Criminal
Jun. 22, 2002
DNA Expert Links Westerfield to Van Dam
SAN DIEGO - A police DNA analyst testified Thursday that blood from slain 7-year-old Danielle van Dam was on the carpet in David A. Westerfield's motor home. The analyst said that the chances of the blood coming from any other person were astronomical.
Criminalist Annette L. Peer, who helped form the San Diego police DNA laboratory that began tests in 1992, said the odds of the blood coming from any other person were at least 1 in 130 quadrillion.
Deputy District Attorney George W. Clarke asked Peer to explain a quadrillion.
"Fifteen zeros are in quadrillion," Peer said.
Thursday was the second consecutive day that prosecutors sought to establish Danielle's presence in the motor home. On Wednesday, police experts testified that they had found two of Danielle's fingerprints on a cabinet beside a bed in the 35-foot-long vehicle.
Westerfield is charged with kidnapping and murdering Danielle. His trial is in its third week before Superior Court Judge William D. Mudd.
On Thursday, Peer told the court that Danielle's blood also was found on the right shoulder of a jacket Westerfield took to a dry cleaners on Feb. 4, two days after Danielle's parents discovered she had disappeared from her bedroom.
Because of the number of genetic markers established in each sample, Peer said, chances of the jacket blood coming from anyone except Danielle were even higher than for the blood on the carpet.
"That would be 1 in 670 quadrillion," she said.
The earth's population is 6 billion, far less than even a single quadrillion, she said.
Police had no sample of Danielle's blood for DNA comparisons, Peer said. The girl's DNA was established through underpants taken from her laundry. Later, after her body was found, Peer said, a portion of a rib confirmed the original DNA analysis.
Clarke, a nationally known expert on the use of DNA evidence, was a member of the prosecution team in the murder trial of former football great O.J. Simpson. In the trial, defense attorneys repeatedly rebuffed prosecution attempts to link DNA evidence to Simpson.
Police became interested in Westerfield, who lived two doors from the van Dam house in the northern San Diego community of Sabre Springs, because he was not at home when the massive search for Danielle began Feb .2. When he returned Feb. 4, he told police of leaving alone early on the day Danielle was found to be missing, driving his motor home to the beach, the desert and back to the beach.
Before Westerfield returned home Feb. 4, he left the jacket later found to be stained with Danielle's blood, other clothes and two comforters to be dry-cleaned. Police recovered the items before Westerfield did, but they had been cleaned. The jacket blood apparently survived the cleaning.
Police also found three loads of damp laundry in Westerfield's home and an empty bleach bottle in a trash can.
Clarke asked Peer what effect bleach could have on DNA.
"Bleach very effectively destroys DNA," she said.
Steven E. Feldman, one of Westerfield's defense attorneys, had only a few questions for Peer. Feldman wanted to know whether she could tell when or how the blood stained the jacket. She answered no to each question.
Earlier Thursday, another police criminalist, Sean Soriano, testified that he discovered the bloodstain on the jacket and that he collected blonde and black hairs from bedding in Westerfield's house. Danielle had blonde hair, and Westerfield has black hair. The significance of those hairs was not explained.
Under cross-examination by Feldman, Soriano said his measurements of the bloodstain were not precise. They were "approximations," he said, because he places his ruler next to bloodstains, not on them, to avoid contaminating the blood.
Feldman asked how long the blood had been on the jacket, and Soriano said he did not know. Feldman asked where the jacket was when the blood was "applied," and Soriano again said he did not know.
Afterward, Clarke moved to head off Feldman's hint to the jury that someone applied blood to the jacket.
Clarke asked Soriano whether he or anyone else had a sample of Danielle's blood. Soriano said no one had a sample of the girl's blood.
In the O.J. Simpson trial, defense lawyers tried to show that someone had sprinkled murder victim Nicole Simpson's blood on the former football player's socks.
The trial is to be in recess on Friday, and testimony will resume Monday. Expected to last three months, the trial has been moving faster than expected. The prosecution case could end next week.
Claude Walbert
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