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Van Dam Case Witness Challenges Findings Of Defense 'Bug Expert': But...His Testimony Don't Add Up..
Union Tribune ^ | July 31, 2002 | Jeff Dillion

Posted on 07/30/2002 3:58:51 PM PDT by FresnoDA

Prosecution witness challenges findings of defense 'bug expert'



SIGNONSANDIEGO

July 30, 2002


Union-Tribune
Dr. M. Lee Goff
An insect expert testifying for the prosecution in the David Westerfield case said Tuesday that flies appeared to have colonized Danielle van Dam's body sometime between Feb. 1 and Feb. 14, far earlier than defense witnesses have estimated.

M. Lee Goff, an entomologist and chairman of the Forensic Sciences Department of Chaminade University in Honolulu, said his review of the crime scene photos, morgue photos, weather reports and other evidence suggest that Danielle's body was exposed to insects as early as Feb. 1 and no later than Feb. 14.

 


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  • Dr. Lee Goff says, using Singing Hills weather data, testifies that Danielle's body was dumped at the Dehesa site between Feb. 2 and Feb. 12.
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  • Goff says data assumptions used by Haskell would create a shorter timeline for Danielle's post-mortem interval.
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  • Goff says flies don't lay eggs on dry tissue.
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"We're working on an estimate. We're not running a stopwatch here," Goff said.

The defense has contended that there was no way Westerfield could have placed the victim's body where it was found in the East County community of Dehesa, because he was under close surveillance by police beginning Feb. 5.

Goff was called to the stand to rebut testimony from two forensic entomologists called by the defense who testified that Danielle's body could not have been exposed to insects any earlier than mid-February, nearly two weeks after Westerfield came under police surveillance.

Westerfield could face the death penalty if convicted of the kidnap and murder of Danielle. He also has been charged with possession of child pornography.

Danielle was reported missing from her family's Sabre Springs home on Feb. 2. Her body was found in a wooded area near El Cajon on Feb. 27 after a massive search drew national attention.

Westerfield, who lived two doors down from the van Dams, became an early suspect in her disappearance.

 

Insect evidence

When Danielle's naked body was found, investigators took extensive photos of it and its surroundings, then put bags over her head, feet and hands and wrapped the body in a sheet to preserve any evidence.

Law enforcement officials called in forensic entomologist David Faulker to study the signs of insect infestation on the body to try to gauge when Danielle had died.

But lead defense attorney Steven Feldman argued in his opening statement that scientific evidence would prove his client could not have killed Danielle. As it turned out, the prosecution never called Faulker to the stand and he was called by Feldman as a defense witness.

Early in the trial, San Diego County Medical Examiner Brian Blackbourne testified that the girl could have been dead from 10 days to six weeks when her body was found.

Faulkner testified July 10 that his analysis of the life cycles of the insects found on Danielle's body showed it wasn't available to insects until sometime between Feb. 16 and 18.

On July 22, a second defense expert, Dr. Neal Haskell, testified that Danielle's body couldn't have been exposed to flies any earlier than Feb. 12.

 

Insect rebuttal

Prosecutors began rebutting the defense insect evidence on Thursday by calling Dr. William C. Rodriguez III, a forensic anthropologist for the Department of Defense, who testified that Danielle's body was in "an advanced state of mummification" that would have delayed insect infestation.

On Tuesday, Goff reiterated testimony about insect lifecycles presented by the previous experts: You can calculate how long a body has been exposed to the elements by gauging the age of the maggots – fly larvae – growing on the body.

Flies are quickly drawn to dead bodies and will lay batches of eggs on them. The development of the eggs into different stages of larvae and adult flies is then affected by temperature, humidity and other environmental factors.

Using charts of known development rates, a forensic entomologist can look at the age of maggots found on a body and, factoring in the weather, can calculate when the eggs they hatched from had been laid. Generally, the warmer the weather, the faster the insects develop.

Goff, author of "A Fly for the Prosecution: How Insects Help Solve Crimes," said he calculated the "post-mortem interval" date from the maggots on Danielle's body using temperature records and charts from a 2000 fly study.

He said Faulkner appeared to have made his calculations using a chart of insect development from a study that used 80-degree temperatures, far higher than the rates in the San Diego mountains in February.

Haskell appeared to have calculated his dates assuming that the activity of the "maggot mass" on the body would have raised the temperature of the mass, speeding up their development.

In both cases, Goff said, the other entomologists estimated that the maggots would have developed much faster than he did, giving a much later date for the exposure of Danielle's body to the elements.

Goff was scheduled to resume testifying – and to face cross-examination by the defense – after a lunch break.

 

Fiber evidence


DAN TREVAN / Union-Tribune
San Diego Police Department Detective Maura Parga testifies during the trial of David Westerfield Tuesday.
None of the orange shirts worn by the investigators who searched David Westerfield's house after the disappearance of Danielle van Dam could have been the source of the orange acrylic fibers found in Westerfield's laundry and on Danielle's body, a fiber expert said today.

A series of shirts and other orange-colored items brought to the San Diego Police Department crime lab were made from either nylon, cotton or a polyester-cotton blend, criminalist Tanya DuLaney testified.

"Did the fabric of any of these items consist of acrylic in any manner?" assistant prosecutor Woody Clarke asked.

"No," DuLaney replied.

Prosecutors called DuLaney back to the stand in response to defense suggestions that investigators could have inadvertently cross-contaminated the two crime scenes with the orange acrylic fibers, which became a key piece of prosecutor evidence linking Westerfield with Danielle's body.

On June 25, police criminalist Jennifer Shen testified that an orange acrylic fiber tangled in Danielle's plastic necklace at the time her body was found was similar to orange acrylic fibers found in laundry inside Westerfield's home and on bedding in his bedroom.

On July 24, lead defense attorney Steven Feldman introduced into evidence several still images from television that showed police investigators wearing orange or orangish shirts as they entered and left Westerfield's house on Feb. 4 or 5.

In response, the district attorney's office identified all of the police and search-and-rescue personnel shown in the photos, collected anything orange-colored they were wearing at the time and gave the clothing to the crime lab.

That evidence consister of two orange long-sleeved shirts, an orange short-sleeved shirt, four reddish polo shirts, an orange rope, an orange strap, a black-and-red backpack, an orange hat and an orange dog vest, DuLaney said.

Under microscopic and infrared examination, none of the fibers taken from those items contained any acrylic material, DuLaney said.

 

Trial's end in sight

At the start of today's session, Superior Court Judge William Mudd told jurors that there will be no testimony on Wednesday, but that testimony will resume Thursday and could conclude on Monday.

"It appears to me that next week you'll hear closing arguments and be in deliberations," Mudd said.

The judge said that he had not yet decided whether to sequester the jurors during deliberations.

Mudd also warned jurors not to read or view any material about the Westerfield case or the Orange County kidnap-murder of Samantha Runnion, in which the girl's mother blamed a previous jury for failing to convict her daughter's accused murdered in a previous sexual abuse case.

"The fact is the case is not similar in any way, shape or form," Mudd said.



TOPICS: Local News
KEYWORDS: 180frank; crime; danielle; dejackaled; kidnapping; molestation; threadjackals; vandam; westerfield
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To: ~Kim4VRWC's~
Did you hear that great rush of attorneys filing into courthouses to file appeals on convictions gotten by using this junk science?
121 posted on 07/31/2002 8:51:29 AM PDT by Jaded
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To: Jaded
Did you read this?

http://www.websleuths.com/dcf/DCForumID4/837.html
122 posted on 07/31/2002 8:55:13 AM PDT by Freedom2specul8
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Comment #123 Removed by Moderator

To: basscleff
They are on the invisible thread....it's on this link
124 posted on 07/31/2002 9:06:19 AM PDT by Freedom2specul8
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To: basscleff
Bass, where were you? I couldn't find anyone to BUGGZ either. Let's formally request Fres to include us on a ping list. How do we do it?
125 posted on 07/31/2002 9:07:56 AM PDT by Jrabbit
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Comment #126 Removed by Moderator

To: ~Kim4VRWC's~
Thanks for the ping. I had heard they were flaming him, but had not seen it. It's true, he and Ned were polar opposites on this subject.
127 posted on 07/31/2002 9:12:51 AM PDT by Jaded
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To: Jrabbit
You are going to ask yourself to ping you? How does that work exactly???
128 posted on 07/31/2002 9:13:35 AM PDT by Politicalmom
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To: alexandria
I belive the fiber expert DID testify to the fact that the orange fiber around DVD neck was VERY dirty. So much so that she had to scrub the fiber to rid it of dirt so she could compare. This tells me it was there for awhile.

Jennifer Shen testified that the dirt was from the site where Danielle was found (see first and last excerpts below):

Q: IT APPEARS IN PHOTOGRAPH C ON THE FIBER FOUND ON DANIELLE'S NECKLACE THERE ARE BLACK SPOTS FOR LACK OF A BETTER TERM.

A: YES.

Q: TELL US ABOUT THAT.

A: WELL, THE FIBER THAT WAS REMOVED FROM THE NECKLACE, FIRST OF ALL, IT HAD TO BE UNTANGLED FROM THE HAIR AROUND THE NECKLACE, AND IT WAS COVERED IN DEBRIS AND KIND OF GRIME, DARK DEBRIS, SOME SOIL, AND IT WAS DIRTY. SO WHEN I TOOK THE FIBER OFF, I HAD TO CLEAN IT. AND WHEN I DID THAT, I REMOVED QUITE A BIT OF THE DIRT AND GRIME FROM THE FIBER, BUT THERE IS SOME DIRT AND DEBRIS LEFT ON IT. AND WHAT YOU ARE SEEING IN THAT PICTURE IS SOME OF THE DEBRIS THAT HAS NOT BEEN REMOVED FROM THE FIBER.

Q: SO NOT PART OF THE FIBER ITSELF.

A: CORRECT.

Then she describes the fiber tangled in hair in a large clump:

THE WITNESS: IN THE AREA WHERE THE HAIR IS CONCENTRATED IN A LARGE CLUMP, THAT IS WHERE I FOUND THE ORANGE FIBER. IT WAS TANGLED IN THE HAIR IN THAT AREA.

Finally, she states that the fiber likely came to be there close in time to her death due to the way it was tangled and the debris from the Dehesa site:

Q: MISS SHEN, I'LL ASK THE QUESTION AGAIN. AS FAR AS THE LOCATION OF THAT FIBER IN THE HAIR, TANGLED IN THE NECKLACE, IS THERE ANY SIGNIFICANCE TO ITS LOCATION AS OPPOSED TO IT BEING, FOR EXAMPLE, IN ANOTHER LOCATION ON THE NECKLACE?

A: THE SIGNIFICANCE I THINK OF THE FIBER TANGLED IN THE HAIR IS THAT BECAUSE IT WAS KNOTTED IN THE HAIR AND BECAUSE THE HAIR WAS KNOTTED IN THE NECKLACE AND BECAUSE THE FIBER IS COVERED IN DEBRIS AND THE HAIR AND THE NECKLACE ARE COVERED IN A SIMILAR DEBRIS, IT APPEARS THAT THE FIBER AND THE HAIR WERE ON THE BODY FROM THE TIME THAT IT WAS PLACED WHERE IT WAS FOUND VERSUS HAVING BEEN PLACED ON THE BODY AT SOME LATER TIME.IT ALSO IS REASONABLE I THINK TO CONCLUDE THAT THAT FIBER CAME IN CONTACT WITH THE BODY AND THE NECKLACE AT OR NEAR THE TIME OF HER DEATH.

129 posted on 07/31/2002 9:14:56 AM PDT by cyncooper
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To: Jaded
I am confused wrt:the character issue of cletus. Did you ever talk to him on the forums over there?
130 posted on 07/31/2002 9:15:26 AM PDT by Freedom2specul8
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To: basscleff; Jrabbit; FresnoDA
Me thinks people are sleeping off all of the bug stuff from yesterday. Letting the mind clear out..... Just getting the heck away from the monitor.

Have gone for food have run out of Desperado Snacks....bbl
131 posted on 07/31/2002 9:15:41 AM PDT by Jaded
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To: abnegation
I don't know how clean any "fiber" or anything else would be after laying in the desert on a decomposing body for that long.

You may be interested in the transcript excerpts from my post #129.

132 posted on 07/31/2002 9:16:54 AM PDT by cyncooper
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To: cyncooper
I'd venture to guess that the single orange fiber tangled in Danielle's hair, was not there for the passport photo...
133 posted on 07/31/2002 9:16:57 AM PDT by Freedom2specul8
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To: Jaded
Yesterday caused headaches...

I never did understand how much of an impact the miscalculations had..but according to the above report, if the jury listened..it didn't affect his conclusion..

134 posted on 07/31/2002 9:18:29 AM PDT by Freedom2specul8
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To: Jaded
Have gone for food...

LOL

My pantry and fridge are bare. Guess I better mosey over to the grocery...

135 posted on 07/31/2002 9:20:02 AM PDT by cyncooper
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To: ~Kim4VRWC's~
Incoming freepmail.... I won't discuss him publicly.
136 posted on 07/31/2002 9:25:12 AM PDT by Jaded
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To: cyncooper
Don't forget the bleach, pepsi, no make that coke and .... pringles.
137 posted on 07/31/2002 9:26:43 AM PDT by Jaded
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To: Jaded
10-4
138 posted on 07/31/2002 9:27:26 AM PDT by Freedom2specul8
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To: Politicalmom
I have to test myself. I'm working with 3 names now and sometimes it gets ugly. BUGGZ and jrabbit don't always agree so Fres has to sing to them. Takes up lots of good posting time!
139 posted on 07/31/2002 9:28:18 AM PDT by Jrabbit
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To: Jrabbit
Stop it, you're scaring me.

I'm down to only being 2 people now. I might merge again. To confusing, not enough psychedelics.
140 posted on 07/31/2002 9:30:07 AM PDT by Jaded
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