Posted on 06/25/2002 9:30:26 AM PDT by FresnoDA
SAN DIEGO ---- A police criminalist testified Monday that tiny pieces of evidence ---- hairs and carpet fibers ---- found in David Westerfield's house and motor home could link the Sabre Springs man to Danielle van Dam, the 7-year-old neighbor he is accused of kidnapping and murdering.
Tanya DuLaney, a trace evidence analyst with the San Diego Police Department, said blonde hairs, dog hairs and tan carpet fibers found on Westerfield's property were similar to Danielle's hair, the short brown-gray fur of the van Dam family dog and Danielle's bedroom carpet.
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DuLaney said she could not make a 100 percent match of the hair and fiber evidence.
Westerfield, 50, could face the death penalty if convicted of kidnapping and murdering Danielle. The young girl was reported missing Feb. 2. Her nude and decomposing body was found nearly four weeks later in rural East County.
Westerfield, a twice-divorced design engineer, kept his hands clasped in front of him during Monday's proceedings, occasionally writing notes and consulting with his attorneys.
Danielle's mother, Brenda van Dam, attended the entire hearing. The van Dams live two doors down the street from Westerfield and were passing acquaintances with him. Damon van Dam sat with his wife during the morning session.
Day 12 of Westerfield's trial was dominated by the hair and fiber testimony of DuLaney, who told jurors that light brown-blonde hairs found in Westerfield's motor home and house were similar to Danielle's hair in color, length, diameter. Westerfield has short, dark hair.
Jurors heard testimony that DNA evidence will show Danielle could have left the blonde hairs found on sheets and pillow cases taken from Westerfield's master bedroom ---- the first possible evidence placing the second-grader upstairs in his home.
"They could have come from Danielle van Dam," DuLaney said of tests performed on the hairs. "All six of them."
Further testimony on the hair samples is expected today or later this week when prosecutors are expected to wrap up their side of the case.
Meanwhile, Westerfield's defense attorney, Steven Feldman, focused on what didn't match, having DuLaney go over hair after hair found in the motor home ---- some brown and others color-treated blonde ---- which were determined not to be Danielle's because of color, length or dye.
Earlier in the trial, Brenda van Dam testified her daughter's hair was never dyed and Danielle had a haircut about a week before she disappeared. Van Dam also had testified she took Danielle to Westerfield's house to sell Girl Scout cookies a few days before Danielle disappeared. She testified her daughter went into the house briefly, but did not go upstairs.
The tedium of the fiber and hair testimony prompted Judge William Mudd to give jurors an extra long afternoon break.
Feldman followed the same line of questioning with the carpet fibers, asking about fibers that didn't match. He called attention to a lack of physical evidence putting Danielle in Westerfield's black Toyota 4Runner, the car Westerfield drove when he went to get his motor home on Feb. 2 ---- the morning Danielle was discovered missing.
None of Danielle's hair or blood was found in the vehicle, another police criminalist, David Cornacchia, testified. Nor were any of the carpet fibers lifted from the soles of Westerfield's 25 pairs of shoes similar to Danielle's bedroom carpet, DuLaney said.
Also on Monday, DuLaney told jurors about finding five carpet fibers in Westerfield's motor home that were similar in size and shape to Danielle's bedroom carpet.
She showed jurors enlarged pictures, showing the fibers side by side with those from Danielle's bedroom and magnified 400 times, to illustrate how the fibers were consistent.
Under questioning from Feldman, Westerfield's defense attorney, DuLaney said it was possible that many houses in a development like the Sabre Springs neighborhood where the van Dams and Westerfield lived could have the same carpet.
She also talked about dog hairs found in dryer lint thrown away in Westerfield's garage. More hair was found in the hallway carpet of his motor home, on a bath mat in the motor home and on a white towel. Those hairs were consistent with the hair on van Dam's dog, Leyla, DuLaney testified. Westerfield does not have a dog.
Brenda van Dam testified earlier in the trial that her daughter would often roll around with Leyla, especially after she had changed into her pajamas before going to bed.
While the dog hair found in Westerfield's house and motor home had the unusual pigment formations found in Leyla's hair, DuLaney said she could only say the hairs were similar, not exact matches.
Attempts to perform DNA tests on the hair were unsuccessful, said Holly Ernest, director of the UC Davis veterinary genetics lab. She briefly testified that there was not enough DNA on the dog hair sent to the university for testing to determine whether it belonged to Leyla.
Feldman did not ask Ernest any questions.
Testimony in the case continues today.
Contact staff writer Kimberly Epler at (760) 739-6644 or kepler@nctimes.com.
6/25/02
And barefoot, too! Is it a wonder none of his shoes have shown a trace of evidence?
Wouldn't walking around in bare feet leave more evidence than wearing shoes, like feet prints, skin cells, hair from feet?
Have they discounted the fibers being found in other homes? If the same fiber is found in everyone's home, just being found in his may mean nothing. Did they rule every other possibility out?
He was barefoot when bringing in his first load of stuff to the drycleaners. That is the testimony----not referring to him being barefoot at any other time.
Unnerstand. Radio, ESM, & Fire control circuits were TEMPEST certified. Kind of stupid mincing about a 1/32" of mesh inside a submarine with 3.8 cm of steel outside, but hey, it's the guberment rule.
Way back when I worked for company XYZ, we sold to the DoD computers with fiber-optic printer cables.
I could go into more detail, but then i'd have to kill you.
So did DW. He had a girlfriend. He had weekend outings in the desert where we can assume he had some flings. He wanted Barb, apparently.
DW kept images, including videos, of little girls being raped.
And what do the VD's have on their computers? On videotapes in the garage?
In addition, there is a dead little girl whose blood, hair and fingerprints are in his MH. Fibers from his laundry and bed are similar to fibers on her body and at the area where she is found. Her hair is in his home, including bed and laundry. And she was found without clothes.
Same goes for the VD house. Even more blood and hair found at their house than in his MH.
Relevance would be my guess as to why the porn from the DW house gets in and no van Dam stuff.
Prosecution attempting to win the case is more likely, and having a defendant that may just be victim of coincidence. He also may be guilty as hell, but so far, the links are really really weak. Like the pictures of the fibers, where everyone was astonished because the pictures they showed looked like they 'matched'. Did they show any CONTROL pictures. Pictures taken of samples from various houses in the neighborhood, from the MH, from the VD's, from the VD's van and compare those. NO. Why? Why do they NEVER in this trial have any CONTROL SAMPLES? Any COMPARISONS to Known quantities or Known non matching samples?
Because it would show how weak their evidence really is. Again, all of the evidence could be wrong and DW COULD STILL be GUILTY. But we have to go on REAL proof, not imagined proof. Not the "well, I just know he did it" crap that I keep hearing.
Anyway, how are you?
I think I understand more of what you're asking, but let me know if I'm off here.
Personally, I think that things have changed now, and it is MUCH easier for little kids to get their hands on porn, especially if their parents are not vigilant in paying attention to what their kids are accessing on the internet.
As for the CDs that I assume that he burned, or someone burned, it means that he took a bunch of jpgs/gifs, and because he wanted to save them, he burned them to the CD to keep. So, in essence, he puts whatever images he wants to put on there. If he got a bunch of images from a website, and he wanted to save them, instead of keeping them on his computer, he put them on the CD to archive, give to someone, backup, or whatever. This would not be a CD that he bought with images already on it; he puts things on it himself.
Correct me if I am wrong, but the witness was asked if DW was barefoot, and she said she didn't notice or didn't think so. Where do you find the info that he was?
Also, if he was barefooted, footprints can be lifted just like fingerprints, and are just as damning. So where are they?
Oh, I thought you were saying that he was barefoot when he committed his crime, hence the lack of trace evidence on his shoes.
Fine, thanks. You?
I must call it a night. Later...
If you have read this in the transcript or remember hearing it, I will take your word.
I think mudd made a big mistake here by charectorizing the images found as being "against your client". Shows his prejudice and may come back to bite him in the butt.
Were all 3 comforters blood stained (but not noticed by the drycleaners) and the one he took home was for extra blood removal and he liked it so much, he put it back on the MH bed?
Or was the comforter Parga saw on the dryer in the am of 2/4 that looked like it had been camping used by someone else?...and where did the comforter found in the dryer come from on 2/5 if he took the one from on top of the dryer to the MH??
So, he wore the jacket while doing this horrible thing but remained barefoot so the boots they tested from the SUV would show no trace evidence but yet he takes the jacket to a drycleaners?
Gee, you would think that would be a cakewalk.
doors open, no rational adult to check on the kids, too drunk or stoned, or something. Alarms that don't bother anyone. A dog that doesn't can't bark. People coming and going all hours of the night, and the neighbors apparently used to it. Strangers coming and going, being invited home by one or more guests. Drugs in the house, an attraction for all kinds of unsavory criminals.
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