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Here's the updated version:

By Alex Roth
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
5:40 p.m., February 6, 2003

Prosecutors spent nearly $270,000 convicting David Westerfield of kidnapping and killing 7-year-old Danielle van Dam, according to the San Diego District Attorney's Office.

The office couldn't say where the Westerfield case ranked in comparison with the cost of other high-profile San Diego criminal cases in recent years.

A spokeswoman for District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, who took office in January after defeating incumbent Paul Pfingst, said this is the first time the office has released such figures.

Death penalty trials are usually the most expensive to prosecute because of the legal complexities. These cases often have two phases: a guilt phase and a penalty phase.

The final figure of $269,746 doesn't include the salaries of the prosecutors and district attorney investigators involved in the case. It also doesn't include the money spent by police and other law-enforcement agencies who investigated the girl's abduction from her Sabre Springs bedroom in February 2002.

San Diego police declined yesterday to detail their expenses pending a request for the information under the state public records law, which the Union-Tribune has submitted.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Mark Pettine said the final cost wasn't terribly high considering the enormous amount of scientific investigation involved in the case.

"We're also talking about the murder of a a little girl," he said. "How do you put a price tag on that?"

The biggest expense for prosecutors was DNA analysis, with the office spending $152,712, according to the figures. They also paid more than $62,000 to a jury consulting firm and more than $14,000 to a single expert witness – Bill Rodriguez, a forensic anthropolgist who provided an opinion about the girl's time of death.

The office spent thousands of dollars on meals, air fare and lodging for various witnesses.

Westerfield, a self-employed design engineer, was sentenced to death Jan. 3 for kidnapping and murdering the girl, who lived two doors away. He is being housed on death row in San Quentin State Prison outside San Francisco.

Westerfield, who sold his house to help pay his legal bills, ran out of money before the trial started. His legal bills were paid from public funds from that point forward.

The cost of his public defense has been ordered sealed by Superior Court Judge William Mudd. The Union-Tribune has asked the 4th District Court of Appeal to unseal those costs, but the appellate court hasn't yet ruled on the issue.