Criminal
Jun. 19, 2002
Witnesses Chip Away at Westerfield's Account
SAN DIEGO - On the day Danielle van Dam's parents discovered she was missing, witnesses testified Monday, David A. Westerfield arrived at the Glamis sand dunes in eastern Imperial County hours later than he told police.
The witnesses also said that curtains in Westerfield's 35-foot motor home were open when they attempted the next day, Feb. 3, to free the vehicle from the deep sand dunes in which it was stuck.
Joseph Koemptgen, an Arizona hospital worker who was camped there Feb. 3, said it was unusual for motor homes to drive into the loose sand. "You're guaranteed to get stuck," Koemptgen said.
One of the campers who saw the open curtains was Chris Redden of Beaumont. He said he stood beside the driver's side of the motor home and looked inside.
"I could see clear across the cab," Redden said. However, on cross-examination by defense attorney Steven E. Feldman, Redden said he didn't look into other portions of the vehicle.
Last week, other witnesses said that all the curtains, including those over the windshield, were closed when Westerfield's motor home was parked at Silver Strand State Beach on Feb. 2.
Westerfield, charged with kidnapping and murdering 7-year-old Danielle, told police Feb. 4 that he awoke early Feb. 2, the day Danielle was reported missing from her Sabre Springs home in northern San Diego, and went to pick up his motor home at a storage site northeast of Poway.
Although Westerfield planned a trip to the desert, he told police, he found that he had misplaced his wallet and had enough money only for a trip to the beach. But once there, he said, he found the weather bad and left, returning first to his Sabre Springs home two doors from the van Dams, where he found a huge search for Danielle under way. Then he drove back to his motor-home storage area to look for his wallet, and then went to the desert on a route that took him by back roads through San Diego County's eastern mountains.
Westerfield was arrested Feb. 22 and faces the death penalty if convicted by the jury of six men and six women hearing the case. The trial, expected to last 10 more weeks, is before Superior Court Judge William D. Mudd. Westerfield is being held without bail.
Volunteer searchers found Danielle's nude body Feb. 27 beside Dehesa Road, east of El Cajon. The second-grader's body had been left amid illegally dumped trash, where animals partially devoured it.
Dehesa Road is just a few miles from Interstate 8, the most direct route linking San Diego and Imperial counties.
Prosecutors say they found hair, fiber and blood evidence linking Westerfield to Danielle and also found the girl's fingerprints in the motor home.
That evidence has not yet been introduced in the trial, now in its third week. But the story of Westerfield's rambling travels was under attack last week and Monday as one witness after another chipped away at Westerfield's account.
For example, one of the last week's witnesses from the Silver Strand said he saw Westerfield placing a refund in his wallet at a time when he claimed not to have the wallet. Also, those who testified that they saw Westerfield's motor home at the beach agreed that the curtains were closed, although the weather was warm and sunny.
On Monday, Deputy District Attorney Jeff B. Duseck further attacked Westerfield's account of the trip, this time focusing on Glamis.
Westerfield told police in one version of his trip that he arrived between 10 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 2 and in another that his arrival was between 10:30 p.m. and 11 p.m. after winding through the mountains.
But witnesses, camped near the place where the motor home became stuck in the sand, testified Monday that when they went to bed at 11:30 p.m., Westerfield's 35-foot motor home was nowhere to be seen. It arrived before dawn the following day, they said, because when they arose it was there, sunk up to the axles in loose sand.
Several of the witnesses also said that Westerfield told them he had started out with a trailer carrying his off-road vehicles but that a tire blew out on the trailer. He said he left it in El Centro, on Interstate 8, for repairs.
Koemptgen, the Arizona hospital worker, said he was one of the people told about the blown tire.
"Somewhere in the conversation he said he'd had a bad weekend," Koemptgen recalled.
In contrast with Westerfield's story about his trailer, an earlier witness testified that Westerfield's trailer remained at his storage area during the entire time he was absent from Feb. 2 until Feb. 4.
Claude Walbert
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