any other reason for not doing that test.

[alisasny]

I am reading through these threads for months...

I still can not believe any of you believe the parents (either or both) killed this child.....

I do not approve of their personal choices at that time but damn.....

They did not kill her and they will suffer forever.

[Yeti]

OVER TIME, a DNA marker can degrade. How much time?

Hard for me to buy. You don't just test one strand of DNA, you test DNA extracted from a bunch of tissue. The follicle of a hair would have thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of cells.

After the cells and nuclear walls are either dissolved or destroyed the DNA is isolated chemically, not mechanically picked out with a needle and looked at under a microscope or something.

When you say you "look at a marker," you mean that you chemically test your solution or suspension conataining the DNA for the presence of one pattern somewhere in the DNA...

If I understand correctly, it doesn't make sense that "a marker" would degrade. If it doesn't show up, it wasn't in ANY of the cells. It can show up if it was in just ONE.

[UCANSEE2]

When I go to a cleaners they always check for spots. And they are supposed to check after cleaning also. How did the criminalist spot them?

My question about the DRY CLEANERS would be this:

IF they couldn't get the spots OUT, wouldn't they have NOTED IT and been PREPARED TO SHOW/TELL the CUSTOMER.

LE said the JACKET had already been cleaned, and they picked it up. I didn't hear the CLERK/CLEANER state that they COULDN"T get those spots OUT OF DW's JACKET.

Another Question: If the other STAINS on the LAPEL (and one was DW's blood) were GONE, why wasn't the one that police said WAS DANIELLE'S ? The Dry cleaner's equipment only takes out 1 type of blood ????????

[fatima]

But if what you say is true,what about the bugs,if the bugs work for Westerfield they work for the girl's Father.

[Texas Yellow Rose]

Bump for later reading.

[Green]

If they said one of the stains was DWs blood then it couldn't have been gone (cleaned) by the drycleaning.

[Politicalmom]

It was testified that Danielle had frequent nosebleeds. The clothes on her floor had bloodstains, and the bean bag had all KINDS of blood on it. Which is pretty weird, IMO. Why would a bean bag be the site of numerous bleeding incidents?

If the jacket was in the MH and Danielle sneaked in, she could easily have had a nosebleed and dripped two small drops.

[small_l_libertarian]

It didn't make any sense to me, either, and has really been bothering me.

I still don't understand how DNA that supposedly comes from one person would only match 12 out of 13 "pieces" tested. So, I asked about it and was referred to the portion of the testimony where Harmon(?) talked about the DNA evidence.

That's what he said - that DNA degrades over time, and if it starts to degrade, you may not get a match at one or another marker.

What you said makes perfect sense to me - if it has started to degrade in one cell, well, test another cell. That's not what the DNA guy said, though.

Still confused.

[KnutCase]

Any good Dry Cleaning establishment has a "spot testing kit" consisting of about a dozen small vials. They can determine the type of stain by placing a drop of solution on the stain. No problem. Used to work in auto detailing years ago...we used same type of kit for stains on upholstery. Never found stain we couldn't remove. Customers were always amazed.

[small_l_libertarian]

The bugs work against the father because he is known to have been in the area where the body was found on the date that the first bug guy, Faulkner, said the body is most likely to have been first exposed to the bugs.

[Politicalmom]

We don't know what the stain looked like, because improper pictures were taken, so it was unable to be studied.

You would think they would be more careful, when it was such important evidence....

[Green]

That may be true for upholstery but for clothes that is a different material, and states dry cleaning only, there are stains that they can't remove. I've had clothes returned to me where they couldn't remove a stain.

[UCANSEE2]

I still can not believe any of you believe the parents (either or both) killed this child.....

Would you mind telling me why you don't think Damon could have?

[Green]

We don't know what the stain looked like, because improper pictures were taken, so it was unable to be studied

Now...don't laugh....I was watching Law & Order last night and the detectives were taking photos at a crime scene and guess what they were using? I almost fell out of my chair....a polaroid camera!!!

[CAPPSMADNESS]

but wouldn't the sugars from an alcoholic beverage be evident in the sample?

[rolling_stone]

The test on the jacket was phenolphthalein presumptive blood test. Reacts falsely to potatoes and horseradish & aged reagent.

[fatima]

How could they stain his jacket if it was with him on the trip?