Criminal
Aug. 10, 2002
Jury Begins Deliberations in Girl's Murder
SAN DIEGO - Danielle van Dam named David A Westerfield as her killer with her fingerprints, hair and blood, a prosecutor told jurors as he ended his case Thursday .
Deputy District Attorney Jeff B. Dusek's dramatic words came as the prosecution and defense finished their closing arguments.
Dusek told jurors that blood found on Westerfield's clothing tied the 50-year-old engineer to 7-year-old Danielle's death. The girl's blood - which police found on Westerfield's jacket - is the "smoking gun," Dusek said.
Earlier, lead defense attorney Steven E. Feldman in his closing argument told the jurors that insect evidence found on the girl cleared his client.
Superior Court Judge William D. Mudd gave the case to the jury at midmorning. Later, he granted a request by jurors to deliberate today. Court had been in recess on Fridays during the two-month-long trial.
Westerfield, who lived two doors away from the second-grader, is charged with kidnapping, murder and possession of child pornography. He could face the death penalty if convicted.
Danielle was last seen on Feb. 1 when her father put her to bed in their two-story home in suburban northern San Diego. After a massive search, the girl's nude body was found on Feb. 27 along a rural road east of San Diego.
The attorneys' closing statements focused on the reliability of "trace" evidence - blood, hair and clothing fibers -presented and analyzed by squadrons of experts during the trial.
Dusek asked jurors to imagine a miracle that would bring the girl back to life.
"Ask her to come into this courtroom," he said, "and help us determine the one question we need to answer: Who did this?"
Danielle's reply, Dusek said, would be, "I've already told you. I told you with my hair and where you found it. I told you with the orange fiber that you found on my choker and where you found it. I told you with the blue fibers that were on my naked body and where you found them. I told you with my fingerprints, and I told you with my blood. Please listen."
The prosecutor also reminded jurors that the girl's blood was found on a jacket that Westerfield took to a dry cleaner two days after she vanished.
"This is the smoking gun ... Danielle's blood on that jacket," he said pointing to a photograph of the blue, hooded coat.
He said the defense had been unable to offer an explanation for the evidence.
In closing arguments Wednesday, Feldman said it was "absurd" to suggest Westerfield could have entered the van Dam home and taken the girl without being caught or leaving physical evidence. Westerfield, a businessman with two college-age children, had no motive to assault Danielle, he said.
Feldman argued that expert testimony proved Danielle's body couldn't have been dumped before Feb. 12, when Westerfield was under constant police surveillance. Feldman suggested that a third party was involved, noting that a fingerprint found in the home and a hair found on the body were never identified.
Feldman also argued that Danielle's hairs and fibers, found on her body and throughout Westerfield's house and motor home, must have been spread by careless investigators and even by search dogs.
Some could have come from a stop at the Westerfield house by Danielle, her mother and brother to sell Girl Scout cookies or even from Brenda van Dam when she danced with Westerfield in a Poway bar.
Dusek scoffed at the explanations and said, "The reasonable explanation points to his guilt."
The trial, which began on June 4, saw Feldman argue that the lifestyle of Danielle's parents, which included marijuana use and spouse-swapping, exposed their family and home to a number of people who might be responsible for the girl's disappearance.
"We don't blame the parents," Feldman said Tuesday. "We don't think they recognized the dangers of the lifestyle they led."
Prosecutors also called Westerfield's 18-year-old son, Neal Westerfield, to testify after a defense witness suggested that the college student owned some of the pornography seized from the defendant's home.
The son admitted looking at pornography on the Internet but said the thousands of images, including some that contained minors and violence, on computer discs belonged to his father.
Brenda van Dam and her husband, Damon van Dam, testified early in the trial about their marijuana use the night their daughter disappeared and about previous extramarital sex. But the parents, and prosecutors, asserted their conduct was not relevant to Danielle's death.
The trial captivated much of San Diego, with local television and radio stations broadcasting gavel-to-gavel coverage and talk-radio programs delving into minute details of the case and speculation about the van Dam family and Westerfield.
Claude Walbert
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