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.
who would call Westerfield a liar if he admited it and produced a video of the murder to back him up.
Case closed, justice was served.
Not DU'ers. Some are FR finest.
The destruction of the Constitution continues apace. *Sigh*
Perjury? Guilty. Child sexual abuse and murder? Innocent.
I believe you are correct in your assessment.
When you asked them some honest questions, without first uttering the holy mantra "David is innocent, and God will avenge him!" you were attacked mercilessly.
They began to descend into a sort of shorthand in their conversations that took them further and further out of the realm of reality and into their own little universe "through the looking glass."
No, these weren't "long-standing respectable Freepers," it was the same bunch of conspiracy mongers and navel-gazers that we're only able to rid ourselves of when something hit the fan, like Buchanan pulling 0.4% of the popular vote (we were relieved of the burden of a great number of really nasty Brigadiers at that time).
I mean, if that was the fundamental basis for his support among the throng of rowdies that infested those threads, I say that's just as evil as the support for Bill Clinton's many crimes by the feminists, etc., because he supported abortion.
It's UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!!!
So you only believe what an anonymous source tells a reporter? Well, I assume that is exactly the kind of idiotic response the media and law enforcement expected.
Here in LA, the news keeps repeating the femi-male juror's comment about how "silly" he thought the idea of the VD's lifestyle having anything to do with the murder was.
That's the message we are supposed to learn. Suspect all your neighbors, trust noboby, except government agencies and fellow "swingers", if you can remember their names. Might be helpful when unidentified fingerprints and blood are found in your home.
Remember, don't let that "buggy" evidence bother you, the government would never do anything wrong or illegal. Trust us, we never would have you convict an innocent man, on live national TV.
I can't believe that was the reason for their irrational support of him, Illbay. People who laud and defend sociopaths are not Republicans. There were drugs and promiscuous sex and child porn involved in this case.
Because its sourced in a paper that could be held accountable rather than an anon person in internet.
Look, I already said I was terribly wrong with my questions. I wasn't totally sold either way. Now obviously, I know undoubtedly.
BUT, let's get it right: the blood spots were on the jacket and on the carpet under a towel, NOT on Westerfield's bedding and the wall behind his bed.
And HETEROSEXUALS! They should be banned. :-)
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