Posted on 01/08/2003 9:24:19 AM PST by TomB
In a videotaped interrogation with San Diego police detectives four days after Danielle van Dam was kidnapped, an exhausted David Westerfield says "my life is over," seemingly coming close to an admission that he murdered his 7-year-old neighbor.
"As far as I'm concerned my life is over, the life that I had, the life that I was living is over," Westerfield says in the interrogation conducted the evening of Feb. 5, 2002. Danielle was last seen the night of Feb. 1.
"But you can't blame anyone but yourself, Dave," answers one of the police detectives.
"And I have no problem with that," Westerfield replies.
In the tapes released Tuesday, Westerfield admits "unusual" sexual encounters with his wife, denies anything improper about his alleged use of binoculars to watch neighbors and says the child pornography found on his computer was simply something he downloaded along with a lot of other pornographic images and that he had no sexual interest in children.
Superior Court Judge William Mudd agreed Monday to unseal the videotape along with hundreds of pages of transcripts, documents and recordings in the Westerfield case, as well as transcripts of police interrogations and court hearings conducted in secret.
Some of the material audiotape and videotape of Westerfield being interrogated during the early stages of the investigation was released Tuesday afternoon.
The remainder of the material, which ranges from transcripts of closed-door court hearings to motions regarding potential evidence, will be released Monday, Mudd ruled.
The ruling Monday came three days after Mudd sentenced the former design engineer to death for kidnapping and murdering 7-year-old Danielle van Dam, his neighbor in Sabre Springs.
Monday's court hearing came in response to a request by The San Diego Union-Tribune, which has been seeking access to the information for months. The San Diego-based 4th District Court of Appeal has ruled that Mudd must release the information.
The San Diego chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists made a donation to the legal costs.
Westerfield, who attended Monday's hearing, is scheduled to be moved within days to death row at San Quentin State Prison outside San Francisco.
During earlier court appearances, Westerfield was always dressed in civilian attire, but he appeared in court Monday in a green jail jumpsuit. He sat in a holding area so he couldn't be filmed by a television camera.
warning. Don't do it again.
Good! The Real audio was terrible ...kept getting hung up.
Warning. Warning?!! Or what?
I missed that! "how snarky!" ;-)
None of this has contained any 'damning evidence'. It has contained conversations that are 'open to interpretation'. If you believe DW guilty, you see the statements one way. If you have doubts he is guilty, or feel that the case was conducted improperly, then you see the statements completely different.
So far, things like 'He shook his head', mean absolutely nothing. If you WANT to believe they do, that is fine. They do not constitute proof.
I still think that all this released information will not contain any 'DAMNING EVIDENCE' and will only be more of the same old 'depends on how you see things' statements.
I have repeated over and over, that I would like to see something beyond the 3 pieces of evidence , which all had suspicious circumstances surrounding their discovery. Without those 3 pieces of evidence, there would be no case.
I still see too much effort by the media, the judge, the DA, and too little by Feldman to accept that all is right, the sky is full of rainbows, etc. I think the circumstances at the time allowed for total corruption on the part of the police and investigators in the interest of finding the girl, because of the pressure on the SDPD and the resulting embarrassment and loss of job (Paul Pfingst) if they could not produce.
Maybe they got lucky and got the right person.
Things still do not fit. Too many pieces of the puzzle had to be ground off on the edges and rammed in with a hammer. They are still doing so.
Wonder what would have happened had the media not been involved at all?
Red and cyn, can you let us know what's on RR? I have to go fix din din.
You know , I used to do that. I gave up lately as the threads had boiled down to those that were used to snapping each others head off.
Since Lurkers or newbies seem to be joining the threads again, I think you are right. Time for everyone to keep in mind that when you make a personal attack, you are showing your lack of ability to support your case, and hoping that by making others look bad, you will look better. Well, most of us see it for what it is.
So, yesterday, somebody (BARLF, DEMSUX ??????) called REDLIPSTICK a TWIT and that was a personal attack. It was unneccesary and what is good for the goose is good for the gander. They should apologize.
Even though Red, Cyn, Kim, and I have differences of opinion about this, we try to keep it civil.
A few weeks back I called REDLIPSTICK some nasty things and I apologize for those.
Anyway, my point is that so far, has anyone seen any real PROOF released?
I think that Dusek explained it all. There is nothing they will release that could be constituted as proof in a court of law. That is why it wasn't used. They used what they had, as weak as it seemed to me and others, but seemed to be good enough for the empaneled jury and many other FR posters and many of the US PUBLIC.
I did end up reading the rest of your post on the other thread falsely accusing redlipstick of giving her personal opinion when she had only posted an article.
In your post you wonder about the hair in the MH sink and wonder if the rest of the hair was left on her head, thus accounting for the shorter length. Well, that is the hair that had a root attached. Do you realize what that means?
I don't think you do understand what that means or any of the other information we are learning.
It is a fact that Westerfield took a polygraph and failed miserably. I'm sure that will mean nothing to you, but it is more than reading body language. The shake of the head was but one item mentioned--you ignore everything else and wish to play your game that all is based on how one perceives that motion.
You also posted to me last night that these tapes are what I was waiting for as concrete proof. What nonsense. There was more than enough proof provided during trial and it has been explained time and again. No sooner is something explained to you than you ignore or forget it and pretend like each fact or item under discussion exists in a vacuum, without context.
Enough.
DW is speaking so quickly on this tape it is hard for me to follow. RR just announced the actual polygraph will be played, too, in addition to some other officers (I heard Parga).
I am under a deadline here at work and I don't have time yet to watch all nine hours of this. (Is it that much ? wow) .
So, if you can't afford me the same courtesy, and instead wish to continue making hateful remarks, well, I can't stop you. You just embarrass yourself.
I know you have spent a lot of time following the case lately and posting on the threads, and again, Thank you for keeping up the fight.
I wish you and others would understand. It is not that I am FOR DW, it is that I am against the misuse of the law to supplant the greed of the media, and the DA.
As for the recently released tapes, After I get to view them, I will then see what I think they mean. I have already heard much of what you and others think, and that is very interesting in and of itself.
In the meantime, I am using what little time I have to read the threads and the replies posted.
BTW, it was 70degrees here today, a record high. Wish I could have been outside all day.
Boy! You'll take a lot of grief over THAT remark. ;-)
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