Criminal
Jul. 27, 2002
Expert Disputes Defense on Date of Girl's Death
SAN DIEGO - The body of Danielle van Dam could have been dumped in eastern San Diego County almost as soon as her parents discovered that she was missing on Feb. 2, a forensic anthropologist testified Thursday.
William Rodriguez III, senior scientist and chief of forensic anthropology for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, D.C., emphasized that fixing the time of death is an imperfect science that seeks to arrive at a window of time when death could have taken place.
"I am making my estimate based on my experience and what I know about the weather and the conditions," said Rodriguez, who was testifying as a private consultant, not in his official capacity.
Deputy District Attorney Jeff B. Dusek called Rodriguez to the stand in response to defense witnesses who testified about insect activity observed in Danielle's body. The two forensic entomologists said Danielle van Dam's body was first exposed to flies from a week to two weeks after David A. Westerfield was placed under constant police surveillance.
Westerfield is charged with kidnapping and murdering Danielle. Police arrested him Feb. 22. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Searchers found Danielle's nude body on Feb. 27.
Superior Court Judge William D. Mudd, who is conducting the trial, delayed the morning opening of proceedings when he called jurors into his chambers, talking with them for 10 minutes.
After the noon break, Mudd said three jurors had complained about being followed and having someone take down their license plate numbers.
"At this point in time, I don't know who's responsible for this, but I can well imagine that, with media coverage we have had, where the source of that individual may lie," Mudd said. "My one and only concern in this case is that Mr. Westerfield gets a fair trial before 12 jurors who are going to make a decision based solely on the evidence they see and hear in this courtroom, unintimidated by any outside source."
The judge said he had talked with the jury about what he said was a "serious breach of security."
"I don't know who this individual is. I don't know what his motivation is. I don't know why he would follow these jurors and get private information," he said.
"But I am telling all of you, right now, one thing," Mudd said, speaking to reporters in the courtroom. "if it happens again, the television camera goes, the still camera goes, the live radio input is off. This is serious. I will not tolerate it."
Six men and six women make up the jury. Five women and one man are alternate jurors. The public knows little about their backgrounds. They filled out lengthy questionnaires before being questioned in open court, where only numbers identified them.
Two jurors are black, two are Latino and one is Asian. Others are difficult to identify by ethnic background. Jurors range in age from their early 20s to the mid-70s.
The jurors will decide at the conclusion of the trail whether they want to let the judge make their identities public. Mudd told the jurors before trial that their names would never be made public without their consent.
Rodriguez, testifying after Mudd's announcement, said Danielle could have been dead as many as six weeks or as few as four weeks before volunteer searchers found her body.
On cross-examination, defense attorney Steven E. Feldman said Rodriguez' minimum estimate of four weeks would place Danielle's time of death on Jan. 31, before she vanished from her second-floor bedroom in the northern San Diego community of Sabre Springs. Westerfield was a neighbor.
Rodriguez said mummification could take place in either heat or cold, the key element being lack of moisture. It can begin in as little as 24 hours.
He has often observed, he told Dusek, that surface mummification can take place and that it can protect the inner portions of the body from decomposition. When that happens, he said, insect larvae cannot penetrate the leatherlike surface.
Later, he said, animals eating parts of the body can release odors attractive to flies that lay eggs on the newly exposed soft tissue.
That, Rodriguez said, is what may have happened to Danielle's body.
Claude Walbert
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