July 4, 2002
A defense expert in the David Westerfield murder trial suggested yesterday that Westerfield's son might be the one responsible for downloading child pornography found on computers and disks in Westerfield's home.
The testimony came on a day when Westerfield's attorneys also called several witnesses to revisit the activities of Brenda van Dam and her friends at a Poway bar on the night her 7-year-old daughter, Danielle, vanished from her bedroom in the family's Sabre Springs home.
"I wouldn't mind taking these two home," Brenda van Dam said at one point in reference to a pair of strangers she met at the bar that night, according to a woman who was there.
Westerfield's attorneys presented the evidence as part of a continuing attempt to show that van Dam and her husband – with their bar-hopping, marijuana use and unconventional sex life – attracted so many unseemly characters that any number of people might have abducted and killed their daughter.
Westerfield lived two doors from the van Dams and is charged with kidnapping and murdering the second-grader. The 50-year-old design engineer also faces misdemeanor charges of possessing child pornography.
Prosecutors have said the pornography reveals Westerfield's motive for the crimes. But a computer expert hired by the defense testified yesterday that several Internet porn sites on the home computers – including those advertising teen sex and bestiality – were accessed by someone with an e-mail account that began with the letters DNWest.
The defendant's full name is David Alan Westerfield. The name of his 18-year-old son, of whom he and his ex-wife shared joint custody, is David Neal Westerfield. Among the e-mails sent to this account were several from a bookstore at San Diego State University, where the son is a student, according to testimony.
On cross-examination, prosecutor George "Woody" Clarke seemed to suggest that the father and son might have shared the same e-mail account, or that the father might have been using the account on his own. Clarke noted that a person using this account joined one Web site by creating the password 5203 – the last four digits of the father's Social Security number.
In court documents filed in April, prosecutors said that "the defendant, in an audiotape recorded interview with law enforcement, acknowledged his downloading of sexually explicit material." Westerfield's son, "in a similar audiotaped interview with law enforcement, denied possession of sexually explicit material," the court documents state. None of these interviews has been played for the jury.
By trying to place responsibility for the child pornography on Westerfield's son, Westerfield's attorneys might have opened the door for prosecutors to call the son to the witness stand.
Because there is a gag order in the case, it was not possible to determine if they will do so. Westerfield's son has stated that he believes his father is innocent.
The expert called by the defense is Marcus Lawson, president of Global CompuSearch in Spokane, Wash., and a former Drug Enforcement Administration and Customs Service agent. He said he used special software to examine the hard drives of two computers found in Westerfield's home office, a computer in his son's bedroom, a laptop computer and several computer disks found on a bookshelf in Westerfield's home office.
An analysis shows that someone using the computers in Westerfield's office accessed an e-mail account named DNWest@hotmail.com, Lawson testified. The same person with this e-mail address either accessed or was sent information about a number of pornographic Internet sites, including one advertising "teen sex" and another advertising "hardcore beast action."
Lawson also suggested that Westerfield's son may have been responsible for downloading several pornographic images found on the computer disks in his father's office.
Several of the images – including a video showing what appears to be a young girl being raped by two men – were shown to the jury last week. Many of the images on the disks were accessed at the same time that many of the images on Westerfield's son's computer had also been created, Lawson testified yesterday.
On cross-examination, prosecutor Clarke suggested Westerfield's son's computer might have been a hand-me-down from his father. Lawson also acknowledged that many of the images on the disks were created in 1999, when Westerfield's son was only 15, and that the files had electronic labels referring to Spectrum, the name of the father's business.
Many of the files on the disks were also labeled with the prefix "iea," the same prefix attached to various engineer business files that appeared to have been created by Westerfield, Lawson said.
Lawson said it was impossible to tell who downloaded the images on the disks.
In other testimony, the defense called Cherokee Youngs, who was a patron at Dad's Cafe & Steakhouse on Feb. 1. She said she saw Brenda van Dam with two girlfriends drinking, dancing and "having a good time."
Youngs said that although she had never met the three women before, Brenda van Dam's friend Barbara Easton began hitting on her. Youngs said she felt so uncomfortable that she struck up a conversation with a man she didn't know – someone named Ryan – as a way to fend off Easton.
Not long afterward, Brenda van Dam glanced at Youngs and Ryan and announced, "I wouldn't mind taking these two home," Youngs testified. Earlier in the trial, van Dam and her husband, Damon, said they had swapped sex partners with their friends.
Later that night, Brenda van Dam invited Youngs and Ryan back to her house, but they both declined, Youngs said.
Youngs also said she saw van Dam dancing in the bar that night with someone who could have been Westerfield, but she wasn't sure. She said she didn't get a good glimpse of the man, and added that Westerfield's look – middle-age, balding and wearing a goatee – is fairly common for the area.
"The majority of the men in Poway look like Dave Westerfield," she said.
"Now we've offended Poway," Superior Court Judge William Mudd interjected.
Westerfield, who was a neighborhood acquaintance of the van Dams, was in the bar that night but left before Brenda van Dam and her friends.
Westerfield's attorneys have been trying to show that Westerfield danced with van Dam that night. Any physical contact between the two could help explain how fibers and hairs from the girl might have been transported into Westerfield's house.
San Diego police Detective Lucious Mobley testified that Youngs told him during a Feb. 8 interview that she saw Westerfield and van Dam dancing that night. Youngs said that was incorrect.
The final witness of the day was Glennie Nasland, a friend of Westerfield's who saw him at Dad's on Feb. 1. She said she saw Westerfield dancing with van Dam and her friend Denise Kemal. He didn't make physical contact with van Dam during the dance, Nasland testified.
Nasland said she saw Westerfield leave the bar about midnight. "He was drunk," she said.
The trial is scheduled to resume Monday.
Alex Roth: (619) 542-4558; alex.roth@uniontrib.com