Posted on 07/10/2002 3:17:09 PM PDT by FresnoDA
By Kristen Green
STAFF WRITER
June 30, 2002
In the first four weeks of David Westerfield's murder trial, jurors were schooled in scientific evidence such as blood and DNA, fingerprints and fibers. Now they'll get a crash course in the life cycle of flies.
Westerfield's team of lawyers is expected to launch his defense this week, and lead attorney Steven Feldman has hinted that he will use insect biology to prove 7-year-old Danielle van Dam died after police and reporters began tracking his client's every move. That would mean Westerfield couldn't have killed the child.
"This would be very powerful evidence," said San Diego criminal defense lawyer Michael Pancer. "I can't think of what the state would say if this point were pinned."
Using forensic entomology, scientists can estimate when the girl died by determining the age of insects, generally flies, found on her body.
"They generally get to the body before police do, and they lay eggs," said Bernard Greenberg, professor emeritus of biological sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
The prosecution may call the same expert to the witness stand.
Because of the gag order in the case, no one can provide a timetable for witnesses, clarify facts or discuss strategy.
Feldman has raised the possibility that Danielle may have been killed up to two weeks after her mother reported her missing. Her body was dumped in a brushy rural area in East County.
"You're going to be convinced beyond any doubt that it was impossible, impossible for David Westerfield to have dumped Danielle van Dam in that location," he said on the first day of the trial.
Death's timetable
The jury has heard the prosecution's theory of Danielle's death from Dr. Brian Blackbourne, the county medical examiner. He testified that the girl's body could have been in the weeds along Dehesa Road 10 days to six weeks when it was found Feb. 27.
Forensic entomologists believe they can narrow that window of death, and coroners don't disagree.
Forensic entomology, the use of insects in legal cases, has gotten a boost in mainstream recognition from crime television shows such as CBS' "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," whose main character frequently uses insects to solve crimes. NBC's "Crossing Jordan" also has an insect expert, nicknamed "Bug," in the cast.
In the real world, the application of forensic entomology to crime investigations has become more common since it was introduced in the United States in the 1970s.
Insect biology has been used in a number of San Diego County cases, including that of Daniel Rodrick, who was convicted in 1997 of killing his wife. An entomologist's testimony helped narrow the time that the victim's body probably was dumped in Pala.
The reason attorneys frequently use entomology is that establishing the time of death is difficult for medical examiners, said San Diego insect expert David Faulkner.
"After 24 to 48 hours, things start to get pretty fuzzy," he said.
A medical examiner relies on three factors to make an assessment, Faulkner said: the amount and distribution of rigor mortis, the change in body temperature and the degree of decomposition. But after several days, rigor mortis dissipates and the corpse assumes the temperature of its environment.
Insects can give more specific information because they have a definitive development period that can be meticulously measured, said Faulkner, who collected insects during Danielle's autopsy and is listed as a potential witness by the prosecution and the defense.
He said his testimony will probably be more useful for the defense, but added the gag order prevents him from discussing his findings outside court.
Faulkner described the collecting of insects from a body as painstaking, similar to the collecting of other scientific evidence.
Generally, he said, forensic entomologists go where a body is found and remove insects from the corpse and areas under and near it. They frequently focus on flies, but also look at other insects, including ants and beetles.
Most of the insects are preserved with alcohol so they can be studied later, Faulkner said. Some of the larvae collected are placed in containers with a piece of liver so they can grow to adulthood, which enables scientists to identify each insect with certainty.
The scientists gather climate data, such as daily temperatures and precipitation measurements, for the time the victim was missing.
Weather is important because a fly's development varies according to conditions. Humidity and daytime highs help forensic entomologists better pinpoint the time flies complete a life cycle.
"The insects will tell you when the body was available to them," Faulkner said.
Fly's life and times
Expert witness Jason Byrd, an associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va., said making insects interesting to the jury is difficult.
Flies have a brief life span in warm weather, as short as 21 days. But they can live six months in colder weather.
They are attracted to the corpse's smell, and either lay eggs or deposit larvae. In about a day the eggs hatch into larvae, or maggots, which live on the dead tissue and develop quickly.
Depending on the species and temperature, eggs reach maturity, or the pre-pupal stage, in five to 12 days. From eggs, maggots feed on and then migrate from the body to form the pupal stage, similar to the cocoon stage of the butterfly.
After it leaves the body, a maggot shrinks in size, and the outer covering hardens into what looks like a miniature football. The adult fly develops in that football, called the pupae.
On average, it takes 14 to 24 days for the eggs to reach adult stage, depending on weather.
The longer a body has been left outside, the less precise an entomologist's estimated time of death.
A number of factors can delay insects from reaching a body. For example, burial in a shallow grave, strange weather or wrapping the body in a blanket can delay detection by insects for a few days.
"They'll get there, but they're not going to get there as quickly," said M. Lee Goff, one of eight certified forensic entomologists in the nation and chairman of the forensic sciences department at Chaminade University in Honolulu.
Danielle apparently wasn't wrapped in a blanket or buried in a shallow grave. However, Faulkner has described the weather in February as unusual.
Jurors in the Westerfield trial have heard powerful scientific evidence over the month the prosecution has been presenting its case. But their responsibility is to determine beyond a reasonable doubt whether Westerfield killed the girl, and the defense has not begun.
Witnesses for the prosecution have testified that DNA from a bloodstain on Westerfield's jacket and on the carpet in his motor home matches Danielle's. The victim's DNA was obtained from one of her ribs after the autopsy.
Jurors also have heard that a hair found on a bathmat in Westerfield's motor home could be hers, and DNA tests of a hair found in the motor home's sink drain matched her DNA.
Witnesses also testified that fibers wrapped around the victim's necklace matched fibers found in Westerfield's bedding and laundry, and an expert said two fingerprints found on a cabinet in his motor home were left by her.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kristen Green: (619) 542-4576; kristen.green@uniontrib.com
Copyright 2002 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
There! You found the words I was looking for! Very well said, and exactly so.
I have bleach in the house and I am planning to do laundry today..do you want my address to report me to the cops?
Where is Barbara??
AND he planned on replacing it..yep definately GUILTY
Good question! We don't know anything about what happened in the VD home that morning, do we? Damon got up at sometime (when?) fixed a little something for one or both of the boys (who walked past her open bedroom door?). Brenda got up (when?) did what? made coffee? read the paper? did some laundry? tripped over the dog bed? asked Damon what happened to it? asked why? recapped the previous evening?
We know nothing about any of this, not even their carefully constructed lied. Maybe Feldman will recall them and work backwards from the 911 call with the barking dog and screaming alarm recorded.
Sweating, hair, prints....there were no carpet fibers from his house found in hers..no evidence of him at all.
How did he get in, when, how did he get her out without running into DVD and the peeing dog?
How did he get her to his house?
Where was she when he came back to the neighborhood on 2/2
When did he supposedly dump her at Deshesa?..the list goes on.
You forgot to add while he was toasted..a drunk man is not a cautious man..nor does a large drunk man have good balance..he would have touched a wall or a bannister for balance..
Hello, Libby
(Sung to the tune of "Camp Granada")
Hello, Libby?
It's the Demon.
You recall what
We've been schemin'?
Need to come up
To the cabin
Then frame our neighbor so the cops can come and grab him.
Had to call
911 first,
Think I'll hang out
With the searchers,
Look around some,
Maybe party,
See if I can scope out one who's not a smarty.
You know, man,
I've been thinkin',
Since that thing's
No longer stinkin',
We can go a-
head and lose it,
Someplace in the desert...where? Don't know. You choose it.
Know a pal
Who'll come with me,
Pass out flyers
So they won't miss me,
We'll get the "package"
From the cabin,
Dump it where our neighbor's been so they can grab him.
When I tell ya,
You call Bender,
Don't say nothin'
To offend her,
Tell her things are
Lookin' brighter,
That insurance dough will make her conscience lighter.
Let 'em know
Where to find her,
Disguise your voice,
Just a reminder.
Wait 'till after
I can place her
By that big tree near the dump out on Dehesa.
There's a trap
On my phone now
They can tell
Who I call now
But they don't know
What we're sayin',
So if they ask you tell 'em we were only prayin'.
Well, I'm leaving
For the desert.
All this thinking
Makes my head hurt.
Thanks for helpin'
With the cabin.
Okay, I'm off to frame the neighbor so they'll nab him.
Someone might have already mentioned this downthread--I'm just now logging on and starting to read.
I would hazard a guess that the money is coming from a book and/or "movie of the week" deal. Back when they were holding fund-raisers news conferences pleading for their daughter's return, Brenda was heard asking someone about who would be the best person to represent them in such a deal. This would have been before the time they found Danielle.
I'm sure they found the public donations helpful, but I don't think those would pay for the BMW and the house--even with the insurance money tossed in, unless she was insured for far, far more than we imagine.
I'm sorry to have to say this, but fathers do kill their daughters, and their sons, and sometimes their wives too. And contrary to popular opinion, they also sometimes toss the bodies in dumps "like so much garbage." In the past 5 years, I've seen two such cases locally--I happen to think that's a very high number, but it could be that it happens with greater frequency even than this in other areas.
In the first case, a little boy was beaten to death, and the father disposed of him by throwing him in an old broken freezer, throwing some dirt on top, and moving to another house--leaving the freezer, the tot, and the odor behind. In the latest case, the father was angry at his wife, and so he beat up his wife, then killed his daughter and threw her in a ditch along with the garbage. He claims it was because he was on meth; I say it was because he's a mean s.o.b. and I hope they throw the book at him.
But yes, fathers kill their children, for any and all reasons, and for no reason at all.
Yes, I had to laugh, too--isn't it just flat out amazing that even after the facts are known, some people still cling to the spin, lies and misrepresentations like some kind of lifeline? The "cleaning spree" was debunked, what, months ago at least--first at the PH then during the trial--and still people report it as though it were a fact. Perhaps they have that new learning problem I've been hearing about--transcript reading disorder!
No, O'Reilly's comments just show his ignorance of the facts. I doubt if he's watched more than five minutes of the trial, and I seriously doubt if he's ever even glanced at the transcripts of the trial or the PH. And your comments show that you'd rather take some ignorant (of this case, anyway) television talking head as gospel instead of looking at the information for yourself. It's the same sort of laziness that gave us Bill Clinton for 8 long years--no one wants to do the work to find out just what the truth is. It's just too easy to swallow the prepared media pablum.
Now, it's also possible to read the transcripts and still come away thinking DW is guilty--but that's an honest disagreement, as opposed to quoting nonsense that's been debunked in the trial as you have been doing.
Cleaning spree my as...terisk. Sheesh!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.