Posted on 09/17/2002 5:28:16 AM PDT by Bug
Plea deal 'minutes away' when body found
By J. Harry Jones
STAFF WRITER
September 17, 2002
Minutes before Danielle van Dam's remains were found Feb. 27, David Westerfield's lawyers were brokering a deal with prosecutors:
He would tell police where he dumped the 7-year-old girl's body; they would not seek the death penalty.
Law enforcement sources told The San Diego Union-Tribune yesterday defense lawyers Steven Feldman and Robert Boyce were negotiating for a life sentence for the 50-year-old design engineer, a neighbor of the van Dams in Sabre Springs.
The deal they were discussing would have allowed Westerfield to plead guilty to murder and be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, said the officials, who spoke on condition they not be identified.
Prosecutors were seriously considering the bargain when Danielle's body was discovered off Dehesa Road that afternoon, nearly four weeks after she disappeared from her bedroom.
"The deal was just minutes away," one of the sources said.
It was aborted, but details were confirmed yesterday soon after a San Diego Superior Court jury recommended the death penalty for Westerfield.
The officials outlined this chronology:
Feldman and Boyce were at the downtown San Diego jail discussing the final arrangements with Westerfield when volunteer searchers found Danielle's remains beneath trees along Dehesa Road east of El Cajon.
When the lawyers left to meet with prosecutors, they noticed members of the news media gathering in the street and asked what was happening.
After being told a body had been found, they went directly to the nearby Hall of Justice and met with prosecutors. The defense lawyers were handed a copy of a Thomas Guide map of the Dehesa area on which a circle had been drawn indicating the location of the body.
Feldman and Boyce took the map back to Westerfield and later telephoned to say they no longer "had anything to discuss regarding a plea bargain."
Neither Feldman nor Boyce could be reached for comment last night.
Danielle was reported missing from her home the morning of Feb. 2, and Westerfield, who lived two doors away, quickly became the primary suspect. He was watched closely by police for weeks as authorities and volunteers searched from the Sabre Springs neighborhood to the Imperial County desert.
After DNA results linked Westerfield to the crime, he was arrested Feb. 22 and charged with kidnapping and burglary.
Three days later, even though Danielle's body had not been found, District Attorney Paul Pfingst announced murder and kidnapping charges would be filed that could carry the death penalty.
Many law enforcement officials feared Danielle's body might never be found. Then, on Feb. 27, volunteer searchers combing the Dehesa area, far from where police had focused, found Danielle's badly decomposed remains.
At that point, the official sources said yesterday, any opportunity Westerfield and his lawyers had to win a plea bargain evaporated.
Copyright 2002 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Better yet, why wouldn't he?
Unless he couldn't.
I don't think he could.
Congrats -- you must be very happy!
I think we all received a good education on the process and most on the threads were trying to search for the truth.
That being said I find this article difficult to swallow.
Why would the defense be about to plea bargain guilty and tell where the body is to avoid the death penalty when it would seem Westerfield would have a better chance in trial if the body was never found. (It is possible the body may never have been found)
But once the body is found the defense believe they can win the case and decide to go to trial. The prosecutor had all the same evidence with or without a body.(except bugs)
Makes no sense to me.
I'm thinking along these lines too. I watched very little of the trial, but it seemed to me that Feldman was not a very good lawyer. Even his voice sounded forced. Rerunning this in my mind now, knowing that he knew he was defending a guilty client, Feldman's defense makes more sense. There were many opportunities for him to question witnesses about the possibilities raised here on FR ad nauseum, and he did not do so.
Of course, criminal attorneys often defend guilty clients, but this was a particularly heinous crime. A real challenge for a defense attorney. I'll never forget the essential thinness of Feldman's voice...he just didn't have his heart in it, forced himself to say what he said. Not a great actor and not convincing. IMO.
They will tell you that they accepted the media disinformation that originally came out and made up their minds then. No amount of reality would ever make them change their mind. They continue to accept media disinformation as fact. They continue to accept lies spewed by posters on other websites, who are anonymous and claim to be PRESIDENT one day, then an "INSIDER" the next.
He DIDN'T confess--that's why I said "unofficial." Once they had found the body without his help, they didn't need the plea bargain any more, and his attorney--who obviously knew all along he was guilty (this is where I fully understand Bill O'Reilly's complaint)--basically said "all right, you're going to have to get a conviction the hard way."
But the fact that the negotiation was ongoing, and about to be completed just MOMENTS before the body was found, indicates more than anything else that Westerfield was guilty. It is an UNOFFICIAL admission of his guilt.
Now he's going to fry because he let it go on too long.
How sad (not).
Which means, to me, that God saw to it that his sin found him out. A lesson to anyone trying to hide his/her sin.
I think you're right. LE arrested Westerfield so soon because they felt (rightly) that he was destroying evidence.
The crime itself was incredibly brazen. It's one of the reasons I wouldn't be surprised if he'd gotten away with something like this before.
I challenge you, Illbay, prove that DW was about to sign. Prove he knew where the body was.
Prove his lawyer KNEW he was guilty. Prove his lawyer said "all right, you're going to have to get a conviction the hard way".
I hate it when I spoil a perfectly good post with a dumb spelling error.
Prove he's not guilty.
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