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.
I can't wait
Uhhhhh . . . . He overheard the real killers at a bar discussing where they hid the body. He went to call the police so they could arrest the killers, but no one answered the phone. "They must all be out harassing terminally ill marijuana patients instead of concentrating on real crime," he thought to himself grimly.
He jumped in his motorhome to go check the site to verify the information and--sure enough--found the body. He placed the body in his motorhome intending to take it to the police. When he got back to the bar, he found that the killers had absconded.
He tried to call the police again, and this time there was an answer! He hung up without saying another word, for he knew in his bones what had happened. It was no mere coincidence that when the killers were at the bar, no one was at the police station.
In a panic he hastened back to the site where he had found the body and placed it back as he had found it.
Now he had this terrible secret and who would ever believe him?
The chill truth hit him like a gale-force nor'easter. He had been set up. The cops had allowed him to "overhear" them at the bar. This was their plan all along. They had probably followed him all the way out to where the body was deposited and watched from the shadows with smug satisfaction as he palced the body in is motorhome. For now fiber evidence was strewn all over his motorhome. Curses!
The trap was thus set and sprung and an innocent man was sacrificed to protect an evil (is there any other kind?) statist cabal.
This was the senario for after he was arrested. Sure he was living nicely but I don't think he was planning on getting caught..After he was arrested and the authorities were onto him. This was a better deal.
Boy, talk about your wishful dreaming! :~D
Did you forget we are talking about California? The odds of political/social changes occurring there are slim to none with the emphasis on NONE!
So, you have the book rights uh.
I think you've hit the nail on the head!
I assure you, there are "true believers" in Westerfield's innocence who will believe an outrageous and thigh-slappingly laughable Rube Goldberg explanation before they believe he is actually guilty. He could tell them himself and they would dismiss it as the porduct of coercion.
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