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SAN DIEGO — An errant garden hose, heavy sweating and a convoluted weekend itinerary.
Police officers investigating Danielle van Dam's abduction initially zeroed in on her neighbor for those reasons, two detectives testified Tuesday.
"I noticed that he was sweating profusely from under his arms," said San Diego Police Detective Johnny Keene of his first encounter with David Westerfield, an engineer who lived two doors from the 7-year-old.
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| David Westerfield at his trial Tuesday |
Keene and his partner, Maura Parga, told jurors weighing capital murder charges against Westerfield that he struck them as overly cooperative and suspicious when they questioned him two days after Danielle was snatched from her bed.
Danielle's parents, Brenda and Damon van Dam, were in the courtroom gallery for the first time Tuesday. Both testified last week, but Judge William Mudd said they could not sit in the courtroom as spectators if the testimony related to things the parents said or did. They are expected to remain in court for police and forensic witnesses.
The van Dams were present as the jury heard Westerfield's voice for the first time Tuesday afternoon. Prosecutors played a videotape of a brief interview he gave to a local television station after police began questioning him, but before he was officially a suspect.
"Why were they coming to your house?" the reporter, Mark Matthews, asked Westerfield as he stood on his front lawn.
"You'd have to ask them. I was gone all weekend and I offered to let them look through everything," Westerfield replied.
As a defendant, Westerfield wears a dour, intense expression, but on the tape he laughed and joked with the cameramen.
"This isn't going to be on TV is it? At least let me put my hat on," the balding Westerfield teased.
Brenda van Dam, seated in the back row of the court, grasped her husband's hand with both hands and stared at the tape. Damon van Dam flushed a deep red as the interview played.
Most of Tuesday's testimony concerned the detective work of Keene and Parga, veteran officers assigned to the department's robbery and kidnapping unit. They recounted canvassing the van Dams' immediate neighbors for clues the day after Danielle disappeared.
No one was home at the house where Westerfield, a divorced father of two college students, lived. Parga said she immediately became suspicious as she approached the two-story stucco home, which she described as tidy and well-manicured, and saw a garden hose strewn across the lawn.
"It told me whoever left that hose was in a hurry," said Parga. After the defense objected, Judge Mudd ordered jurors to disregard Parga's hunch, but she later said, "Because the yard was so neat, it just didn't seem right."
When Westerfield returned home the next morning, Keene and Parga questioned him on his sidewalk. Both officers said the winter morning was cold. Keene estimated it was 50 degrees and Parga said she was shaking under her coat and jeans.
But Westerfield perspired heavily, both said, although he was wearing only a cotton shirt.
When Keene asked Westerfield his whereabouts that weekend, he testified, Westerfield said he spent the weekend in his RV driving from the beach to the desert to the mountains and then back to the beach. The account, which included a dozen different stops and one trip back to his home, did not make sense, Keene suggested under questioning by prosecutor Jeff Dusek.
Westerfield told Keene, for example, that he drove a twisty back route in the dark from Glamis, a desert outpost east of San Diego, to Coronado on the ocean in one hour and ten minutes. The trip is 90 miles and according to the mapping Web site Mapquest, takes about three hours to drive.
"Did he say how fast he was going?" asked prosecutor Dusek.
"No, he didn't," said Keene.
Westerfield was known in the neighborhood as a desert sports enthusiast and owned dune buggies and other "sand toys," but Keene said Westerfield did not take them on this trip.
The detective also said that Westerfield mentioned talking to Brenda van Dam Friday night, when Danielle was last seen, at a local bar.
"I could've sworn she had a babysitter. I didn't know her husband was home with the kids," Keene quoted Westerfield as saying out of the blue. Keene said Westerfield claimed Brenda told him that night that Damon van Dam was worried about "his little girl growing up" too fast.
On the stand last week, Brenda van Dam said she never spoke to Westerfield about her children.
Both detectives said Westerfield appeared overly cooperative. He signed papers allowing them to search his home and RV and then led officers through the home, pointing out closets and cabinets if they overlooked them.
His home was "immaculate," said Keene. "Nothing was out of place."
Parga repeatedly described the home as "beautiful." Ê
"Everything was very neat. Very clean. White leather sofa. Just very nice," said Parga.
Three areas of the home stood out to the officers. Parga smelled a strong odor of bleach in the garage and noted a dirty blanket on the dryer and both officers said the comforter was missing from Westerfield's bed.
On cross-examination, defense lawyer Steven Feldman suggested there was nothing odd about Westerfield's behavior. He implied that his client was only trying to help the investigation by aiding officers and that anyone would have been nervous with six officers in his home.
"Do you know whether or not Mr. Westerfield has any blood pressure issues that may or may not effect the way he sweats?" asked Feldman.
"No," acknowledged Keene.
After jurors were excused for the day, the judge showed lawyers an e-mail he had received about the case. He did not specify the content of the e-mail, but Feldman then indicated that he and his client had each received what he called "nastyograms" written in "bright red ink."
The case has spawned "certain outrage on both sides at a level I've never seen before," Feldman said.
On Wednesday morning, the testimony of San Diego police official Paul Redden, who tape recorded an interview with Westerfield at a police station, will continue.
