By Alex Roth
and Jeff McDonald
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS
August 21, 2002
David Alan Westerfield was convicted today of kidnapping and murdering Danielle van Dam in a case that became a public obsession and prompted nationwide debate about neighborhood safety, parental reponsibility and sexual promiscuity in San Diego's suburbs.
Ending nine days of deliberations, the jury announced late this morning that Westerfield is guilty of abducting and killing 7-year-old Danielle, who was reported missing from her Sabre Springs home Feb. 2. Her body was found Feb. 27 along a rural East County roadside.
The same panel of six men and six women must now decide whether to recommend that Westerfield, the girl's neighbor, be executed for the crimes or spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Westerfield, 50, also was found guilty of possessing child pornography, a charge prosecutors said pointed to the defendant's attraction to young girls. They said Westerfield kidnapped and sexually assaulted Danielle before killing her.
As he had throughout virtually the entire trial, Westerfield sat stone-faced and expressionless as the verdict was announced.
Just a few yards away, Danielle's mother, Brenda van Dam dropped her head and cried as the initial guilty verdict on a murder count was read. Damon van Dam leaned over and hugged his wife, who buried her head in his shoulder.
As the other two verdicts were rendered, Brenda van Dam clasped hands with her husband and family friend Susan Wintersteen.
The distraught parents were escorted into an elevator by bailiffs as soon as the 30-minute court session ended. When reporters asked them for comment, all Brenda van Dam could respond was, "No, we can't."
Even before the verdict was entered, defense attorney Steven Feldman requested additional time to prepare for the penalty phase. He said he has at least 10 out-of-state witnesses who could testify, presumably in an attempt to convince jurors to spare his client's life.
Prosecutor Jeff Dusek immediately objected, saying that the jury deserves to wrap up their obligations as soon as possible. "We're ready to go on Monday," he told Judge William Mudd.
The penalty phase will begin Wednesday, the judge ruled.
Across the county, office workers, shoppers and others planted themselves in front of televisions to listen to the verdicts, which were broadcast live shortly after 11 a.m.
"Watch the Westerfield verdict here this morning," a sign at one downtown lunch spot stated.
Dad's Cafe & Steakhouse in Poway, where Brenda van Dam spent much of the Friday night before Danielle disappeared, was filled this morning with more members of the news media than customers. There were six television cameras and two newspaper photographers taking pictures of five patrons and two co-owners.
Tom Gerlach, 31, smiled when the verdict was read. "Stick a fork in him," the customer said. "He's done."
Prosecutors said Westerfield, a self-employed design engineer, kidnapped the girl from her bedroom in the middle of the night, killed her and dumped her nude body off Dehesa Road east of El Cajon. They described him as a pedophile who collected child pornography and appeared to have been spying on the van Dams.
He lived two doors away in the upscale community of Sabre Springs, and Danielle's parents said he was an acquaintance whose name they had only recently learned.
Westerfield's lawyers said he had nothing to do with the crime. He was a normal 50-year-old guy, they said, with two ex-wives, several ex-girlfriends, two college-age children and no history of pedophilia.
The defense suggested the girl was kidnapped by someone within the van Dams' circle of friends, someone the couple may have invited into their lives with what the defense labeled "risque" behavior.
Danielle's parents – Damon and Brenda van Dam, a Qualcomm software engineer and a homemaker with two other children – admitted smoking marijuana onthe night their daughter vanished. They also admitted a history of swapping sex partners with their friends.
On the Friday night her daughter disappeared, Brenda van Dam was partying nearby with two girlfriends at Dad's Cafe & Steakhouse. Some witnesses described the trio as dancing and flirting with virtually everyone. Among the people in the bar that night was Westerfield, who left before van Dam and her friends.
The second-grader was discovered missing the next morning, Feb. 2, and Westerfield came under suspicion within days because he was the only one in the neighborhood who wasn't home that weekend as police and volunteers conducted a massive search. A hose uncoiled across Westerfield's impeccably manicured front yard made police suspect that he had taken off in a hurry.
He returned on the morning of Feb. 4, and police greeted him in his driveway. He said he had taken a meandering, 550-mile motor-home trip to Silver Strand State Beach near Coronado, back to Sabre Springs, out to the Imperial County desert town of Glamis, to the Borrego Springs area and then back to Coronado.
Parts of Westerfield's story were true. He was, for example, spotted at the beach and the desert that weekend. Other parts of his story, prosecutors said, were provably false.
He gave police permission to search his house, his black Toyota 4Runner and 35-foot 1997 Southwind motor home. They discovered that he had several loads of laundry going in his house and that his sport utility vehicle appeared to have been scrubbed down.
Police discovered that Westerfield had made a trip to a Poway dry cleaner that morning, dropping off two comforters, two pillowcases and a jacket. DNA testing revealed that the jacket contained Danielle's blood.
Further forensic testing in subsequent weeks revealed Danielle's blood, hair and fingerprints in his motor home. Other hairs and fibers linked to the girl and the van Dams' family dog were found throughout Westerfield's bedroom, SUV and motor home.
The defense sought to explain the forensic evidence by suggesting the girl sneaked inside the unlocked motor home, which Westerfield sometimes parked in the neighborhood. They noted that Danielle and her mother had been inside his house that week selling Girl Scout cookies. And they suggested Brenda van Dam might inadvertently rubbed some of the girl's hair and fibers off on Westerfield at Dad's bar that Friday night.
The defense noted that no trace of Westerfield was found in the van Dams' house. It said insect evidence proved the girl's body was dumped after Westerfield was under constant police surveillance.
Westerfield was arrested Feb. 22, and five days later volunteer searchers discovered the body amid shrubs and trash off Dehesa Road east of El Cajon.
By this time, the case had become a public obsession. It seemed that everybody had an opinion – about Westerfield, about the parents' lifestyle, about the troubling issue of whether we can feel safe in our own homes.
The defense rushed the case to trial, and the trial was televised from beginning to end. Perhaps never before in county history has a criminal case received more media scrutiny.
By the end, everyone in San Diego had become familiar with the mannerisms and quirks of the judge and the two lead lawyers – Judge Mudd's love-hate relationship with the Padres, prosecutor Dusek's buttoned-down intensity, defense lawyer Feldman's inability to stand still.
Like the O.J. Simpson trial, the Westerfield case had its cast of characters whose testimony made them local celebrities – the friends of the van Dams, the bartender at Dad's Cafe who kept saying "conversate" on the witness stand. Also, several people who spend their time studying the life cycles of insects have now achieved cult status on the Internet.
Staff writers Christine Millay, Kristen Green and Jonathan Heller contributed to this report.