Posted on 12/12/2002 8:19:20 AM PST by Jaded
When a person goes in search of enlightenment, it's usually good advice to avoid an Internet chat room. And yet it was a random posting on the Internet that led to a key piece of evidence in the David Westerfield case.
At a luncheon in Mission Valley yesterday, prosecutors Jeff Dusek and George "Woody" Clarke told a number of anecdotes – some of them funny, others poignant and revealing – about what happened behind the scenes in the most publicized criminal trial in San Diego County history.
The luncheon was organized by the San Diego Crime Commission and about 100 people attended.
The lawyers talked about their late-night strategy sessions, about the emotional toll of the case on their spouses, about moments of inspiration that came from the strangest of places.
They also took some shots at the media coverage – especially the media's treatment of the parents of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam – and revealed some previously undisclosed statements they said were made by Westerfield. He is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 3 for kidnapping and killing the Sabre Springs second-grader. A jury has recommended the death penalty.
It was Dusek who told the story about the Internet.
During the trial, he said, the lawyers were surfing a Web site where most of the postings were from people convinced of Westerfield's innocence. Several of the postings dealt with the subject of the blond hairs found in Westerfield's motor home.
Prosecutors said the hair proved that Westerfield kidnapped the girl. Westerfield's lawyers said their client often kept the motor home unlocked in the neighborhood and that the girl might have snuck inside at some point to play.
On the chat room, the discussion turned to speculation about whether the prosecution had bothered to find out the date of Danielle's last haircut. The consensus in the chat room was that of course they had.
Actually, they hadn't. They'd never thought to do so.
It turned out that Danielle's last haircut had been five days before her disappearance. After the haircut, her hair was eight inches long – the exact length of the hairs found in the motor home, which hadn't been parked in the neighborhood for several months.
Dusek also revealed the story behind the alleged scratch marks on Westerfield's arm. Pictures of the scratch marks were used as evidence at the preliminary hearing in March – but the jury at Westerfield's trial never heard about them.
The reason: An expert analyzed the marks after the preliminary hearing and couldn't conclusively match them to Danielle's fingers.
"Woody and I are still convinced it's scratch marks," Dusek told the audience. "What else could it be? But we didn't have proof."
Dusek said parts of the trial were particularly draining on his wife, who broke into tears after listening to a media commentator who suggested that the defense's opening statements were more effective that the prosecution's.
He also criticized the media for overhyping the testimony about the van Dams' spouse-swapping and the couple's use of marijuana on the night their daughter vanished.
Discussing what he called the media's vilification of the van Dams, Dusek cited an incident where the couple was lambasted on talk radio for wearing Danielle buttons on their lapels during their testimony at the preliminary hearing.
Noting that the couple immediately removed the buttons from their lapels after leaving the witness stand, one radio reporter suggested that the couple had been making a phony display of their grief to influence the judge.
In reality, the only reason they removed the buttons was because both prosecutors wanted to have them as mementos, Dusek said.
"They walk out of that courtroom without their badges and they get blistered on the radio that night," he said.
Dusek also revealed some statements he said Westerfield made at various points during the trial.
At the start of the trial, just after the prosecution had finished its opening statements, Westerfield was being led down a hallway when he turned to a bailiff and said, "They may as well send me to (San) Quentin right now."
During the penalty phase of the case, when Westerfield's lawyers called friends and family members to the witness stand in an effort to save their client's life, Westerfield looked at his lawyers with a confused expression on his face when one woman approached the stand.
"Who's that?" he asked.
"It's your aunt," his lawyers informed him.
Yesterday, neither Steven Feldman nor Robert Boyce, Westerfield's two main lawyers, returned phone calls seeking comment.
At one point during the presentation, a questioner asked Dusek what he thought about Feldman, whose hyperactive theatrics became well-known to everyone who followed the case.
He called Feldman "a very good attorney." Citing ethics guidelines, Dusek wouldn't comment on a report in the Union-Tribune that Westerfield's lawyers had been trying in February to broker a plea whereby their client would reveal the location of the girl's body in exchange for a life sentence rather than the death penalty.
"He promised a vigorous defense," Dusek said of Feldman. "He did not say his guy was innocent."
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I found it very interesting. Thanks,Jaded.
The Associated Press Published: Dec 28, 2002
SAN DIEGO (AP) - A county employee was fired for allegedly planning to sell crime scene photographs connected to the murder of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam, according to a Civil Service Commission report. A spokesman for the District Attorney's Office said prosecutors are deciding whether to file criminal charges.
Esteban Zemacki, a drafter for the Public Works Department, allegedly approached an employee in the county's photo laboratory with a plan to sell the pictures to the media and post them on the Internet, the report said. Zemacki never obtained the photographs.
Attorney Veronica Aguilar said Friday that Zemacki was joking and never intended to sell the pictures.
The commission's Nov. 20 report says Zemacki allegedly promised photo lab employee Larry Nixon "that they would make millions."
Danielle was kidnapped from her Sabre Springs bedroom last February and found dead weeks later off a rural road east of El Cajon. A neighbor, David Westerfield, was convicted in August of killing her, and the jury recommended the death penalty when he is formally sentenced Jan. 3.
This isn't something to joke about.
The theory of planted evidence doesn't seem far-fetched to me. How convenient those two detectives that tried to visit Westerfield unauthorized were not allowed to testify (and cross-examined). That entire episode seems like a set-up deal to me.
HUH???
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