2nd Bug Expert Bolsters Westerfield Defense: (Dusek Melting Down Before Juries Eyes!!)

SAN DIEGO -- The trial of David Westerfield resumed Monday with more testimony about insects, as defense lawyers tried to show that their client was not the person who dumped Danielle van Dam's body along a two-lane road in East County.

Before testimony began, Judge William Mudd warned jurors to ignore last week's murder of a young girl in nearby Orange County. Mudd said that the abduction, sexual assault and murder of 5-year-old Samantha Runnion "bears no relation" to the trial of David Westerfield.

Westerfield's trial had been in recess since July 11 so the judge could take a previously scheduled vacation.

Westerfield, 50, lived two doors from Danielle, who vanished after her father put her to bed the night of Feb. 1. Searchers found the girl's nude body on Feb. 27 along a rural roadside east of San Diego.

Neal Haskell, forensic entomologist A forensic entomologist, testifying Monday for the defense, said Danielle's body could not have been dumped at the roadside before Feb. 12, according to his analysis of flies and larvae collected during an autopsy. The blow flies that were found on the body typically descend on a cadaver shortly after death, but it can take longer in cooler temperatures, entomologist Neal Haskell said. Based on his analysis of the temperatures in the area at the time, Haskell (pictured, right) put "the time of colonization" likely at Feb. 14 and no earlier than Feb. 12.

Prosecutors challenged the defense's weather data.

Haskell's testimony puts the time the body may have been dumped several days earlier than suggested by a previous defense witness, entomologist David Faulkner. The defense has seized upon the time of death, which could not be precisely determined, to suggest that the body was dumped at a time when Westerfield was under constant police surveillance.

Westerfield was put under observation soon after Danielle disappeared, according to police testimony. He was arrested on Feb. 22.

During Haskell's testimony about insects devouring Danielle's body, the girl's parents, Brenda and Damon van Dam, stared at the floor as they sat in the back row of the courtroom. It is the first time that Damon van Dam has been in court since Judge William Mudd banned him from the proceedings almost a month ago as a security risk. Mudd restored his trial privileges just before going on vacation.

Lawyers for Westerfield have said they expect to offer two to three more days of testimony.

But it would not have been so pure, I don't think.

Doesn't that make you wonder.

The FBI has been caught FALSIFYING LAB TESTS in order to GET CRIMINALS (Whether guilty or not).

Maybe they wanted their man so bad in SD that they falsified the tests. Who would be able to prove different. It's not like they had samples to go around and have tested at other lab's.

I know, Prosecution has to provide samples to defense and allow defense to do it's own testing.

I am not sure though that defense wouldn't have to pay for their own tests, and maybe DUSEK gambled on that knowledge.

The fact that there are so many other prints and only one print by Danielle makes it harder for me to accept she played there. Especially playing there long enough to loose several hairs and some blood."

I thought that's what you might have been getting at, but, as I said before, the "pizza gang (four, non resident adults)" were nearly the last visitor's to be in the VD home, prior to print dusting and there was not a trace of any of those four, anywhere in the house. Also, while DW's MH had many prints lifted from it, none of his own showed up in the area that was dusted. We know he was in his MH that weekend and because of all of the other prints lifted, we know he didn't wipe the surfaces clean of prints.

It just goes to show how many prints are smeared to the point of being unusable for identification purposes. It's certainly possible that there could have been other, smeared, prints of Danielle, that couldn't be identified.

Not to say it's not possible, but frankly, I find it easier to accept that she could have ventured into the MH on a previous occasion, than to imagine that, if DW had her held captive there, that he would have left her hands free to be touching anything. That's JMO though and it's apparent that you already have a well established opinion of your own.

How many neighborhood children were specfically asked by LE, etc. "Did you ever play in that motorhome?"

Allow me to 'clue' you in. It would be totally against the PATTERN demonstrated by the SDPD to have asked the kids that question. Anything information/evidence that would have ruled out DW as the perp was PURPOSELY IGNORED or DISCARDED.

If you need more proof , just ask around. They proved this over and over and over in testimony.

Questions were asked like,"Did you try and use the CHILD MOLESTOR DATABASE to compare these unknown prints to?"

Response: "NO"

"WHY?"

Response: "No one asked me to"

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2nd Bug Expert Bolsters Westerfield Defense

Expert Says Fly Infestations Show When Danielle's Body Was Dumped