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.
OK. But your post didn't say "I called my son and asked him to get out his lawbooks." What you stated sounded like he was right there.
The words "I JUST ASKED " usually mean immediate access and response.
I just asked my son to get out his law textbooks and tell me if the when and how questions must be answered for a murder conviction.
He read the same sentence to me from several of his textbooks:
......
794 posted on 01/14/2003 5:48 PM PST by redlipstick [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 789 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]
So, if your son was not right by your side, you sure didn't make that clear, and left yourself open to my remark.
Which jurors actually said that Christmas was the reason?
It's like the "pro-choice" people ignoring that there is, in fact, a choice, though they use the term to apply to abortion on demand, the other choice, obviously, is to have the baby.
Well, like the pro-choicers using their term deceptively, so you use the concept of "the public won't stand up for their own rights", when what you mean is that you expect all citizens to never cooperate with the police because they have the right to not be forced to submit to warrantless searches, etc. Or the right to remain silent OR what you say can and WILL be used against you.... See, people have the right to cooperate voluntarily.
Anyone else support or disagree with this?
What I don't know is if the LE's were able to get into the empty house or if they didn't search it because it was 'supposedly' empty and if that is where Danielle was 'kept' until someone could move her body somewhere else?
LOL!
I was just going to ask if they have phones at your son's college and if you happen to have one of your own, but perhaps I assumed too much before you stated definitively...
The questions in POST 758,
POST 761,
POST 767 ,
POST 783 ,
POST 784 ,
POST 845 ,
POST 846 ,
POST 850 ,
POST 853 ,
POST 865 ,
POST 875
Sounds like a damn nightmare.
Yes. Makes it easier to see why you mispelled acquittal so many times.
The people were supposedly there when LEO conducted their door knocks in the next few days.
The man did a short interview in the paper....saying he met the VD's and Danielle on FRIDAY when she sold him cookies.
I noticed.
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