 |
Hearing Resumes Thursday Morning
Posted: 6:39 p.m. PST March 12, 2002
Updated: 8:10 p.m. PST March 12, 2002
|
|||||||||
Jeffrey Graham Jr. testified that the lifted print matched those taken from the mummified hands of van Dam after her body was discovered Feb. 27 in eastern San Diego County.
Deputy District Attorney Jeff Dusek asked Graham how certain he was that the fingerprints left on the motorhome cabinet belonged to Danielle van Dam.
"Absolutely no doubt in my mind that Danielle van Dam made those prints," Graham testified.
Chief Medical Examiner Brian Blackbourne testified Monday that the girl's hands needed to be severed during her autopsy so they could be more thoroughly examined.However, Graham told defense attorney Steven Feldman that he couldn't tell when the prints were placed on the cabinet.
A police forensic biologist also testified that DNA found in bloodstains in the motorhome and on a jacket belonging to Westerfield were an almost certain match for the child.
Earlier in the second day of a preliminary hearing, biologist Annette Lynn Peer said 19 areas of Westerfield's motorhome were tested for blood, with three containing positive results.
The three included a stain on the carpet between the door and the bed in the motorhome, she said.
Peer testified she also received a jacket belonging to Westerfield, which police said they seized at a Poway dry cleaner, and a pair of underwear belonging to van Dam.
A clerk at the dry cleaning store said Westerfield appeared upset and unusually quiet as he took several items, including bedding from his motor home and a jacket, to be cleaned, police Detective James Hergenroeather said.
Peer also received "known samples" from Westerfield and the girl's parents.
"The stain from the carpet and the stain from the jacket were highly likely of the same source as the inside crotch area of the underwear and could be from a biological offspring of Damon and Brenda van Dam," Peer said.
"Is it also correct that the stains from the carpet, the jacket and the underwear all matched each other?" Prosecutor George "Woody" Clarke asked.
"Yes, it is," Peer answered.
She added that the odds of a duplicate match in the Caucasian population would be one in 25 quadrillion (25,000,000,000,000,000). Her figures were based on early results, she testified, but later testing did not alter the results.
Also, a police forensics examiner testified that while searching files on Westerfield's hard drive and computer disks, he found suggestive photos of Westerfield's girlfriend's teenage daughter named Danielle.
Detective James Watkins testified he copied the hard drives of four computers and the contents of a "Palm Pilot" device in Westerfield's home three days after van Dam was reported missing. Investigators also seized three CD-ROMs and two "zip" disks, he said.
A total of 64,000 images were found in "very highly organized" files, Watkins said.
"Overall, there were thousands of pictures," Watkins said, but of "a questionable nature there were less than a hundred."
Included was a series of six showing a bikini-clad teen posing suggestively on a lounge and in a hot tub.
"I found pictures of a girl named `Danielle' who appeared to be the daughter of a (Westerfield) girlfriend," Watkins said.
One photo, according to Watkins, was of her with a towel over her head.
Defense attorney Robert Boyce challenged Watkins' appearance as a witness before he testified, claiming his testimony would be prejudicial, that there was no evidence Westerfield was the one who downloaded the other "questionable" photos and that they were legal.
But Dusek (pictured, right) argued that Watkins' testimony would support a charge of misdemeanor child pornography and would go to the issue of motive in van Dam's murder.
Superior Court Judge H. Ronald Domnitz examined the prosecution photographs before allowing Watkins to testify.
Among the other items found, Watkins said, were photographs of young females posing with or performing sexual acts with animals and several animated series, including one depicting rape.
In cross-examining Watkins, Boyce was able to get him to acknowledge that there was no evidence Westerfield was the person who downloaded the images, and that the investigator was unable to determine the ages of the females in the photographs.
Watkins also said another detective examining the files told him there were no images of prepubescent girls.
The hearing began with San Diego police detective Johnny Keene completing his testimony, saying he did not smell bleach when he went into a motorhome Westerfield used the weekend van Dam disappeared.
"I didn't smell anything that made my eyes water or make me think this stinks," Keene said.
One of many unconfirmed stories surrounding the police investigation of Westerfield was that the smell of cleaning materials inside the motorhome nearly made police dogs pass out.
"It didn't appear dirty," Keene said in response to a question from Boyce about whether it looked as though the vehicle had just been cleaned. "I didn't see dust on the counters or anything like that. The only thing I saw that appeared out of order was the bed, which had sheets on it but no comforter."
Keene testified Monday that the defendant had numerous small scratches on his hand and arm when he was interviewed on his front porch the morning of Feb. 4.
Keene said Westerfield also was "overly cooperative" when detectives questioned him two days after Danielle was discovered missing.
The detective testified that Westerfield pointed to a number of places in his "immaculate " home where detectives might want to look, including a stack of boxes and a door to the attic.
Westerfield lived two houses from Danielle and fell under suspicion after he returned from a weekend trip to the desert.
The twice-divorced father eventually was arrested in the case and pleaded not guilty to murder, kidnapping and misdemeanor child pornography in connection with the second-grader's disappearance and death.
The preliminary hearing will resume Thursday at 9 a.m. The hearing will air live on NewsChannel 15 and will be livestreamed on TheSanDiegoChannel.