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." |
Wow, didn't know. I work in the stockmarket (seatbelt time) but it doesn't hold a carrot to produce people.
I have 9 uncles ... all farmers as well as my dad (all long gone) ... avocado farmers and old California. I have had a "thing" about agriculture ever since and wish I had gone to Cal Davis.
I don't know where y'all are but the produce market here in downtown Los Angeles is AWESOME. I'llbet it's really nice in Fresno. Ever been to Lindsay CA with all the olives ... CA is great ... my hometown.
Goff will not make the same mistake as this guy. Goff will not try to B.S. his way past Feldman and will simply answer the questions asked by Feldman without trying to spin like this guy is.
I would suggest you slow down and really read what I said.
Again. Here is the scenerio. The dog is out loose. The child follows the dog where it is going. It (the dog) ends up at the motor home. (Maybe smelling urine that another dog squirted on the tires.)The child then is curious about whats inside and opens the door and goes in. Then the dog follows her into the motor home.Capish?
Since I posted to your earlier I checked alt.true-crime. The Cary Stayner trial is going on right now ... the guy who killed the 3 women at Yosemite and the Yosemite naturalist.
About child porn.:
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/3721590.htm
Tape: Stayner asked FBI for child porn in exchange for confession
By the Mercury News
Before he would confess, Cary Stayner wanted guarantees from FBI agents that they'd supply him with child pornography in prison, something he says had tormented him his entire life.
If he'd given into his urges before the killings, ``maybe this stuff wouldn't have happened,'' Stayner told the agents moments before detailing the gruesome killings of a Yosemite tour guide and three tourists in 1999.
``We're going to bust our butt,'' to help, FBI agents told Stayner on the tape played Tuesday in a Santa Clara County courtroom.
My understanding is that it is sandy soil in that area. I may be wrong though.
Kim are you aware that the Anthropologist testifying today put the time of death anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks of the time the body was found?
HE IS SAYING BASED ON HIS STUDY SHE COULD HAVE BEEN DEAD SINCE JANUARY 23.
So much for his testimony as everybody knows she was alive then.
Sorry to butt in here but I believe he means that until there is a final decision in the case the statements won't be unsealed. This being due to, as far as I can tell, a valid claim that two of the interrogating officers violated DW's civil rights.
DW and his attorney, I believe, made a formal misconduct complaint about his being held without arrest for a considerable time, no food, drink, and not heeding his requests to have an attorney present before any further questions.
You can consent to "go down to the station and answer some questions", but when you say you want a lawyer present they MUST stop questioning and either arrest the person as suspect or let them leave.
The explosive statement made was probably a smart a@@!# remark due to the treatment he was receiving after CONSENTING to speak with them.
BTW wasn't there supposed to be a decision by the judge as to what if any of the two officers personnel file Feldman could bring up in court?
Bundy was a self-serving jerk and it sounds like Stayner is as well. It is not uncommon for a heinous murderer to play the "victim" and blame his conduct on someone or something else.
Finally, the Meese Commission study on pornography that you impicitly referred to in an earlier post never concluded that there is a connection between pornography and violent crime.
I've always been a true crime buff ... but the Stayner trial has been horrific. They had an article the other day that the county prepared for a crush of people interested in a high profile trial ... but it didn;t happen.
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