Posted on 07/24/2002 10:44:59 PM PDT by FresnoDA
Bugs: The best witnesses? |
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On one side there are Danielle van Dam's fingerprints, her blood drops, strands of the 7-year-old's blond locks, hair from a dog like her weimaraner and carpet fibers that seem to be from her room. There is child pornography and a convoluted alibi even the defendant calls "weird." On the other side, the side for David Westerfield's acquittal, there are bugs. The pile of evidence painstakingly assembled by prosecutors in Westerfield's capital murder case got a jolt last week from an entomologist who suggested that insect evidence from the 7-year-old's body may exonerate the defendant, who is accused of abducting Danielle from her bedroom, killing her and then dumping her body.
Its practitioners say forensic entomology, which stretches back to 13th century China and has gradually gained acceptance in American courtrooms over the past two decades, is both art and science. There are only nine certified forensic entomologists in North America and about 30 more who offer their expertise in criminal cases without certification. When done correctly, a study of flies, maggots and beetles at a crime scene can yield crucial evidence about a victim's death, including the time and location, whether the victim had drugs in his system, and in some cases even the DNA of the perpetrator. But more than other forensic sciences like DNA analysis, forensic entomology eschews straightforward analysis. For analysis concerning time of death by far the most common task for entomologists in criminal cases there are no mathematical formulas, no easy calculations. Accuracy depends on the scientist's ability to determine how a host of variables at the crime scene, including temperature, precipitation, time of day, humidity and geography, affected insect life. "If you are not a very imaginative person as a scientist, you won't go far," said K.C. Kim, a Penn State professor and certified forensic entomologist. The subjectivity of the field makes for what another forensic entomologist, Jason Byrd of Virginia Commonwealth University, calls "showdowns" professional disputes over results. According to Byrd, haggling over conclusions has become increasingly common in the last three or four years as lawyers have become more familiar with the evidence and how to attack its credibility. "A court case with a single entomologist is a thing of the past," said Byrd, a certified entomologist who consults on about 100 criminal cases a year. A "showdown" seems likely in the Westerfield case. Just two days after damaging testimony from the defense entomologist, the San Diego district attorney's office hired M. Lee Goff, an entomologist from Chaminade University in Hawaii, to consult on the case.
The defense expert, David Faulkner, is particularly difficult to attack because he was initially hired by the prosecution. Faulkner, a research associate at the San Diego Natural History Museum, attended Danielle's autopsy and collected insects from her remains. Searchers found the second-grader in a trash-strewn lot three and a half weeks after she vanished. Her body was badly decomposed and the medical examiner could only offer prosecutors a wide range 10 days to six weeks for her time of death. Investigators hoped Faulkner could narrow that window to Feb. 2, 3 or 4, the days immediately following Danielle's abduction when Westerfield's activities seemed suspect. Faulkner examined maggots from her body and told authorities the insects began growing 10 to 12 days prior, putting the first infestation between Feb. 16 and Feb. 18. Infestation can start as soon as 20 minutes after a dead body is dumped outdoors. Faulkner's conclusion did not fit prosecutors' theory. Westerfield was under constant police surveillance from Feb. 5 until his arrest, offering him no opportunity to dump her body in the window of time the entomologist's testimony indicated. Faulkner quickly became a witness for the defense. The lives of insects If prosecutors get Goff or another expert to rebut Faulkner's findings, he or she will likely attack the defense expert on how he calculated the post-mortem interval (PMI), entomologist-speak for the first infestation. Insect life arrives at a dead body in stages. Immediately, flies land on a body. In as little as 20 minutes, they lay eggs. Those eggs hatch into maggots in a day, and those maggots feed on the body. The maggots molt repeatedly, and each stage of larvae is slightly larger, indicating to entomologists how long the insects have lived in the body. Beetles also are attracted to decaying flesh, and the size of their larvae also indicate the time they have been at the body. But just recognizing the size of the larvae is not enough. Entomologists must also determine the growth rate of the insects. There are two ways to do this. Experts can simply match the size to textbook tables showing the rapidity of growth in a climate-controlled laboratory or they can try to determine the growth rate by themselves. The latter is considered the most accurate, but also the most difficult. "It has a lot to do with the investigator's experience and intelligence and that has a lot more to do with art than science," said Kim of calculating the PMI. Among the crucial factors is weather. Hot temperatures mean quick growth, cold temperatures mean slow or no growth. Wind affects the rate as does access to water and other forms of food, like trash cans. Rain and humidity play a role, as well as exposure to sunlight. In the Westerfield case, prosecutor Jeff Dusek grilled Faulkner about how February's hot, dry weather might have affected his PMI conclusion. Faulkner acknowledged there were fewer flies last winter in San Diego than ever before, but refused to budge off his estimate. Entomologists also consider unnatural factors, like whether a blanket or sheet around the victim may have retarded insect life. Goff once worked on a case in Hawaii involving a woman missing 13 days. She was discovered murdered and wrapped in blankets. The life stages of the insects indicated a PMI 10 and a half days prior. To determine how the blankets affected the PMI, Goff wrapped a pig carcass in blankets and left it in his backyard. He found it took two and a half days for the flies to penetrate the blanket. Dusek quizzed Faulkner about the impact of some sort of shroud in the Westerfield case. There is no evidence Danielle's body was wrapped in a blanket, but the prosecutor got Faulkner to admit that a covering, perhaps later dragged away by animals, might have skewed his results. Will the jury care? But even when there are disagreements between entomologists on results, they rarely involve as wide a gap as in the Westerfield case. "A lot of the disagreements involve a variation in one day, two days," said Richard Merritt, a certified forensic entomologist and professor at Michigan State University. "Not over a week and a half. If it's that big a time, someone screwed up." If the prosecution cannot find an expert who substantially disagrees with Faulkner, the bug evidence would appear to be the defense's chief argument to jurors at closings. The defense has tried to chip away at the other forensic evidence. Defense lawyer Steven Feldman has suggested Danielle secretly played in Westerfield's motor home and left hair, blood and fingerprints on that occasion. Evidence in his home, the lawyer has hinted, might have been deposited when the girl and her mother sold him Girl Scout cookies. And fiber evidence could have been transferred when Danielle's mother was dancing with Westerfield the night of the abduction. None of those explanations carry the certainty of Faulker's testimony. But just how persuasive Faulkner's testimony will ultimately be is a subject of hot debate in San Diego, where the case dominates the media. Former prosecutor Colin Murray said the mountain of other physical evidence pointing toward Westerfield's guilt made the insect evidence little more than a footnote. "You're asking a lot of this jury to acquit this guy on capital charges based on the presence of bugs," he said. Even without a rebutting witness, Murray said, prosecutor Dusek could undermine the entomological evidence in closings by harping on the subjectivity of the field and asking the panel to instead rely on common sense. "Common sense tells you, if you're just looking at her body, that it's been out there a long time. It's severely decomposed," said Murray. But Curt Owen, a retired public defender, disagreed, saying that depending on how the prosecution rebuts the evidence, the case could end in a hung jury or even acquittal. "It may not be enough to say he's innocent," Owen said, "but it certainly is enough to introduce reasonable doubt." |
I don't think this is what happened. He arrived at Keith Sherman's around 8:15 Saturday morning to pick up the MH.
DW could definitely get on Keith's property undetected, but moving the MH is a different matter. Then, why would he return it in the wee hours then come back for it a couple hours later------Wait--cover-up and alibi? But that still doesn't give him much time.
As redlipstick pointed out, her hair was in his master bedroom.
Glad to see you're reading the transcripts.
Here is Westerfield's interview with Det. Redden:
http://courttv.com/trials/westerfield/docs/police01.html
Why would it be bloody ? I would imagine any blood came from penetration of her vagina and she was probably suffocated. A relatively small amount of blood might be on him and that is what fell on the floor.
Based on the ME report there is no reason to assume lots of blood.
Thanks I will read it. FWIW, do you whether the size of the MB bed and the RV bed are the same ?
So far so good.
& she was still alive, put her in the MH and drove somewhere ,
Stop, no. He didn't drive anywhere with the MH. He raped and killed her right there. The moved her to SUV, drove to Dehesa and the return home to shower and act as though he was home all night
What about all the fibers in DWS house???
Transfered via Westerfield by sleeping in bed for short nap and before shower when he returned home that AM and/or transfered by washer/dryer.
1. No person or evidence can prove that DVD was actually abducted.
2. No person or evidence can place DW inside the VD residence at any time.
3. No person saw DW with DVD following the theorized "abduction".
4. No one has proved to an absolute certainty that DVD was murdered or how she was murdered.
5. No person or evidence has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that DW abducted or murdered DVD.
6. No person or evidence has proved that DW dumped the body of DVD.
So Kimchee, cyncooper and the rest of you thirsty Kool-Aid drinkers, adjust your tin-foil hats, run Norton Clean-Sweep to make sure there's no porn on your hard drive, and prepare yourself for either a hung jury or an acquittal.
Ok, but I thought there were some fibers that mathced something in the back ?
Pretty daring/stupid to go to RV (visible from kitchen window). Headlights? Lights on in RV? Noise? Why bother going the RV at all?
According to the testimony by the grandfather/owner, Westerfield at arrived at RV Sat am and no one knew he was there until grandaughter started talking to her. My explanation as to why he went there is because, first I don't think he ever returned home before the abduction because the light in back yard was on. The scenario would be he stops on side street and/or the empty home, enters house, takes girl to auto, then heads to RV. The RV bedroom would be a great place to control and may actually be safer than the homes these folks live in. My guess is the homes in this development were closer than the RV is to the house.
So, he arrives near the RV. He turns out lights as he gets close. He covers girls mouth and/or stuffs somthing in it. He takes her in RV, rapes her, suffocates her, the he removes her to his SUV and dumps her in a place that is as far away as he dares drive so he can be back home by sunrise.
Comments on timeline in general:
Another problem is if he went to get the RV at 7:00am or so is what did he do with her? Leave her in his house? Take her in daylight to RV storage spot? She would have still had to been alive to put the fingerprints in the RV.
You missed the scenario. He only takes her to RV long enough for sex and killing. After that he drives her to Dehesa
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I must not have been clear. I don't think he moved the RV at all. Sequence = Abductuct to SUV to RV to SUV to Dehesa to Home.
If Westerfield did this he did it within a short period of time (as most sexual assaults are) and he didn't have possession of her or her body for any length of time. He is too anal to have a body around and the passion that motivated him to abduct her and kill her would have played out in a short few hours.
I also think the RV would have been a safer and less obvious spot then for him to take her to his home where if it was found she was missing he might get caught from a house to house immediately after.
The natural reaction would be to run and hide with the girl. So, he runs and hides with her at the RV storage place.
I find this interesting in two ways. First, if he was that drunk he wouldn't have likely gotten up so early.
Second, it might have been the truth. He may not have been home until the AM. Because the back light was on from at least 10-11 pm and still on at 2-3 am its not likely he came home.
If not, then assuming he abducted her he may not even hve parked his auto at home. It could have been on side street that divides them or in empty house's lot.
Yes, you were clear.
I just prefaced my statement that DW could and did enter Keith Sherman's property with the statement about DW not being able to actually start up and move the RV undetected to be clear that I was *only* referencing DW going on the property and entering his MH.
I haven't read much more than a day's worth of the trial. What importance do you think this would have to the jury ?
As I said, get prepared to howl and gnash your teeth in agony when the verdict is a hung jury. Yes, I can imagine that several members of the jury are quite similar to yourselves and would eagerly vote guilty, but surely there will be at least one sane individual willing to stand on principle and say that he has not been convinced of DW's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
I fear your noble cause is doomed! Therefor, you are doomed! Kind of a gloomy prospect when you had such great expectations of a slow and painful execution. Ah well, that, as they say, is how the cookie crumbles.
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