Posted on 08/27/2002 8:55:29 PM PDT by dread78645
The judge in the David Westerfield case said yesterday that he has decided which prosecution witnesses will be allowed to testify at the penalty phas e of the murder trial, but he refused to be specific.
Superior Court Judge William Mudd made his announcement following a closed-door hearing with the lawyers. He didn't identify the witnesses or the nature of their testimony. He simply said some prosecution witnesses "will testify, others will not".
Westerfield was convicted last week of kidnapping and killing 7-year-old Danielle van Dam. She was discovered missing from her bedroom Feb. 2; her body was found more than three weeks later in a brushy area off Dehesa Road in East County.
Tomorrow, the jury will begin hearing evidence on whether the 50-year-old Sabre Springs design engineer deserves the death penalty or life in prison without parole.
Westerfield's lawyers objected to some, if not all, of the prosecution's witnesses. They also opposed airing a videotape of Danielle, which the judge will allow.
Westerfield's lawyers raised constitutional challenges to the death penalty. The judge said he will consider those arguments at a hearing today when he also is scheduled to decide whether to disallow still photography during the remainder of the trial.
The issue arose after a Union-Tribune photographer took a picture of Danielle's parents in the courtroom gallery as the jury returned its guilty verdicts.
The judge said photographer Dan Trevan violated a court rule that prohibits photographing spectators. The newspaper says the van Dams weren't spectators but witnesses who testified during the trial and who have been photographed frequently inside and outside court.
Brenda van Dam hopes to have the foundation running by Sept. 22, which would have been Danielle's eighth birthday.
"With all the other missing children, we felt there's got to be something we can do," said Susan Wintersteen, a van Dam family friend who is helping to organize the effort.
Danielle's parents are prohibited by a gag order from speaking to the news media about any issue related to their daughter until after the sentencing of David Westerfield.
A jury on Aug. 21 convicted Westerfield of kidnapping Danielle from her bedroom and killing her in February. The penalty phase of the trial is scheduled to begin Wednesday.
Brenda van Dam and five friends met over the weekend at Wintersteen's home, not far from where the girl was kidnapped, to work on the details of what is to become the Danielle Legacy Foundation.
Modeling their group on Mothers Against Drunk Driving, they plan to use the network of volunteers who helped in the search for Danielle to promote child safety and promote programs like the nationwide Amber Alert system, Wintersteen said.
The system, named in honor of Amber Hagerman, a Texas girl killed in 1996, is a way of quickly disseminating information about a missing child through news media and other outlets. It's used in more than a dozen states.
The San Diego effort follows other advocacy and safety groups born out of tragedy. They include the Laura Recovery Center, named for Laura Kate Smith, murdered in Friendswood, Texas, in 1997. The group fields volunteer searchers in child kidnapping cases.
Laura Recovery coordinated thousands of searchers after Danielle was reported missing Feb. 2. One of the volunteers found her body along a rural road nearly a month after the abduction.
Marc Klaas created the Klaaskids Foundation, after his daughter, Polly, was kidnapped and murdered in Northern California in 1993. Another group is named for Carole Sund, who was killed with her daughter, Juli, and the girl's friend Silvina Pelosso while they were visiting Yosemite National Park in 1999.
"A lot of families tend to start an organization in their loved ones memory, so there are a lot of them out there," said Kim Petersen of the Carole Sund Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation, based in Modesto. "It can be very healing."
It can also be very difficult. Foundations trying to raise donations often find themselves competing with similar efforts or overshadowed by larger o rganizations, said Klaas, who lobbies, speaks on child safety and helps other groups.
Still, "There's always room for innovation, for fresh new ideas," Klaas said.
Wintersteen, whose daughter was in school and Brownies with Danielle, said one of the group's first efforts will be to distribute identification kits that parents can use to set aside their child's fingerprints, DNA and a recent photo.
Investigators had to scramble to collect such identifiers when Danielle disappeared in February.
"We still feel there is change that needs to be done," Wintersteen said.
The other day Danielle's teacher said Danielle left early the Friday before the disappearance. Hadn't heard that before... remember when Damon slipped and referred to the "pizza from noon?" Do you think maybe Damon came home from lunch and told Brenda, "we need to get a way for awhile -- away from loan sharks, that is. Honey, pack the bags and get some passports. We're going to Italy!"
But maybe they didn't leave in time...
But she is certainly not grieving like most moms...she was getting a massage when the body was found..she has a new hair " look"..including what appears to be Botox shots..she looks 10 years younger..
I think she has a Narcissistic Personality disorder..and she is now hoping to be the female Mark Klass with her new foundation
See, this is the exact type of thing where I can get back into the conspricacy theories. I'm trying to get away from them, but the vD's do make that difficult to do.
A last minute decision to take the wife and three children along on a business trip from San Diego to Italy would cost what? I'd guess around $10,000 for everything. Need to take the kids out of school, etc.
It certainly isn't something most people would do. Maybe the Kennedys, but not me.
Then you immediately go out and buy a new BMW.
I am trying to cut them slack, but there was one heck of a lot of money floating around there. I hope the police looked at that.
I'm not suggesting anything. It just seems like that was a lot of money they were throwing around. Damon would have beeen making maybe 100k, but their lifestyle was higher than that.
I do think you have the cutest computer name, by the way. I have a pet name for my daughter, but the story behind that would be too long to tell. It's sort of a mess-up of her real name.
I rather the term "sub-mariner". "bubble-head" has been known to get some teeth knocked out.
A very exciting day!
Good to hear it !
I agree with you about this.
From what I have read and heard, the van Dams had a very quirky lifestyle. They were swingers, but they also put some serious effort into actually trying to be good parents.
I do think they feel very guilty. I know I would.
They may look to us like flakes, but I'm not ready to assume that they are anything more than a pair of trendy Southern California yuppies who were trying to live in a faster lane than was good for them -- or for their children.
But she is certainly not grieving like most moms...she was getting a massage when the body was found..she has a new hair " look"..including what appears to be Botox shots..she looks 10 years younger..
It's all very odd. But I don't know how I'd react under those circumstances. I might do something bizarre. People cope with stress in all kinds of ways.
In my case, I can imagine going and killing the neighor's dog that howls all day. How much sense would that make? That would probably seem bizarre to you, but I would need to do something.
I think she has a Narcissistic Personality disorder..and she is now hoping to be the female Mark Klass with her new foundation.
Okay. So what?
That doesn't make them guilty of anything that is directly relatled to Danielle's dealth. It could well make them guilty of things that are indirectly relatled. I think it does.
But still, how far does that take you? I think it is being taken too far on these threads. I don't care for the van Dams in the least -- that's putting things mildly -- but I don't think either of them had anything to do with it. Not in any direct way, at least. Letting bad people into their house, I can go with that. That's not a good thing to do. Stupid.
After that, I get confused. My main problem is that I do not see DW going into that house that night.
If you can get Danielle out on the street when DW was driving up home from the bar that night and tell me how he cleaned out that his motor home so well that the dogs couldn't get the scent of her, then I will give Dusek all the rest of his case. Short of that, I have a million problems with it. Those are my big issues.
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