Expert: Body dumped after defendant fell under suspicion (SO WHO DUMPED DANIELLE VAN DAM'S BODY??)

Union Trib ^ | July 11, 2002 | Steve Perez/Greg Magnus

[Rheo]

lol!

[nycgal]

Does anyone know what the credentials of this ME?

8 A. I AM A GRADUATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA IN 9 EDMINGTON, ALBERTA CANADA, 1962 WITH AN M.D. DEGREE. SERVED A 10 ROTATING INTERNSHIP AT THE VANCOUVER GENERAL HOSPITAL AT 11 VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, FOLLOWED BY SIX MONTHS IN TRAINING 12 AT SURGERY IN SANTA BARBARA HOSPITAL IN SANTA BARBARA, 13 CALIFORNIA. 14 AT THAT POINT I CHANGED MY AREA OF INTEREST IN 15 PATHOLOGY, SPENT THAT SAME AMOUNT OF TRAINING IN PATHOLOGY. ONE 16 YEAR OF TRAINING IN NEUROPATHOLOGY IN PHOENIX AT THE BEROL 17 (PHONETIC) NEUROLOGICAL INSTITUTE AND ONE YEAR IS A FELLOW IN 18 PATHOLOGY AT THE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL FOR CANCER AND ALLIED 19 DISEASES IN NEW YORK CITY. I'M BOARD CERTIFIED IN BOTH ANATOMIC 20 PATHOLOGY AND FORENSIC PATHOLOGY.

21 Q. WHAT DOES BOARD CERTIFIED MEAN?

22 A. WELL, AMERICAN BOARD OF PATHOLOGY SETS CERTAIN 23 QUALIFICATIONS FOR A SPECIALIST. FIRST, YOU HAVE TO DO FIVE 24 YEARS -- CURRENTLY FIVE YEARS OF TRAINING IN A HOSPITAL, 25 FOLLOWED BY TAKING THE EXAMINATION, BOTH A WRITTEN AND PRACTICAL 26 EXAMINATION, AND IF YOU PASS ALL THAT YOU'RE SAID TO BE BOARD 27 CERTIFIED IN THE SUBSPECIALTY. ALL DIFFERENT SUBSPECIALTIES, 28 LIKE SURGEONS AND OBSTETRICIANS, ARE THE SAME BOARD 3707 1 CERTIFICATION PROCESS.

20 Q. WHEN DID YOU FIRST BEGIN WORKING IN THE FIELD AS A 21 FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST?

22 A. IN JULY THE 5TH, 1967.

23 Q. WHERE DID YOU WORK UP TILL NOW?

24 A. FOR FIVE YEARS I WAS AN ASSISTANT MEDICAL EXAMINER 25 FOR METROPOLITAN DADE COUNTY, WHICH IS MIAMI, FLORIDA. THEN FOR 26 TEN AND A HALF YEARS I WAS A DEPUTY CHIEF MEDICAL EXAMINER IN 27 WASHINGTON, DC. FOR SEVEN YEARS I WAS THE CHIEF MEDICAL 28 EXAMINER FOR THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, AND IN 1990 I 3708 1 CAME TO SAN DIEGO AS THE COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINER.

2 Q. ARE YOU ABLE TO ESTIMATE FOR US HOW MANY AUTOPSIES 3 HAVE YOU DONE OVER THE YEARS?

4 A. AS OF ABOUT FEBRUARY IT WAS 2000 -- I'M SORRY, 5 7,000 AUTOPSIES I'VE PERFORMED MYSELF.

6 Q. AND ARE YOU ABLE TO ESTIMATE ABOUT HOW MANY TIMES 7 YOU'VE COME TO COURT TO TESTIFY ABOUT THOSE AUTOPSIES?

8 A. AGAIN, MY CALCULATIONS BACK IN FEBRUARY WAS ABOUT 9 435 TIMES.

10 Q. WHERE ALL HAVE YOU TESTIFIED?

11 A. WELL, THE PLACES I'VE WORKED, MIAMI, WASHINGTON, 12 DC, MASSACHUSETTS, HERE IN CALIFORNIA IN DIFFERENT COUNTIES; LOS 13 ANGELES COUNTY, ORANGE COUNTY, IMPERIAL COUNTY, RIVERSIDE 14 COUNTY. 15

[John Jamieson]

Yes, but it was Dusek's words (and motion) not Feldman's.

Do think Feldman might put a different twist on it. Like: "Your honor, my client too blasted to have hurt anyone except maybe by falling on them, and he was already on the floor."

[Karson]

But was it truly a "girls night out"? After all, she did call Bill Libby and invite him to join them. I want to hear from Bill Libby and Barbara Easton!

[John Jamieson]

I think I read the drive was 4 minutes. Pretty easy to come and go in a short period of time.

[Rheo]

Why change it....heard that he was gone....He had left.

Maybe she wanted to dirty dance some more and asked someone where he was or wanted a free drink....but still...why change the sentence?...why not just say I asked someone where the creepy guy was and they said he left?

[nycgal]

.....is there any connection that links Neil to the VD's?...sports, surfing, computers, etc?...any chance they met or talked somewhere?

This is a huge stretch but could Damon have hacked into any of the Westerfield computers? Possibly accessing the porn site while DW was with the police.

[jwh_Denver]

Not Proven

Not Proven is not guilty. The Constitution in the spirit of the law wanted foreclosure on a case brought before a court. Either guily or not guilty. There has to be finality, otherwise the government could string a case out for years and screw up the person's life forever.

It is up to the prosecution to bring the charges before the court. If they bring all charges they can then the jury has to decide on each one. If the prosecution thought it needed more time on the kidnapping and/or murder they could have tried him just on the child porn.

Just on a human behavior basis you never want to give another option to the jury. Not Proven would take the onus off them to really think about the evidence presented amd make a decision, guilty or not guilty.

[185JHP]

You nailed some important points in that post - classiness and good character have nothing whatsoever to do with the amount of money or the address - some of the best/worst people are rich/poor, and "pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."

[Karson]

Once again I've stayed up waaaaay later than I should and still haven't figured out a thing.

I'll think about it tomorrow.

Goodnight all.

[Rheo]

I do not know enough about computers and such to know.

[Rheo]

Goodnight!

Thanks for throwing more thinking stuff out and then leaving.:-)

[185JHP]

You got there before me!

[John Jamieson]

Not likely.

BTW, I don't believe a porn website was visited at that time. I believe the police displayed some existing images, or maybe even only looked at directories. My new computer (WinXP) opens every image file in a directory to built a thumb nail for the directory display. This updates the last access time and date of each one. I tested it.

[John Jamieson]

In other words: if I have 100 pictures of flowers and one porno picture in say, My Pictures and open that directory, and then look at a flower picture, the last access date and time on all 101 would change to the current time, making it look like I looked at the porno picture too.

[calawah98]

I am glad some one brought the last drink up that DW had. That has been in my mind since I read the report. I wonder who handed him the drink? I wonder if he had ever had another time when he could'nt remember?

[sbnsd]

the last access date and time on all 101 would change to the current time, making it look like I looked at the porno picture too.

It doesn't seem like a very reliable way to determine when something was REALLY accessed last. The second you try looking at the properties, it timestamps it. I guess I need ENCASE; that was the name of the program, right? Or was it ENDCASE?

[Rheo]

I'm not sure who handed it to him.

I thought I read somewhere that it was a gal who worked there or was there on her night off and standing in the waitress pickup spot by where he was...told him that someone didn't want it and gave it to him.

Cannot for the life of me find it again or even know if I dreamed it.:-)

[John Jamieson]

I suspect all the "spy software", reads the last access date, stores it, opens the file, displays it, and then forces the last access date back to it's original value. Erasing all evidence that it was used.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Or bypasses the file system disk driver, using direct BIOS interrupts to read the disk. It has to do this anyhow if it attempts to piece together files that have been deleted.