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.