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.
Westerfield Was Willing to 'End It Right Here'
Detectives say he asked for gun on trip to desert
By Alex Roth and Anne Krueger
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS
January 14, 2003
Trembling and crying, David Westerfield stood with two homicide detectives in the middle of the desert last February and announced that he wanted to kill himself right then and there, according to testimony unsealed yesterday.
Westerfield had driven the two detectives out to the Imperial County desert town of Glamis to show them where he supposedly traveled on the weekend that 7-year-old Danielle van Dam vanished from her bedroom.
Westerfield drove more than 500 miles with the two detectives that day – from Sabre Springs to a beach near Coronado and then out to the desert and back again. During the entire trip, the Sabre Springs design engineer never confessed to kidnapping and killing the girl, who had been missing for three days, but he never denied it either.
As the three men stood in the baking sun near a drainage culvert on the outskirts of Glamis, Detective Michael Ott began badgering Westerfield to confess his involvement and reveal the child's whereabouts.
"Why don't we just end it right here?" Westerfield replied, according to one of the detective's testimony. "Give me one of your guns. You'll get what you want, and I'll get what I want."
"Initially, I was shocked," Detective Mark Keyser testified at a pre-trial hearing May 8, the transcript of which was made public yesterday. "Detective Ott told him, 'you know we can't do that, David. We need to find Danielle. We need to bring her back home to her family.'"
"Did he say anything else?" prosecutor Jeff Dusek asked Keyser.
"Essentially Mr. Westerfield said he couldn't do that," Keyser testified. "At no time did he challenge the allegations made by Detective Ott that we knew that he was responsible for the disappearance of Danielle van Dam."
The May 8 hearing and numerous others were closed to the public before and during the trial, but the transcripts were released yesterday, more than a week after Westerfield was sentenced to death for kidnapping and murdering the girl. He was also convicted of possessing child pornography.
Many of these closed hearings dealt with whether various items of evidence, including statements attributed to Westerfield, could be used against him at trial.
The jury never heard about Westerfield's travels with Ott and Keyser or about any of the statements he allegedly made to the two detectives, who didn't bring along a tape recorder during the Feb. 5 trip. The transcripts released yesterday reveal that Superior Court Judge William Mudd ruled these statements inadmissible as evidence.
Among other things, the judge said he was troubled by the two detectives' failure to tape-record the conversations and expressed concerns about their credibility. Neither detective testified during the trial.
Some material in the case, including the cost of Westerfield's defense, is still under seal, despite the efforts of The San Diego Union-Tribune and other news organizations to obtain the information.
Among other details contained in the hundreds of pages of transcripts released yesterday:
During his trip with the two detectives, Westerfield announced that he had a "vision" of how the girl was abducted from her bedroom, according to Ott's testimony at a May 13 hearing.
"He told us that he saw a figure dressed in all black go into the girl's bedroom and scoop her up out of her bed and walk out of the bedroom with her," Ott testified.
Westerfield, who lived two doors from Danielle, was seen wearing an all-black outfit at Dad's Cafe & Steakhouse in Poway on the night the girl vanished from her house.
In the days after Westerfield became a prime suspect in the girl's abduction, police became increasingly nervous that he might kill himself. In addition to his alleged statement out in the desert, Westerfield also suggested during a subsequent videotaped interrogation that he be left alone with a gun for a few minutes.
A day later, as Westerfield sat weeping in a hotel room while police searched his house, Ott asked him for a favor: If you do commit suicide, please leave a note behind telling us where we can find the girl.
"You'll get what you want," Westerfield responded, according to Ott. "I just need to talk to my attorney first."
As Westerfield was being processed in county jail after his Feb. 22 arrest, he turned to Ott and told him, "Let me know when you find the girl," according to Ott's testimony.
"Why don't you just tell us where she is now?" Ott asked.
"You know I can't do that," Westerfield responded.
Ott testified that he and Keyser received clearance from their supervisor, Sgt. William Holmes, before they attempted to visit Westerfield in jail on Feb. 28, a day after volunteer searchers found Danielle's nude body off Dehesa Road east of El Cajon.
At that point, Westerfield already had lawyers and refused to meet with the detectives. Westerfield's defense team promptly accused the two detectives of trying to violate Westerfield's constitutional rights by questioning him without first notifying the defense.
A prosecutor later acknowledged that the two detectives had made a "bone-headed" mistake.
During a May 13 hearing, Ott testified that he and Keyser didn't want to question Westerfield. They simply wanted to let him know they'd found Danielle after all.
"I guess my emotions got the best of me, and I just went down there to put a little bit of closure into the investigation, let him know we found her body," Ott testified.
Holmes, who also testified May 13, denied ever giving the two detectives permission to visit Westerfield in jail. Holmes has since been reassigned from homicide to robbery.
Lt. Jim Duncan said yesterday that Holmes' transfer had nothing to do with the controversy surrounding the jail visit.
"He's been in homicide for ten years, and he's handled some really high-profile cases and it takes a toll on you," Duncan said. "It was obvious he needed a change of scenery."
Duncan wouldn't comment on the reason for Holmes' transfer or whether it was voluntary.
Keyser testified that he and Ott had a strange encounter with Westerfield at his home in Sabre Springs on the morning of Feb. 7, five days after Danielle had been reported missing and two days after Westerfield spent 14 hours retracing his weekend motorhome trip with the two detectives.
By this time Westerfield had already failed a polygraph test but hadn't yet been arrested. The two detectives were under orders to try as best they could to get a confession out of him, Keyser testified.
They showed up at Westerfield's door and he let them in, complimenting them on their "GQ" appearance, Keyser testified. The two detectives immediately began urging him to reveal the child's whereabouts. Westerfield refused, saying he'd retained two lawyers who told him not to talk to the police, Keyser said.
"Then he invited us upstairs," Keyser testified.
"For what purpose?" the prosecutor asked.
"To show us the patents he had created," Keyser said. "He pulled out a book and some certificates, showed us some motorized knuckle digit thing. He was sitting at a computer typing some stuff, saying he was just trying to tie up some loose ends."
He had no zip drive...they are being referred to as zip discs..altho the one detective on the tape said maybe they weren't zip discs..then the other detective said that is what he was told..(which would have been by the computer experts that were at his house)
Also the detectives on this tape and in one of the motions....were saying the zips and CD's that were HIDDEN behind stuff in his bookcase...yet the affidavits for warrants say..In plain view...so which is it?
From Neal's testimony of finding the cd's and ZIP DISKS right on the bookshelf:
Q. OKAY. YOU MENTIONED ANOTHER SOURCE OF PORNOGRAPHY. WHERE WAS THAT?
A. ON ONE OF THE BOOKSHELVES.
Q. HOW DID YOU FIND THAT, SIR?
A. I WAS LOOKING FOR ONE OF MY GAMES WHICH WAS STORED ON THE BOOKSHELF AND I FOUND IT.
Q. WHERE DID YOU FIND THE PORNOGRAPHY ON THE BOOKSHELF?
A. BEHIND SOME OF THE BOOKS.
Q. LET ME DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION TO COURT'S EXHIBIT 210 BEHIND YOU. DO YOU SEE ON ANY OF THOSE BOOKSHELVES WHERE THAT WAS FOUND?
A. ON PICTURE "F" WHERE THE 12 IS DEPICTED.
Q. WHAT DID YOU FIND THERE? DESCRIBE WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE WHEN YOU FIRST FOUND IT.
A. I FOUND A C. D. WITH THE LABELING "X01".
Q. DID YOU FIND ANYTHING ELSE THERE?
A. I FOUND A COUPLE OTHER C. D.S AND SOME ZIP DISKS.
Two proven liars. Proven to lie in police investigations to help Paul Pfingst put someone else away.
That is one of the reasons I do not trust the police. DOCUMENTED AND PROVEN.
I meant to clarify that you're correct, the detectives do say "maybe they weren't zip disks" and the other detective says that is what they were told. They say all that because Westerfield denied the existance of the zips...
DW didn't deny zip disks..he said they were diskettes, not zips.
So it seems, everyone is using different terminology regarding the disks.
"Why don't we just end it right here?" Westerfield replied, according to one of the detective's testimony. "Give me one of your guns. You'll get what you want, and I'll get what I want."
Notice how the versions others have posted uses slightly different WORDS. The version posted before was "You give me what I want, and I will give you what you want". TURNS OUT THAT WAS NOT WHAT HE SAID. If you read the above paragraphs, what do you think he meant? He knew his life was over. He knew everyone believed he did it and wanted him dead. How would you feel and what would you say if you were NOT GUILTY, yet the police hounded you and told you THEY HAD YOU. THAT even if they didn't have proof yet, THEY WOULD FIND IT, NO MATTER WHAT?
"Initially, I was shocked," Detective Mark Keyser testified at a pre-trial hearing May 8, the transcript of which was made public Monday. "Detective Ott told him, 'you know we can't do that, David. We need to find Danielle. We need to bring her back home to her family.'"
"Did he say anything else?" prosecutor Jeff Dusek asked Keyser.
"Essentially Mr. Westerfield said he couldn't do that," Keyser testified. "At no time did he challenge the allegations made by Detective Ott that we knew that he was responsible for the disappearance of Danielle van Dam."
But, Ott and Keyser didn't record anything during the trip in the MH,, so we don't know if he did or not, do we?
We have to take the word of TWO PROVEN LIARS that the JUDGE did not even TRUST.
I have heard posters and media claim the same thing. DW never denied it. Funny, I have heard it on the tapes and read it on posted documents over, and over, and over.
The jury never heard about Westerfield's travels with Ott and Keyser or about any of the statements he allegedly made to the two detectives, who didn't bring along a tape recorder during the Feb. 5 trip. The transcripts released Monday reveal that Superior Court Judge William Mudd ruled these statements inadmissible as evidence.
To support my reasons for not TRUSTING OTT AND KEYSER Among other things, the judge said he was troubled by the two detectives' failure to tape-record the conversations and expressed concerns about their credibility. Neither detective testified during the trial.
At that point, Westerfield already had lawyers and refused to meet with the detectives. Westerfield's defense team promptly accused the two detectives of trying to violate Westerfield's constitutional rights by questioning him without first notifying the defense.
A prosecutor later acknowledged that the two detectives had made a "bone-headed" mistake.
– Ott testified that he and Keyser received clearance from their supervisor, Sgt. William Holmes, before they attempted to visit Westerfield in jail on Feb. 28, a day after volunteer searchers found Danielle's nude body in rural east San Diego County.
Holmes, who also testified May 13, denied ever giving the two detectives permission to visit Westerfield in jail. Holmes has since been reassigned from homicide to robbery Holmes, who also testified May 13, denied ever giving the two detectives permission to visit Westerfield in jail. Holmes has since been reassigned from homicide to robbery.
Lt. Jim Duncan said Monday that Holmes' transfer had nothing to do with the controversy surrounding the jail visit.
I heard River say, "I was there when DW walked by, and I asked him.... and he said....". She had finished earlier talking about OTT and what he said. METHINKS you heard it and were confused, thinking she was continuing to describe what OTT said.
I wish we both could hear it again so we could be sure. Even If I turn out wrong on that , my point was that she stated "THIS MEANS....." and that part of her conversation is where I said that she was trying to slip that in as if it were fact.
No way did I get it wrong.
Do not post to me anymore and do not use my name in your posts.
Second request.
"Home videos seized from David Westerfield's house suggest that he was secretly filming female neighbors through their windows, according to court documents made public yesterday.
So far, it was ONE video that DW had taped someone through their window.
"Prosecutors cited the videos in labeling Westerfield "a peeping Tom" who "very likely scouted out the van Dam residence prior to entering."'
Very likely except there is ABSOLUTELY NO PROOF WHATSOEVER that he did any such thing at all. (but he's guilty, so we know he did whatever the SDUT says he did, or the Prosecutor said he did. And because he did those things, we know he IS GUILTY).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.