Posted on 08/13/2002 10:12:33 PM PDT by FresnoDA
SIGNONSANDIEGO STAFF
and WIRE SERVICES
August 13, 2002
The fourth day of deliberations in the David Westerfield trial has ended with no conclusion by the jury. The jury will resume deliberations Wednesday morning at the San Diego County Courthouse. Earleir today, jurors asked to hear Westerfield's only recorded explanation of what he was doing the weekend 7-year-old Danielle van Dam was kidnapped.
Superior Court Judge William Mudd said he was granting a request from the jury for a tape recording and transcript of the taped interview Westerfield gave to police interrogation specialist Paul Redden on Feb. 4, two days after Danielle's disappearance.
During the interview, Westerfield makes a reference to "we" as he describes his meandering trip through San Diego and Imperial counties on Feb. 2 and Feb. 3.
"The little place we, we were at was just a little small turnoff-type place," Westerfield said.
Westerfield, 50, could face the death penalty if convicted of murder, kidnapping and a special circumstance allegation that the killing of Danielle van Dam occurred during the commission of kidnapping.
He is also accused of the misdemeanor possession of child pornography.
Jurors are in their fourth day of deliberations.
Mudd's disclosure came during a 10 a.m. open hearing on a request from KFMB-AM 760 to let River Stillwood, an assistant radio producer for talk show host Rick Roberts, back into the courtroom to cover the trial.
"She's out and will remain out and will not be permitted in for any live proceedings... because she is the representative of an individual who takes great glee and delight shoving it in this court's face," Mudd said.
Mudd ejected Stillwood from the courtroom on Thursday after asking her to tell him who told Roberts about the details of a Wednesday exchange between Mudd and the attorneys in the case during a sealed hearing.
Stillwood told Mudd that she didn't know who gave Roberts the information. On the air, Roberts later said he had received a call from a source in the courthouse.
The court is conducting an internal investigation, but cannot compel Roberts and Stillwood to name their source, Mudd said.
Stillwood can still sit in the pressroom and watch the video feed of any court activity, Mudd said.
KFMB was welcome to send someone else to sit in the courtroom, so long as the person was representing the radio station and not Roberts, he said.
KFMB's attorney Joann Rezzo argued that the disclosure did not violate the defendant's right to a fair trial. She also argued that Stillwood didn't give him "the source of the leak" because she didn't know who it was.
Before Mudd made his ruling, he invited comments from prosecutor Jeff Dusek, who managed only a wry remark.
"My inclination is to comment, but on advice of counsel, I I will submit," Dusek said, gesturing to his fellow prosecutor, Woody Clarke.
Defense attorney Robert Boyce told Mudd he was concerned about the integrity of proceedings. "They broadcast it, they knew what they were doing," Boyce said.
He called it "just another effort to sensationalize these proceedings."
Mudd told the media attorneys he welcomed the opportunity to make a "full and complete record" of his decision to eject Stillwood.
In his comments, Mudd made it clear he was still angry with KFMB television's decision to include a high school yearbook photo of Neal Westerfield during a telecast of the son of the defendant's testimony. Mudd had ordered that no television or print images of the adult, who is now 19, be transmitted.
The judge's inclination was to ban both the station's radio and TV representatives from the trial.
"Frankly, they seem to be the two networks in this community that just don't seem to get it," he said.
However, after his wife advised him to "sleep in it, " he gave the matter "serious thought," Mudd said.
He quoted a line from a Supreme Court decision in 1976 involving a press restraint issue in Nebraska.
" The extraordinary protections afforded by the First Amendment carry with them something in the nature of a fiduciary duty to exercise the protected rights responsibly--a duty widely acknowledged but not always observed by editors and publishers," Mudd said. "It is not asking too much to suggest that those who exercise First Amendment rights in newspapers or broadcasting enterprises direct some effort to protect the rights of an accused to a fair trial by unbiased jurors. "
Mudd said he was troubled by the host's decision to broadcast the information, knowing it was from a closed hearing.
The judge wasn't impressed by the host's justification that the general public was already aware of the issue, and that Stillwood was ignorant of the source.
He said the host wasn't conducting a search for the truth, but a grab for ratings. He also took the opportunity to lash out at "idiots from LA talk stations," who broadcast an afternoon program from a media compound outside the County courthouse. He said the members of the talk station were "acting like teen-agers" in front of the courthouse.
The judge acknowledged he could not control such behavior but could control his own courtroom.
The judge said officials from KFMB must be taking "great glee in shoving it in this court's face."
Fred D'Ambrosi, news director for KFMB-TV and Radio, said his television station showed only a high school yearbook photo of Westerfield's son.
"We didn't shoot him in court, which was the judge's order," D'Ambrosi said.
Regarding River Stillwood, D'Ambrosi said the issue was important because of the First Amendment and a free press. He added that he was not in charge of the Rick Roberts program.
"We're just trying to report the news and uphold the First Amendment," D'Ambrosi said. "If (Mudd) can ban River Stillwood, he can ban anybody." The news director suggested that the judge was angry because he didn't like the story that was reported.
D'Ambrosi said he had never spoken to Mudd, and called his reading of the situation "totally inaccurate."
Mudd said he had done a 180-degree turnaround on the issue of allowing cameras and reporters in the courtroom since deciding to allow Court TV to cover the trial live.
I cannot accept the award tonight.
I understand that one of the prizes includes Brenda, Barb and Denise serving at my whim...
Like I said, it made me feel like I could puke, just like denise felt when she got back to the VD's house.
LOL!
Or someone like keith stone...schmoozed barb all night long, took a viagra and then barb went up and "did" damon.
I'll call Tim Curry. He owes me one. Done deal.
That would be the one.
I've been there only one time. I quite liked it.
My opinion: You need to go slow there. You can't do it out of the standard tourist books. You need to walk around, get lost, and find your own tour.
They do have wonderful toilets. The best I've ever seen.
But it isn't any of that, nor any of all the flowers or the semi-legal marijuana or the red light district or any of the other things you read about. That's just the surface.
The Dutch are remarkable people. They carry around a lot of guilt about their failure to oppose Hitler during WWII. I could state that more intensely, but it's probably better that I do not.
If you do go there, you must practice your "drechts". In one way or an another, everything there is a either a drecht or a gracht. The canals certainly are, and so is everything else.
They will not want to hear you trying to make make those sounds, but you will need to do it anyway. It's a primal urge. It comes up from the throat.
I am lucky enough to know of a little town toward the south that is called Dordrecht. It's very old, and it has its own canals. I think I know someone there who would be willing to let me a room for a month or two. Take the dog, get a used bicycle...
You'd need to see it.
Yes, I agree, there should have been such. We called them "body slicks" but now I've learned in this trial that the correct term is "body silhouette".
Two forensic witnesses testified that there was none in this case: the ground was dry beneath the body. I think (but I'm not positive) that those two witnesses were the ME and Faulkner (the first forensic entomologist who testified). Both went to the site where the body was recovered.
Really strange. I don't recall what the explanation(s) for this was/were, but seem to remember something about the dry Santa Ana winds may have pulled any moisture into the air -- I have no experience with such an odd occurence. I think it's weird.
The ME testified there were no signs the body had been moved. I suppose if it had been moved after rigor mortis was set, and left in appoximately the same position in the new location, there would be no indication of it having been moved. (Any slight inconsistencies could be put down to animals pulling the body.)
The ME testified the body was in good enough shape to determine there were no bruises, so I presume it was also in good enough shape to determine via livor mortis that it had not been moved. If so, that sure whacks Dusek's theory that DW had the body rolling around in the storage compartment of his RV.
Also, Dusek's theory that the body mummified in the storage compartment sends me batty. You don't get mummification in an enclosed space like that!
Anyway, according the ME's testimony (and other forensic specialists, one being Haskell, I think), the face, neck and extremities were mummified (pretty typical), but the interior of the thorax and abdomen were not (also pretty typical).
I don't get why there was no "body silhouette" at all. Mighty strange. Unless, of course the body was moved after leakage of the fluids formed in the first stages of putrefaction. Or the body had been frozen soon after death (killing off the endogenous bacteria which account for much of the process of putrefaction, particularly in the abdominal area). Both possibilities seem really "out there" though.
One thing which struck me as REALLY odd: there was testimony (from LE I believe) that there were drag marks through the dry leaves, indicating the body had been dragged into position from the north. Well, if there was so much Santa Ana wind, why were the leaves still arranged so as to indicate the body had been dragged there? After either a month (according to Dusek) or after about two weeks (according to the forensic entomologists)? Hello?
It is my understanding that this drag mark is different from the small trail which was some feet from the body, which had some traces of the "brown/black oily substance" you described: that trail was determined to be too small to have been the body being dragged, and believed to be from an animal carrying away some entrails. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, and it's all the same drag mark with different interpretations by different witnesses! Well, back to bed for me.
Jack of all trades, master of none. That's me.
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