Posted on 06/27/2002 6:47:45 AM PDT by FresnoDA
The disappearance of Danielle van Dam was a shocking tragedy that ballooned into more than just a murder case. The parents’ lifestyle—and actions by police, media, lawyers and the district attorney—came into question. As the legal team for defendant David Westerfield begins the fight for his life, here’s a no-holds-barred look behind the scenes of San Diego’s biggest story of 2002.Amid the superstores and strip malls that pass for community in the suburbs of San Diego, some small-town traditions remain. Parents still come out to watch their kids play Little League baseball, just like their parents did.
There’s sunshine and sunflower seeds. Dirt and grass.
But in the Carmel Mountain Ranch Little League, grass is a touchy subject this season. Parents have admitted smoking it, and one of them says a coach supplied it.
Grass. Marijuana, that is.
The coach is Rich Brady (not the well-known San Diego clothier with the same name). Some wanted Brady to resign, but others involved with his team threatened to pull their children out of the league if he left, according to a league official. Brady declined comment on the subject. The dispute went all the way to Little League headquarters in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
The Carmel Mountain Ranch league was covering its bases, according to the league official. “The general consensus from everyone involved is unless the man is charged with something, and his performance on the field is affected by choices in his personal life, at this point there are no grounds to remove him,” the official says.
Rich Brady is still coaching, but “It’s one of those situations where we wish he would go away quietly,” says another coach.
And who is the parent who says Brady supplied marijuana?
Brenda van Dam.
The disappearance of her 7-year-old daughter, Danielle, set off a San Onofre–size chain reaction in San Diego on February 2. Three days later, Brenda and her husband, Damon, were on national television, pleading for Danielle’s return. They kept making pleas in daily news conferences before dozens of reporters and photographers outside their Sabre Springs home—with the man suspected of abducting their daughter just two doors away.
Police quickly focused on the neighbor, David Westerfield, as thousands of volunteers kept searching for Danielle. Twenty days after she disappeared, the cops arrested Westerfield, who pleaded not guilty to murdering her. It took five more days for searchers to find Danielle’s body, under a tree by a road in East County.
Westerfield’s murder trial—he faces the death penalty—was scheduled to start May 17. A judge imposed a gag order on most of the trial participants—including the van Dams, the police and the district attorney. San Diego Magazine offered each a chance to comment for this story. They either declined, citing the gag order, or did not respond.
The van Dams
Despite the reluctance of many in the media to explore the van Dams’ lifestyle choices, one thing is clear: The question of lifestyle—both the Van Dams’ and that of their neighbor, David Westerfield—is very likely to be a central issue in Westerfield’s murder trial. And it will be impossible for the media to ignore.
Looking back, Brenda van Dam called it a girls’ night out. That’s how she described an evening of drinking and dancing with her two girlfriends, on the same night her daughter disappeared. Brenda offered the following version of events that evening:
The three women met two men at a bar. Brady was one of them. They went back to the van Dam house about 2 a.m. Damon van Dam, who had remained home with Danielle and her two brothers, joined the group to eat leftover pizza. The pizza party broke up around 3 a.m., and the van Dams went to bed.
Later that morning, about 9 a.m., the van Dams discovered their daughter was missing.
In the days following Danielle’s disappearance, allegations about her parents’ lifestyle began to emerge. There was talk of spouse-swapping and drug use by the van Dams. It had the makings of a public relations nightmare.
“At that time, attention was starting to get diverted to allegations of family lifestyle,” says a spokeswoman for Fleishman Hillard, an international public relations and communications firm. A week after Danielle disappeared, four employees from the firm’s San Diego office started working with the van Dams as unpaid volunteers.
The spokeswoman says the van Dams needed help also because of the “news crush”—the sheer number of reporters now working the story—“and the fear other news [stories] would begin to override” the search for Danielle. “At that point, there was still a child missing,” she says. “That was the concern.”
The Fleishman Hillard employees worked with the van Dams for eight days, but the spokeswoman says the pair didn’t need any coaching. “In the media, there was a lot of second-guessing, a lot of speculation that the van Dams were heavily media trained. Frankly, that’s not true. They knew what they wanted to say; they knew where they wanted the attention to stay focused. We just helped them along.”
The spokeswoman has nothing but praise for the van Dams—as people and as parents. “I don’t know that I could have been that strong. I think their strength came from the belief they were doing the right thing in trying to find their daughter. I don’t think many people would have been as brave as the van Dams,” she says. “They were so selfless ... putting themselves through public scrutiny. They proved themselves to be ... good parents [who] do everything they can for their children. That’s exactly what they did.”
The public saw another side of the van Dams during David Westerfield’s preliminary hearing in March. That’s when Brenda described a previous girls’ night out—on January 25, a week before Danielle disappeared. On that night, Brenda testified, she saw Westerfield at Dad’s, a restaurant and bar in Poway, and he bought her alcohol. But she said she couldn’t remember how many drinks she had.
A week later, on February 1, Brenda testified, she, her husband and her two girlfriends smoked marijuana in the van Dam garage. Then the three women went back to Dad’s for their second girls’ night out in eight days. Westerfield was back at the bar, too. Brenda testified she and her two girlfriends smoked marijuana again that night in the parking lot at Dad’s—marijuana supplied by Rich Brady, the Little League coach.
Brenda acknowledged she told police her two girlfriends were dancing in a sexually provocative manner, rubbing their bodies together. One of the girlfriends, identified as Barbara Easton, tried to grab Brenda’s breasts, according to the statement Brenda gave investigators.
Westerfield’s attorney, Steven Feldman, pressed Brenda about her relationship with Easton. “Would you characterize Barbara Easton as an intimate friend of yours?” Feldman asked.
“What do you mean by ‘intimate’?” Brenda said.
“Very close ... sexually very close,” Feldman said.
The prosecution objected, and the judge ruled Brenda did not have to answer the question.
When Brenda and her friends came back to the van Dam house on February 1, Easton went upstairs to see Damon van Dam. Under questioning from Westerfield’s attorney, Damon admitted he initially withheld information from police about what he did with Easton. When he did provide details, he acknowledged telling investigators that Easton got in bed with him. Later during the same hearing, he testified he and Easton kissed and he rubbed her back while he lay in bed—but she was on top of the covers.
The Media
Every few years, San Diego hits a lottery no one wants to win. Something really bad happens, and it makes national news. Heaven’s Gate. Santana High. Danielle van Dam.
She was reported missing at the start of the February ratings period, when TV stations measure audiences to determine advertising rates. There were no other big national stories in early February. There was no news from Afghanistan. The Olympics hadn’t started. Enron had already been imploding for a while.
“It’s a pretty sensational story,” says Mike Stutz, news director for KGTV (Channel 10). “It certainly generated tons of interest. We saw it in the numbers [ratings]. There were different approaches in terms of how the van Dams’ personal life was reported. We stayed away from getting into that, not knowing if it had anything to do with the actual crime itself.”
At an April 27 Society of Professional Journalists seminar, held on the campus of Point Loma Nazarene University to examine the van Dam coverage, Stutz and KNSD (Channel 7/39) news director Jim Sanders defended their decisions to not air information about the family’s lifestyle. Sanders says he confirmed lifestyle reports from two credible sources, but chose not to air the information “unless the police department told us it was relevant to the case.”
Stutz says ratings had nothing to do with way the story was covered. “[But] it’s nice to have ’em come along,” he says. “I didn’t approach it [as] ‘Okay, we gotta get a big number here, let’s have more Westerfield.’”
But there was a missing girl—wearing a choker and a 7-year-old’s smile.
The national networks had their angle. Grieving parents make great television, news professionals say. And those news pros believe the networks go easy on the lifestyle aspect. Shaking her head and looking down, Diane Sawyer seemed barely able to ask the question about the “rumors” when she interviewed the van Dams via satellite on Good Morning America.
The networks, according to insiders, don’t want to ruin their chances for any future access to the van Dams—such as that big sit-down interview—once the trial’s over. So they “make nice” with them, in the words of one producer who made a special trip to San Diego for that very reason.
The tabloids were in town as well, and they had their angle. Danielle was the new JonBenet Ramsey. The two had a lot in common. They were cute little girls, both from relatively affluent neighborhoods, and TV stations across the country played home video of them incessantly.
Who can forget the images of JonBenet performing in that cowboy outfit? And who can forget those images of Danielle playing to the camera, being a happy 7-year-old?
The tabloids played up the van Dams’ lifestyle, too. But the local media, with the exception of radio talk show host Rick Roberts, didn’t talk very much about that. Instead, they were making some bizarre comments about the case.
On the air, KUSI (Channel 51) reporter Paul Bloom said he was “not allowed to think about” certain aspects of the investigation. San Diego Magazine asked Bloom what he meant. “As a journalist,” he says, “I’m not allowed to speculate, or think that way at all.” Bloom adds he was happy with the way he covered the story. “Every day of the week there was a new rumor ... new speculation. There was no confirmation that it had anything to do with Danielle’s disappearance.”
Instead of questioning the van Dams’ lifestyle, the local media went with one of its favorite angles—fear. “[It’s] Polly Klaas redux,” KUSI’s John Soderman told viewers, referring to the Northern California girl abducted at home and murdered by a stranger in 1993.
The media didn’t know if that was the case. David Westerfield was no stranger to the van Dams. Brenda and her daughter even went to Westerfield’s house a few days before she disappeared—to sell Girl Scout cookies. Westerfield bought one box of Thin Mints from Danielle and her mother, according to her testimony in court. During that visit, Brenda testified that she asked to go inside Westerfield’s house to look at his remodeled kitchen, while Danielle went in the backyard to look at the pool.
Danielle van Dam wasn’t another Polly Klaas.
In an interview with San Diego Magazine, Soderman defends his Polly Klaas analogy. “Basically, if Westerfield did it, you still have somebody in your neighborhood who scooped up your child,” he says.
“I think [readers and viewers] were frightened needlessly,” says Dean Nelson, founder and director of the journalism program at Point Loma Nazarene University. “I’m not ready to demonize [the media], but I wish they were more skeptical.”
The media have a tough job, Nelson says, because they can’t be too skeptical, either. “Let’s say something else happened, and a warning could have served the public well ... Police say ‘Lock your doors,’ and the media say, ‘Oh, that’s bogus, they’re just buying time.’”
But the police were clearly buying time following Danielle’s disappearance, according to Nelson. “The police knew this was not a stranger,” he says. “I don’t fault the police department, because they knew that was going to be a temporary fear, because they knew who they wanted: ‘Now we can all breathe easier. Okay, it was somebody down the street, so I guess it wasn’t a stranger after all.’”
The Police
At 2:30 in the morning on February 5, homicide investigators from the San Diego Police Department are standing outside David Westerfield’s house, preparing to go inside and search it. Sergeant Bill Holmes is one of the cops.
“Sergeant Holmes, what are you doing here?” a reporter asks.
“We’re here to relieve robbery,” he says. Robbery detectives had also been assigned to Danielle’s case.
“At 2:30 in the morning? That’s some pretty high-priced talent.”
Holmes smiles. “That’s the way they want it,” he says.
Over the next several hours, Holmes and his crew search Westerfield’s house. It’s easy to track their progress. They take dozens of pictures before dawn, and the flash from the camera lights up the windows in each room.
“Sergeant Holmes, you weren’t here to relieve robbery,” the reporter says to him when he comes outside.
Holmes smiles again. “Well, we were. Kinda. Sorta.”
Police arranged to have search warrants in the case sealed by the court, so the media couldn’t find out what investigators took from Westerfield’s home. It was an extraordinary effort to keep the information confidential. And it was a spectacular failure.
Sources close to the investigation started talking about the van Dams’ lifestyle almost immediately. Then came reports of blood in Westerfield’s motor home, and child pornography on his computer.
The cops were furious, according to those same sources. The police department threatened to fire anyone who talked about the case. “They were after the leaks,” a source says.
Police acknowledge being angry over the leaks. “Yeah, we were pissed off,” says Steve Creighton, an assistant chief. But he says the leaks did not result in any large-scale internal investigation. “It’s not even a blip on the radar screen.”
Two police detectives, Michael Ott and Mark Keyser, made big news for the department when they arrested Westerfield. Then they made news again, in a rather embarrassing way. Ott and Keyser attempted to visit Westerfield in jail—without his attorney present. The police department reportedly reprimanded them.
Westerfield’s legal team started hammering Ott and Keyser, saying they had repeatedly violated Westerfield’s rights during the investigation. The lawyers released a memo from the district attorney’s office saying the two detectives made false statements during another murder investigation two years ago. Westerfield’s lawyers used that memo in a legal maneuver
to review the personnel files of Ott, Keyser and 10 other police officers involved in the case for any reports of misconduct during their careers. Judge William Mudd ruled the defense could have information from the file of one unidentified officer.
“I think it’s safe to say Ott and Keyser are the Mark Fuhrmans of the Westerfield trial,” says a court insider, referring to the rogue cop vilified by the defense in the O.J. Simpson case.
The pressure of such a high-profile investigation was getting to the cops. “The detectives are sick of it,” a source says. Others say there were even references to the case as “The Isle of the van Damned.”
Creighton says he had not heard the detectives were sick of the case. “But they’re tired,” he says. “It’s a long and involved case, with a lot of long hours.”
The San Diego Police Department continued to handle the case with the utmost of care. Chief David Bejarano himself went to the van Dams’ home to meet with the family when Danielle’s body was identified. Then he talked to reporters. But at a follow-up news conference downtown, it wasn’t the police chief running the show.
It was District Attorney Paul Pfingst, who is running for reelection.
The District Attorney
The timing was interesting. Just four days before the primary election, Pfingst appeared on live television, talking about one of the biggest developments in the case yet. He thanked the volunteers who worked so hard to find Danielle. He expressed the emotions felt by law enforcement and everyone else in San Diego over the murder of a 7-year-old girl.
Politicians live for moments such as this, especially politicians who have not been getting good media coverage. Pfingst’s opponents had been relentlessly criticizing him, pointing out ethical lapses and declining morale in his office. But all that was getting pushed aside by news about Danielle—delivered by the district attorney himself.
“He was doing it for one reason only—that is, for the election,” says Deputy District Attorney Dave Stutz, a longtime critic of Pfingst. “He was grandstanding and campaigning. He took advantage of free press during a campaign. Once again, it shows he makes his decisions based on politics.”
Citing the gag order imposed on everyone involved with David Westerfield’s trial, a spokeswoman in the district attorney’s office says Pfingst won’t comment—not even to deny Stutz’ accusations. But Pfingst’s former spokeswoman, Gayle Falkenthal, comes to his defense.
“I can’t believe anyone in their right mind would think that Paul Pfingst wished this case into being, just for an election,” says Falkenthal, now the vice president of marketing and communications for the San Diego Convention Center Corporation. Because charges had already been filed against Westerfield, she says, the district attorney’s office was in charge of the case —not the police. So it was appropriate for Pfingst to take over the news conference, according to Falkenthal.
“In my opinion, if the district attorney had really wanted to grandstand, he could have handled [Westerfield’s] arraignment himself, he could have been at the courthouse every day, he could have been at the parents’ home,” she says. “He didn’t do any of that. There were lots of opportunities. He didn’t do any of them.”
Pfingst is in a runoff in November with the runner-up in the primary, Superior Court Judge Bonnie Dumanis. Westerfield’s trial may be a factor in the election.
It’s heavy stuff. Careers could be on the line. Reputations may be damaged. Lives have been changed forever. Those are the big themes, playing out before a national audience.
But the case also shows up in small ways, in everyday conversation in Sabre Springs, where Danielle lived. A neighbor tells a story about planning a party. He calls to invite his friends who live in other parts of the city. “What kind of party?” they ask. “A wife-swapping party?”
His neighborhood now has a new nickname: Sabre Swings.
Undeserved or not, such has been the fallout. But is the van Dams’ lifestyle relevant in the Westerfield trial? That’s a question that was finally left for a judge to decide.
Elsewhere in the documents made public today, prosecutors say Westerfield admitted to police that he was responsible for downloading the pornographic images onto his computer and disks. At his preliminary hearing, Westerfield's lawyers suggested that his teen-age son might have downloaded the images.
"The images were organized, categorized, and labeled so the defendant could easily locate the images he desired," Dusek wrote in the motion. "The images depicted very young nude girls, young girls involved in sexual acts with adult men and other young girls, and young girls involved in sexual acts with animals." Westerfield, 50, "has admitted to the police that he was solely and personally responsible for downloading, categorizing and maintaining the images," Dusek stated. "Contrary to the insinuations attempted by the defense at the preliminary hearing, neither the defendant's son nor anybody else was responsible for this huge collection of computer images."
Hmm, that link didn't work, yet it looks find on the pre posting page. Oh well, here it is again.
June 27, 2002
Given the command "bones," a dog trained to find cadavers sniffed around David Westerfield's motor home and reacted to a storage area on the side of the vehicle, a witness in Westerfield's murder trial testified yesterday.
The dog's handler was one of the final witnesses – perhaps the final witness – before the prosecution rests its case against Westerfield, who is charged with kidnapping and killing 7-year-old Danielle van Dam.
Westerfield's motor home had been impounded by police by the time the dog conducted the search Feb. 6, four days after the second-grader was reported missing, canine handler Jim Frazee testified. The dog wandered around the vehicle, targeted one of the side compartments, swung around, sat down, made eye contact with Frazee and barked, he said.
"That's his cadaver alert," Frazee testified.
Inside the compartment were a shovel and a piece of lawn furniture, he said.
Frazee's testimony ended a day in which jurors heard more evidence about the thousands of pornographic computer images found in Westerfield's house. Those images included photos of nude children, photos of people having sex with animals and cartoon videos depicting young girls being tied up and raped, the jurors were told.
Among the 8,000 images are pictures of a daughter of Westerfield's former girlfriend dressed in a bikini. At least one of the pictures shows the girl with her legs spread, according to testimony.
Westerfield's former girlfriend lived with him until at least 2000, and her daughter – also named Danielle – is now 16, public records show.
Also yesterday, an expert said a hair found in the sink drain of Westerfield's motor home and a bloodstain on the vehicle's carpet both essentially matched the victim's DNA profile. With both specimens, the statistical odds of the match being incorrect were so minuscule as to be virtually nonexistent, the expert said.
Depending on what happens Monday, the prosecution may rest its case without calling any more witnesses. Prosecutors want to summon one more person – it's unclear who – but Judge William Mudd will hold a hearing Monday to decide if that witness will be allowed to testify. The hearing will be closed to the public.
Regardless of whether the witness testifies, prosecutors have assembled what seems to be a powerful circumstantial case against Westerfield, 50, a twice-divorced design engineer who lived two doors from the girl in Sabre Springs and who Danielle's parents have described as a passing acquaintance.
In more than three weeks of testimony, prosecutors have presented physical evidence linking Danielle to Westerfield's 1997 Southwind motor home, his jacket and the bedroom of his house.
They have presented evidence that he lied about where he was during the two days after Danielle was reported missing from her bedroom the morning of Feb. 2. They have introduced alleged child pornography to suggest that he is sexually attracted to young girls.
"It appears very powerful on the surface, but you can't know until it's really tested" by Westerfield's attorneys, said San Diego criminal defense lawyer Bill Nimmo, who has been working as a television commentator on the case.
The defense will begin putting on its case next week, after which prosecutors will be allowed to call additional witnesses to rebut any of the defense's testimony.
Frazee, a volunteer with the county Sheriff's Department, said his dog – a 3-year-old vizsla named Cielo – was certified as both a search dog and a cadaver dog by the California Rescue Dog Association.
Westerfield usually kept his 35-foot motor home parked in a rural area of Poway about eight miles from his house, but the vehicle had already been searched and impounded by police when Cielo was summoned to sniff for cadaver evidence, Frazee testified.
Frazee said he was standing outside the motor home when he gave Cielo the "cadavers command" – an order to begin searching for a body.
Cielo's cadaver command was "bones," he said.
Near the passenger door, the dog began sniffing with increasing intensity, and the intensity became "more increased" the closer Cielo got to the storage compartment, Frazee said.
At the compartment, the dog did the "cadaver alert."
Frazee said he walked Cielo around the vehicle to see if the dog might have been reacting to the tires or fenders, which might suggest the dog's scent was distracted by road kill. Cielo didn't react.
When the compartment door was opened, Cielo sniffed the shovel and the lawn furniture for about 15 seconds, Frazee said.
He said the dog's behavior indicated that a cadaver had been stored either in the compartment or in an area of the motor home where the air fed into the compartment.
"I would assume that the body could be anywhere in the motor home, and it (the scent) could be emanating from that location," Frazee testified.
Prosecutors have introduced evidence that Danielle's hair, blood and fingerprints were found inside the motor home, but no other testimony has raised the possibility that the girl's body might have been in the compartment.
On cross-examination by Robert Boyce, one of Westerfield's attorneys, Frazee denied telling police at the scene that his dog had failed to react to the motor home.
He admitted he never reported his dog's positive reaction until weeks later, when he sent the canine's breeder an e-mail, figuring she would be "proud" of Cielo's achievement.
Frazee said several police officers and his supervising lieutenant were present during the search and witnessed the dog's behavior. He said he assumed at the time that they understood the significance of the animal's actions.
In court documents filed several months ago, prosecutors attached a police report stating that on Feb. 6 a police detective at the impound lot told other officers that "search dogs had alerted on a storage area located on the exterior of the motor home near the main entrance on the passenger side."
The jury in the case toured the motor home before being dismissed yesterday.
Yesterday morning, a San Diego police computer expert finished his testimony from the day before. James Watkins said the 8,000 pornographic images were found on disks in Westerfield's house and on two computers in his home office and bedroom.
The jury will be allowed to see all of the images, which have been placed in binders and booklets. At the start of the trial, Mudd ruled that prosecutors could show the jury about 17 of the images, but the judge reversed himself Tuesday after accusing defense attorney Steven Feldman of implying to the jury that the 17 were the only images that might qualify as child pornography or be particularly obscene.
Under cross-examination by Feldman, Watkins said yesterday that only 85 of the 8,000 images appeared to qualify as child pornography, while 39 of the 2,600 digital videos in Westerfield's house might be considered child porn.
The jury won't return to court until Tuesday. Today the attorneys are scheduled to hash out several legal issues, with Monday reserved for the closed-door hearing related to the potential final prosecution witness.
June 27, 2002
Pornographic pictures and video presented Tuesday as evidence in the David Westerfield murder trial caused local television news stations to consider appropriate ways of presenting the testimony and the images.
Police investigators say pornographic pictures and video were found on computer disks in Westerfield's house. Prosecutors contend that the images reveal a motive for Westerfield, who is charged with kidnapping and murdering his 7-year-old neighbor Danielle van Dam in February.
Many of the pictures the jury saw showed what appeared to be young girls in their early to mid-teens in various nude and seminude poses, along with several graphic videos of sexual assaults that included screaming.
Jurors were shown the images on a video monitor. Television viewers saw the monitor at a sharp angle with its screen blurred.
When the testimony turned graphic, Channel 8 ran two visual warnings, depending on the situation. One said, "Warning: Explicit Testimony," the other, "Warning: Graphic Evidence."
KFMB/Channel 8 news anchor Graham Ledger repeatedly cut in with oral advisories that the testimony was explicit.
Although the station ran the sounds of a girl moaning during its live coverage of testimony, it did not use the sound in any of its early afternoon newscasts. However, Channel 8 did use the sound in its nightly Westerfield trial special at 7:30.
"I made the editorial judgment that viewers tuning in to that show would be more aware of what to expect," said KFMB news director Fred D'Ambrosi. "We gave a very clear verbal warning prior to the story. We did the same at 11 p.m."
For the past two weeks, while the testimony focused on DNA evidence and other technical data, KFMB had not been broadcasting the Westerfield trial live and continuously.
With the compelling nature of the pornographic evidence, Channel 8 went back to the courthouse live on Tuesday. Yesterday, the station resumed its regular daytime programming after broadcasting the trial for about an hour.
Television coverage of the trial is being carried via pool coverage – a single camera that provides the same picture to local TV stations and cable's Court TV.
In San Diego County, Tuesday's court session was seen on KGTV/Channel 10's round-the-clock cable TV outlet, News Channel 15; KUSI/Channel 51; and Channel 8.
KUSI news director Richard Longoria said his station hasn't been showing any pictures or videos that are pornographic.
"We 'pot' (turn) down the sound when it is graphic," he said. "In other words, we did not air the screams coming from the video. We won't air any sound that is graphic."
On News Channel 15, anchor Hal Clement and reporter Steve Fiorina explained to viewers what to expect with the presentation of the pornographic evidence, saying the station would not show any of that material.
"We also warned that some of the audio which could be heard might be graphic, but we were going to monitor that as closely as possible on live television," said Channel 10 news director Mike Stutz.
"We also had a screen graphic up (when the trial resumed) which advised viewers the jury was viewing the pornographic material while they (viewers) were seeing the witness and attorneys on television. It also advised that the audio could be graphic."
Court TV did not air any of the pornography-related audio.
"We didn't think it was appropriate," said a spokeswoman for the channel.
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"Go ahead and cry...but you WILL wear the High Heels!!"
Porn, Motor Home Focus Of Westerfield Trial
Jim Frazee, who helps the San Diego Sheriff's Department, said his dogs searched the 1997 Southwind motor home Feb. 6 at a vehicle storage facility on Aero Drive.
Live Trial Coverage Resumes Tuesday @ 9 a.m.
The first dog, Hopi, was sent in to search specifically for Danielle's scent, Frazee said.
Hopi went into the galley area, the witness said, "and turned around immediately and came back."
He had explained earlier that Hopi was trained to return to his handler as soon as he found a scent. Hopi was sent back inside several minutes later.
"He jumped up on the sofa on the driver's side," Frazee testified, and remained there about five seconds.
His other dog, Cielo, showed considerable interest in an exterior storage compartment behind the passenger-side door, Frazee said.
Cielo, trained to find human remains and bodily fluids, sniffed a shovel and lawn furniture in the compartment for about 15 seconds, according to Frazee.
Frazee said that when he tried to take Cielo to another compartment, the dog sat down and barked, which is his alert signal.
Cielo did not show much interest elsewhere around the motor home, the witness testified.
Under cross-examination by defense attorney Robert Boyce, Frazee conceded that he did not report the dogs' reactions because his supervisor was watching them. He also said he had never before testified about dogs as an expert witness.
Boyce began his questioning loudly and angrily, apparently trying to intimidate the novice witness, drawing a rebuke from Superior Court Judge William Mudd.
"Mr. Boyce, calm down, take a deep breath," Mudd said.
In pretrial motions, the defense had asked that testimony about Cielo be excluded.
Testimony earlier Wednesday also involved the motor home.
Mitchell Holland, the laboratory director of the Bode Technology Group, said a blood stain from the motor home carpet and a hair found in the bathroom sink were compared to a known sample from the 7-year-old victim.
Regarding the hair, Holland said the chances are "one in 25 quadrillion" of selecting a person at random from the Caucasian population who would have the same DNA.
When asked about the blood stain, Holland told prosecutor George "Woody" Clarke that the chances were "one in 660 quadrillion" of selecting a person at random from the Caucasian population who would have the same DNA.
"Is this an example where samples match?" Clarke asked.
"Yes, it is," Holland answered.
The expert testified that he performed mitochondrial DNA testing -- different from "nuclear" DNA testing -- on hairs found on clothing in Westerfield's washing machine, dryer and sheets from his master bedroom in Sabre Springs.
Holland said he could not exclude Danielle van Dam as the donor of the hairs in question.
Police computer expert James Watkins completed his testimony by saying that 85 sexually oriented computer images of underage females were found in Westerfield's home.
Watkins said the images were among at least 8,000 deemed pornographic. A total of 100,000 images were found on the computer, but many were simply icons and arrows that make operating systems work.
Under cross-examination by Westerfield attorney Steven Feldman, Watkins conceded that what he called "questionable images" made up only a small portion of what was discovered.
"What percent is 85 out of 100,000?" Feldman asked.
"Obviously, less than 1 percent," Watkins answered.
"What percentage is 85 of 8,000?" Feldman inquired.
"About 1 percent."
Watkins told Feldman he found "borderline" images in which he could not be certain the females depicted were under 18. He said he gave the defendant the benefit of the doubt in those cases.
The jury also toured the defendant's 35-foot motor home Wednesday, after authorities brought the RV to an underground garage in the San Diego Hall of Justice.
Mudd had jurors meet in the overflow jury lounge, where they were escorted to the recreational vehicle.
Westerfield told authorities he drove the RV to the Silver Strand State Beach near Coronado the day Danielle van Dam's mother reported her missing from her bed.
The defendant said he then drove to the Imperial County desert town of Glamis, where he got stuck in the sand.
They have a body, (remember they've convicted people of murder without the body), they have evidence of danielle being in the mh, the porn charge will IMHO more than likely be a conviction because 1. he admitted downloading according to the report, 2. the animation does not constitute the entire load of child porn,..the child porn was right in front of the jury's faces and we heard the screams....it'll be a total shocker if he gets to keep his child porn and not be convicted...and 3., the child porn rapes scenes will make a lasting impact...and this is just a smidgen of what they have accumulated. The closing arguments of dusek could make or break this case. I hope they have some awesome speech writers..
BTW, I don't think the time of death will have a major impact on the jury..that's just a hunch.
By Alex Roth
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
June 26, 2002
At least two jurors cried yesterday after prosecutors in the David Westerfield trial showed pictures of nude young girls, including movies of what looked like girls screaming while being sexually assaulted.
Prosecutors say the images and videos, all of which were found on computer disks in Westerfield's house, reveal a motive for the kidnapping and killing of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam.
Westerfield, 50, a self-employed engineer, lived two doors from the girl in Sabre Springs. He is being tried on charges of kidnapping and murdering the second-grader.
The pictures clearly had an emotional impact on the jury of six men, six women and six alternates. One female juror openly wept, while another wiped her eyes with tissues.
More pornography will be introduced into evidence as a result of a ruling yesterday by Superior Court Judge William Mudd, who lashed out at Westerfield's lead attorney after the jury had been sent home for the day.
Before the trial began earlier this month, Mudd ruled that only the images shown in court yesterday could be used as evidence. But the judge reversed himself yesterday in response to what he labeled a misimpression created by defense attorney Steven Feldman.
While cross-examining a prosecution computer expert, Feldman seemed to suggest that the pictures shown to the jury yesterday were the only ones found in Westerfield's home that might qualify as child pornography or otherwise qualify as especially obscene.
"You know, I know, that is not true," Mudd told Feldman after the jury had left the courtroom.
With that, the judge said prosecutors could introduce several binders filled with scores of additional sexually themed pictures. The images were found on disks and computers in Westerfield's house, prosecutors say.
The judge said he would tolerate "no distortions to the people of this community that are going to make this decision. They are now going to know everything."
"If this jury wants to look at all this material, they're going to be welcomed to do it," Mudd told the attorneys. "This door has been opened like a barnyard."
Jurors saw about 14 pictures and videos yesterday, all of which were displayed on a television screen in a darkened courtroom. Many of the pictures depicted what appeared to be young girls in their early to mid-teens in various nude and seminude poses. Some appeared to be pre-pubescent or in the early stages of puberty.
Other images included a cartoon picture of a young girl in pigtails having sex, and several videos of what appear to be girls in school dresses screaming while being sexually assaulted. In one of the videos, the girl seems to be struggling as two men hold her down.
It was unclear how many additional images the jury will be allowed to see as a result of Mudd's ruling. It also was unclear what those images depict.
Prosecutor George "Woody" Clarke said authorities have "hundreds and hundreds" of pornographic images collected as possible evidence in the case.
Feldman later said there were about 80 "questionable" images – pictures that might qualify as child pornography.
At a preliminary hearing in March, prosecutors said some of the computer images found in Westerfield's house depicted bestiality.
In his lecture to Feldman yesterday, the judge said he originally limited the amount of pornography in the trial because he wanted to "minimize the prejudicial impact."
"This is a search for the truth, believe it or not," Mudd told Feldman. "And the truth is there are more than 13 images."
Feldman apologized to the judge and said any misimpressions he might have left with the jury were inadvertent.
"I certainly did not intend to end-run any of your rulings," Feldman said.
The controversy involved Feldman's cross-examination of James Watkins, a computer forensics examiner with the San Diego Police Department. Watkins testified that the images shown to the jury yesterday were found on five computer disks in Westerfield's home office.
Under questioning by Feldman, Watkins said authorities found 8,000 to 10,000 nude photographs and "several hundred" digital videos on Westerfield's home computers and disks.
Feldman asked Watkins whether it was true that the vast majority of those images depicted adult women, "with a couple of rare exceptions." Watkins agreed it was.
Feldman then made reference to the fact that of the thousands of images found in Westerfield's home, only a handful were being presented to the jury.
Watkins acknowledged that authorities don't know who downloaded any of the computer images found in Westerfield's house. Feldman seemed to suggest at several points that Westerfield's 18-year-old son might have been responsible for obtaining the material.
In other developments yesterday, Jennifer Shen, a San Diego Police Department criminalist, testified that a hair found on Danielle's nude body and another hair found in her hand both appeared to be Danielle's.
The girl's body was found off a rural stretch of Dehesa Road east of El Cajon about three weeks after she was reported missing from her home Feb. 2.
Shen also testified that an orange fiber tangled in the girl's plastic necklace at the time her body was found was similar to fibers found in laundry inside Westerfield's home and on bedding in his bedroom.
All the fibers were acrylic and of the same length, and all looked essentially identical under a microscope, she testified.
Similarly, blue-gray fibers found on Danielle's body were similar to fibers found on laundry in Westerfield's washer and dryer, Shen testified. The fibers were the same color, the same width and had the same "internal characteristics" under a microscope, she testified.
Shen said she didn't know the source for either the orange or blue fibers.
On cross-examination, Feldman suggested the fibers might have been transferred to Westerfield when he saw Danielle's mother at a Poway bar the night the girl vanished from her house.
Although Brenda van Dam said she barely knew Westerfield, Feldman has suggested he danced with her at the bar while she was in the midst of drinking and flirting with other people.
Feldman also noted that Danielle and her mother were in Westerfield's house selling Girl Scout cookies several days before the girl disappeared. The attorney suggested that might explain some of the fiber evidence.
Alex Roth
But seriously, Kim. The child was not kept very well..poor little baby looked like a little Raggie Muffin most of the time. Should't be hard to prove she didn't have a bath that night.
sw
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