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.
This is inordinately clear.
I just completed watching all of the video from the links provided on this thread.
It is crystal clear.
This guy is guilty as sin. Anyone with a brain could see this after viewing the interrogation..... Think about it. If the police were accusing you of murdering a small child, would you be so relaxed after being told by the interrogator that he knew you did this act?
Or would you be outraged, scared to death, and screaming your innocence, over and over and over and over and over!
I misunderstoon your post to me..I agree!!
If the bug evidence is now discredited as a forensic tool, why aren't all those in jail because of bug evidence released immediately?
Or were all the bug guys only wrong on this case?
Just wonderin...
FRegards,
PrairieDawg
I don't think bug evidence is thoroughly discredited, per se. It was conceded by the experts that it is not exact and the observations made in this case indicated an atypical situation, per testimony.
why aren't all those in jail because of bug evidence released immediately?
Please present a case where a defendent was convicted solely on bug evidence.
Well, to me it is one huge mark against him. In fact, I did not see one thing that indicated innocence.
Clarke and Dusek as guests.
Dusek says they never intended to use this tape and never attempted to have it submitted as evidence.
Inaccurate on my part. Judge ruled it inadmissable, but Dusek claims they didn't plan on using it anyway.
DW nods his head.
I saw that when I viewed it on the computer, too.
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