By Leonard Novarro
SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - The man charged with abducting and murdering 7-year-old Danielle van Dam had 64,000 sexually provocative images of what appeared to be teenage girls in his computer files, investigators said on Tuesday.
Testifying at a preliminary court hearing in the case against David Westerfield, police said a search of his computer equipment also included about 100 pictures of girls engaged in sexual activity, girls provocatively posing with animals, or performing sexual acts with animals.
San Diego Police detective James Watkins, a computer specialist, told San Diego Superior Court he seized "highly organized" computer files from Westerfield's home.
The files, stored on four computers, a palm pilot (news - web sites), CD-ROMs and computer disks, also contained several animated series, including one depicting a young girl being bound by rope and raped. The girls appeared to be teenagers rather than pre-pubescent children, Watkins said.
Westerfield, 50, who lived two doors away from the van Dams, has pleaded not guilty to possession of child pornography and to charges of kidnapping and murdering the 7-year-old.
Her badly decomposed body was discovered in a rural area outside San Diego on Feb. 27, a month after she was snatched from her suburban bedroom in the middle of the night in a case that attracted nationwide attention.
The files seized from the computer also included photos of the teenage daughter of Westerfield's girlfriend, her hair in a towel, police said.
On cross-examination, Westerfield's attorney Robert Boyce contested the ownership of the computer photos. "You don't know if it was Mr. Westerfield's 18-year-old son or someone staying at the house, do you?" he asked the detective.
Boyce also suggested the girls in the photos might have been "morphed" together from various images of older women and altered to look younger. "Some people look older than others at different ages, don't they?" the attorney asked Watkins.
"Some look younger too," Watkins said.
The photos were introduced over the defense's objections after prosecutor Jeff Dusak argued that they provided a motive for Danielle's abduction, which has remained unclear.
Police are also trying to piece together how Danielle's kidnapper entered her home, found her second floor bedroom and abducted her without anyone noticing.
Westerfield, who is twice divorced, became a prime suspect early on, in part because he took a trip to the desert the day after Danielle vanished and cleaned his motor home thoroughly upon returning.
The preliminary hearings are expected to last several days before San Diego Superior Court Judge H. Ronald Domnitz decides whether to proceed with a trial against Westerfield -- a self-employed engineer who said he had danced with Danielle's mother at a local bar the night her daughter disappeared.
Staying on topic, wonder if they will introduce this tomorrow?
sw