Posted on 07/03/2002 3:36:43 PM PDT by FresnoDA
David A. Westerfield, 50, is charged with kidnapping and killing 7-year-old Danielle van Dam. He is also charged with misdemeanor possession of child pornography. Prosecutors have said the 80 or so images of child pornography taken from Westerfield's home indicate sexual interest in children.Defense attorneys are trying to show that the defendant is not responsible for the pornographic images -- including those of young children -- found on his computer equipment.
David A. Westerfield, a 50-year-old self-employed design engineer, is on trial for the kidnapping and murder of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam.
Lawson told jurors that he examined copies of hard drives, zip disks and compact disks made by police and took numerous screen captures -- essentially photographs of what came up on the computer monitor at a given time.
Defense attorney Steven Feldman asked Lawson if there was a theme to the animations.
"A considerable number of the screen prints showed bondage -- where women were tied in ropes," Lawson said.
A screen print of an e-mail to a DNWesthotmail.com, as quoted by Lawson, said: "Thanks for joining anime.com."
Lawson also confirmed screen prints the defense entered into evidence last week, that a computer in the office of Westerfield's house was used to access pornography on Feb. 4 at 4:47 p.m., when the defendant was busy with detectives.
Feldman mentioned last week's suggestion that the clock on the computer may have been doctored.
"Did you see any evidence that that happened on any of the computers you examined?" Feldman asked.
"No, I did not," Lawson answered. He said there's usually signs when a clock has been tampered with, such as files being accessed before they were created. Nothing like that was apparent on Westerfield's computers, he said.
Tuesday, San Diego police Detective Johnny Keene testified that he collected Westerfield from his Sabre Springs home that Monday around 3:40 p.m. and took him to the Northeastern substation in Rancho Penasquitos. The defendant remained there until approximately 11:30 p.m.
Accused's son downloaded porn, expert says
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By Jeff Dillon July 3, 2002 At least some of the pornographic images found on David A. Westerfield's computers appeared to have been downloaded by his college-age son, a computer forensics expert testified in the kidnap-murder trial this morning. A detailed analysis of the files on Westerfield's computers showed that someone accessed images on explicit sex Web sites such as "Teen Dreamer" and "Lesbian Bordello" at about the same time someone was retrieving e-mail from David Neil Westerfield's Hotmail account. Marcus Lawson, a private computer forensics expert hired by Westerfield's defense attorney, showed the jury print-outs of what he saw using the EnCase analysis program. "A considerable number of these screen prints involve bondage scenarios with women in ropes or like that," Lawson said at one point. In a cross-examination interrupted by the noon lunch break, prosecutor Woody Clarke questioned the thoroughness of Lawson's analysis and suggested David Westerfield could have given one of his computers to his son as a hand-me-down. Westerfield is accused of sneaking into the van Dams' Sabre Springs house on Feb. 2 and abducting 7-year-old Danielle, then killing her and dumping her body off rural Dehesa Road near El Cajon. Today was the 16th day of testimony in the case and the 18th overall day of court activity since the trial began on June 4. A police expert testified last week that about 85 of an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 sexually explicit images found on computers and storage disks in Westerfield's possession appeared to depict underage girls. Westerfield also is charged with possession of child pornography and prosecutors have suggested that his possession of "questionable" images of bondage and rape show his motivation for kidnapping Danielle.
Computer evidenceLawson, a former Secret Service, Customs Service and Drug Enforcement Administration agent, said Feldman hired him to analyze the contents of copies of four hard drives, three ZIP disks and two CD-ROMs taken from Westerfield's house for evidence related to the case.Lawson said he used a computer forensics program called EnCase to sift through deleted files, temporary Internet files and other data. San Diego police had not used EnCase in their analysis. The computer files showed that David Neil Westerfield, known as Neil Westerfield, had used a Hotmail account with the address of DNWest@hotmail.com as his return address in correspondence, Lawson said. Neil Westerfield's age has not been disclosed at the trial. So when someone was logging on to Hotmail.com to check or send e-mail through that account, it was most likely Neil Westerfield, Lawson said. And that suggests it was probably Neil Westerfield using the computer when Web sites were accessed at or near the time his e-mail account was accessed. There were no signs that the computer's clock had been reset or changed to alter the reported times that files had been created or altered, Lawson said. Neil Westerfield's e-mail account and some of the sexually explicit Web sites were accessed on one of the computers around 4:50 p.m. on Feb. 4 two days after Danielle's disappearance while David Westerfield was being interviewed by police interrogation specialist Paul Redden. Neil Westerfield's e-mail also was checked around the time the computers were used to access Web sites offering "fresh teens," images of bestiality, "extreme Asian bondage," schoolgirls and similar material, Lawson said. The images on three ZIP disks and two CD-ROMs found stashed behind some books in Westerfield's office appeared to have come from Neil Westerfield's computer because they shared the same last access date, Lawson said. But under cross-examination by Clarke, Lawson said he couldn't be sure whether or when the files on the ZIP disks and CD-ROMs were downloaded from the Internet. Lawson said he also had not noticed that file names for many of the porn images began with the letters IEA just like many of David Westerfield's business files. Clarke suggested that Westerfield could have been the original user of Neil Westerfield's computer, giving his son an older, slower computer after buying a new one for himself. "Or the other way around," Lawson replied.
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She needed a pack of buns to go with all those horn dogs. My gosh.
I still think Damon and 'friend' have something to do with Danielle's death...not Westerfield.
Second, Thanks, FresnoDA for the NEW THREAD, and so QUICKLY
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