Hair from 7-year-old Danielle van Dam was found inside David Westerfield's motor home, and prosecutors believe the girl was sexually assaulted before she died, according to court documents made public yesterday.
Other evidence in the case – evidence Westerfield's attorneys label "explosive" – remains sealed to protect Westerfield's right to a fair trial, these documents reveal.
In all, San Diego Superior Court officials released more than two dozen pretrial motions and other documents that have been filed by prosecutors and Westerfield's attorneys in the past few weeks.
In a motion filed by the District Attorney's Office April 18, prosecutors say they believe Westerfield kidnapped his Sabre Springs neighbor as a way of gratifying his sexual fantasies.
"The defendant kidnapped a 7-year-old girl from her own bed," prosecutor Jeff Dusek said in the document. "He killed her, then dumped her nude body in an isolated location. The conclusion is inescapable – she was sexually molested prior to her murder."
Citing pornography found on Westerfield's computer disks, Dusek added: "The computer images fed the defendant's fantasies, which he ultimately acted upon."
Though Dusek's motion doesn't say whether authorities have any additional evidence that Danielle was sexually assaulted, it represents the first time prosecutors have publicly revealed their belief that she was molested.
The girl's body – discovered in a rural area in East County on Feb. 27 – was so badly decomposed and ravaged by animals that the Medical Examiner's Office was unable to state a cause of death.
The unsealed documents address numerous legal issues in the case, including whether the pornography should be admitted as evidence at the trial, whether the jury should be sequestered and whether Westerfield's lawyers can question Danielle's parents about their drug and alcohol use.
Judge William Mudd is scheduled to begin hearing oral arguments on these motions today. Jury selection is scheduled to start May 17. Westerfield is facing the death penalty on charges that he kidnapped and murdered Danielle.
Other motions remained sealed on the judge's orders. The sealed motions discuss other potential evidence in the case, including evidence that Westerfield's attorneys label in court documents as "nearly as explosive as a confession."
The attorneys didn't specify the nature of this evidence. They say the public shouldn't be allowed to hear about it "unless and until it is deemed admissible at trial." Otherwise their client couldn't find an unbiased jury, they said.
The unsealed documents contain some information that hadn't yet become public in the case. Among other things, prosecutors say Danielle's hair was found inside Westerfield's motor home.
At Westerfield's preliminary hearing in March, law-enforcement witnesses testified that Danielle's blood and fingerprints were found inside Westerfield's motor home, which the twice-divorced engineer kept parked several miles from his Sabre Springs house. Nothing was said at the time about the girl's hair.
Elsewhere in the documents made public, prosecutors said Westerfield admitted to police that he was responsible for downloading the "thousands" of pornographic images found on his computer disks, including images of cartoon rape fantasies. At his preliminary hearing, Westerfield's attorneys suggested that his teen-age son or someone else might have downloaded the images.
"The images were organized, categorized and labeled so the defendant could easily locate the images he desired," Dusek wrote in one motion. "The images depicted very young nude girls, young girls involved in sexual acts with adult men and other young girls, and young girls involved in sexual acts with animals."
Westerfield, 50, "has admitted to the police that he was solely and personally responsible for downloading, categorizing and maintaining the images," Dusek said. "Contrary to the insinuations attempted by the defense at the preliminary hearing, neither the defendant's son nor anybody else was responsible for this huge collection of computer images."
In one unsealed motion, Westerfield's attorneys say the pornographic images are irrelevant to the murder and kidnapping charges and should be excluded as evidence.
"Any assertion that the cartoons, pornographic material and photos were related to the murder and kidnapping of Danielle van Dam is entirely speculative and theoretical," Westerfield's attorneys argued.
They said most of the pornographic images found on Westerfield's computer disks were downloaded in 1999, years before Danielle vanished.
Westerfield also faces misdemeanor charges of possessing child pornography. Westerfield's attorneys filed a separate motion requesting that Westerfield receive a separate trial on the misdemeanor charge.
Also unsealed were the responses filed by prosecutors, who say the pornographic images help prove a motive in the case and thus should be admissible as evidence. They also oppose a separate trial on the misdemeanor charges.
Among the other motions unsealed:
A defense request to sequester the jury throughout the trial. Prosecutors don't want the jury sequestered.
A prosecution request to introduce 911 tapes recording the "panic, desperation and raw emotion" in Brenda van Dam's voice when she reported her daughter missing. The defense is opposing the request.
A defense request to exclude photographs of Danielle's body, autopsy photos and family pictures of the girl before she died.
A prosecution request to let jurors view Westerfield's 35-foot Southwind motor home, now parked at a police storage facility. "Danielle's blood, fingerprints and hair were found at various locations" inside, the motion states. The defense is opposing the request.
A prosecution request to limit questions about drug and alcohol use by Danielle's parents. The couple admitted drinking and smoking marijuana on the night their daughter vanished.
Any extended inquiries into the couple's history of drug or alcohol use "constitutes an inadmissible character assault," prosecutors argue.
Westerfield's attorneys said it would be "premature for the court to anticipate and impose pretrial restrictions on the defendant's right to cross-examine witnesses."
Alex Roth: (619) 542-4558; alex.roth@uniontrib.com
