True Crime All The Time - David Alan Westerfield

Episode Date: October 29, 2018

David Alan Westerfield is unlike many killers that we profile on True Crime All The Time. There doesn't seem to be anything in his childhood that would point to the fact that he would become a killer. He didn't have a record. He was successful and many people in his life and around his neighborhood liked him. But, in 2002, he made the decision to murder his 7-year-old neighbor Danielle Van Dam.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss this tragic case. What makes a man who seemingly led a decent life turn to murder not long before his 50th birthday? And why would he target a young girl that lived just two doors down from him. But we know that behind closed doors are not always what they appear. And things would come out about Westerfield after his arrest that would suggest he was not the wholesome middle-aged man he portrayed to those around him.You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationSponsors:Visit simplisafe.com/tcatt to experience the very best in home securitySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

everyone and welcome to episode 102 of the true crime all the time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime. Mike Gibson, Gibby, what is going on? What's happening, man? Not much. Not much. I got a, I didn't do it, but I got this, uh, I thought was a pretty good suggestion from one of our listeners that said, instead of saying, how are you, I should say, how are a boo? How are a boo? For like a Halloween. Oh, you know, It's coming out a little bit before Halloween, but I thought it was clever. Howra boo. I chose not to do it.

But then I talked about it anyway. You did. Because that's the way I rolled. You just did it anyway. And I said it back. So we have the two-part Ed Kemper behind us. Yeah. That was a lot of work, man.

A lot of research, you know, went into that two-part episode. I hope everybody liked it. I was very happy with the way they turned out. But now we have to move on. We do need to move on. Right? Two other subjects. But before we do that, let's give our Patreon shoutouts.

We had Kevin Anderson, Aaron Edgecombe. How are you guys doing? Kelly Stewart. Hey, Kelly. Nicole Makely. Hey, Nicole. Mariam Johannes. Oh, Johannes.

Katie Wallace. Thank you, Katie. Sarah Masterson Holtgrave. Ooh, that's a name. Happy noses. Ooh, better than anything else. Any of the other noisuses? Yeah, got to be happy.

Margaret Gentry Hey, Mark Nancy Zeker Hey Nancy Kim Wisenant Kim Wisenant Yeah I've said that one

A couple different ways Yeah, you did I'm just gonna keep going To see which one works out Yeah one of them One of those is going to be correct Yeah Jennifer Autry

Who's been with us on Patreon She drummed up Big Time Gibbs Much higher than Steped it up Our highest level just kind of threw the gauntlet down, which we appreciate. Brian.

Hey, Brian. Hillary Peel jumped out at our highest level. Peelan. Jobber. Seabon. Jobber. You got the last name pretty good. That's what I do. David Smith.

Hey, David. Jennifer Quintal. Yeah. Walter Palacios. Jen Waterman. Yeah, Jen. Allison Moon. Allison, yeah.

We know. We know Allison. CMO Raider, Angie Barnes, Hey, Angie. And Ashley Christine. Hey. So thanks for all that new support. And if we go back into the Vault Gibbs,

this week we selected Jessica V. So big shout out to hers. Absolutely. She's been with us a long time, longtime Patreon supported. She hung with us and I'm glad. And then we had some PayPal support as well, quite a bit, actually.

Pamela Santos. Hey, Pamela. Michelle Mesmer. Michelle. Becky Bairg. Hey, thank you. Gave us a sizable donation on, thank you, Becky. On PayPal.

Jessica Metz. Hey, Jessica. Sarah Richmond. Caitlin Doran and Season Sullivan. Season Sullivan. Yeah, it's a cool name. Season it up. All right.

At the same time that this episode is out, we have an episode on Unsolved that is about Carolyn Wazelouski. Yeah. And we're going back to the, what, mid, late 15. Yeah. Time frame. Yeah. 14 year old girl who goes missing is found murdered.

And from there, that's, you know, the mystery starts from there. Right. And this is one of those cases Gibbs that it's very fascinating. It's sad. It's a sad case, as a lot of them are. But it is one of those that is not very well known. No. And with that comes less amount of.

of research available. Right. So it might be a little bit shorter. I don't know what it's going to come out as. Yeah. I think it would be all right. Yeah. I mean, it's going to be a good episode.

Yeah, absolutely. Now, before we get into this TCAT episode, I have to give a huge shout out to our friend Vicki Farachi for her help with research, writing on this case. We've had a number of people, Gibbs, that have offered to. help us do some research. And some people have done a little bit of writing as well. It's awesome.

We have people right now that are working on different cases that they're, that they're passionate about. And this is all about David Allen Westerfield. He was born February 25th, 1952. David was the oldest of three children. And he grew up on a farm in Maine, you know, spending his summers, water skiing with his family, ice skating in the winter. Sounds pretty idyllic.

When he was a teenager, the family moved west to San Diego. And that's where he graduated high school. And he worked his way through junior college to become an engineer. Now, what's missing from that background? Number one, it's pretty short as far as our normal childhoods go. But what else don't you hear? Horrible childhood. Yep.

right there tortured animals not good people thought he was strange people stayed away from him you know this is this is going to be a different type of episode you know this isn't the warning signs we're going off from a from a young age kind of story this is more of a story about a seemingly normal person could be your neighbor could be the guy next door that does something unbelievably horrible. By February of 2002, David Westerfield was 49 years old, and he was living in the affluent Saber Springs community in San Diego. This guy was pretty successful. He was a self-employed engineer that had several patents that he developed for medical rehabilitation devices. He was divorced twice, and he was the first. He was the

father of two college age students really had no criminal record to speak of. Had a DUI back in 96, but other than that, didn't have the long rap sheet of people that we talk about a lot. From David Westerfield, we transitioned into talking about Danielle Van Dam. Daniel was a healthy seven-year-old little girl. She was in the second grade. attended Creekside Elementary. She was a brownie, was learning to play the piano. She's pretty good. It's seven years old.

She loved coloring, drawing. She loved to play with her dolls. Her favorite colors were pink and purple. I mean, she sounds like the all-American child. Yeah, really does. The Van Damns lived two doors down from David Westerfield. And on the evening of February 1st, 2002, Daniel's mother, Brenda Van Dam, had two friends meet her at her home.

There, the three ladies went into the garage, smoked some marijuana before heading to a local bar called dads. Brenda's husband Damon would later testify that he too smoked some marijuana in the garage at night, but he stayed home to watch their three children. So Danielle Seven and her two younger brothers. Damon also said that he drank three beers. years that night. Around 8.30 p.m., Brendan and her friends arrived at Dads. And Dads is kind of a, it's not a bar bar. I mean, it's a place, it's more like a tavern. You can eat. You know, families would go there to eat, but it was also kind of, you know, it was like a bar. You could dance a little bit. So I want to set the scene of what this place is like.

But David Westerfield is also at the bar with one of his friends. And Brendan, Dave, know each other from the neighborhood. I mean, they lived two doors away from each other. Yeah. And about three days prior to this incident, Brenda had taken her daughter Danielle to David's house to sell Girl Scout cookies. And they were actually in his house. They looked at his new kitchen remodel. They talked while David was, you know, buying Girl Scout cookies. Now, it was later reported that witnesses had seen David Westerfield flirt with Brenda Van Dam on different occasions. But apparently she never took it seriously. A witness from the bar that night reported that she saw the two, what she called dirty dancing.

Yeah. And around 1130 that evening. So again, we're setting the stage for what is about to happen. but the incident around the dirty dancing between the two, it would come into question. You know, eventually when police talked to David Westerfield, he's going to say that didn't happen. Now, he did say he wasn't dads, but he left home to go to bed around 1030, 11 o'clock. At around this same time, 10, 10.30 p.m. back at the Van Damme home, Damon was tucking in Danielle and her brothers. then he laid down to sleep, went to sleep around 11 o'clock.

But he woke up because the dog was whining at around 1 a.m. He got up, let the dog into the backyard. When the dog came back in, he went back to sleep. But then it's around 2 a.m. that Brenda came home with four friends, two men and two women. So she's brought home more friends than she left with. But when she gets home, she noticed that the alarm panel on their home alarm system is blinking.

And when she looked around, she found that the side door to their garage was partly open. So that was causing the blinking on the panel. She closed it. And then she hung out with their friends for half an hour or so or maybe longer. But they talked. They ate some pizza. After the friends left, Brenda and Damon, who has, was up by this point, locked up the house, and went to bed without checking on the children.

As they put it later, there was no need to. They knew the kids were fast to sleep, but it was an hour after that, Damon woke up again to go to the bathroom. And he noticed Gibbs that the alarm light was flashing. And when he started to look around, he found that the sliding glass door at the rear of their home was open. Now, he closed it. And, he closed it. And, thought, you know, oh, probably one of Brenda's friends left it open. They didn't see it before they went to bed. He shut it and went back to bed. Now you get to the next morning. It's around 9 a.m. The family is up and having breakfast, everyone except for Danielle. Apparently she liked to sleep in. So it didn't cause any alarm bells, right, that she hadn't come down for breakfast yet.

that would happen when Brenda went upstairs to wake her and found out she wasn't there. She wasn't in her bedroom. She wasn't in her bed. Her bed was empty. And everybody became frantic at that point, as you can only imagine, right? Having kids, you and I both have kids. There's been times Gibbs when my wife has told me that my daughter has something after school and she's not going to be home. but I forget.

And when my daughter doesn't come home at the time that I think she's supposed to, I start to freak out a little bit. Yeah, you do. Because your mind starts racing. And I, if my wife's here, I ask her, if she's not,

to call her on the phone and say, hey, I think something's wrong. Of course, that's when I find out that, you know, she told me two days ago that she was going to do something. That she was going to do something after school.

She wasn't going to be home. That's also when I get the, you don't listen to anything I say. Yeah. That comes to sometimes. Right. But it's kind of hard to argue with it when obviously I didn't listen to what she said or I did and I forgot. Right.

But the family's frantic and they start searching for Danielle, but they couldn't find her. And they didn't wait very long. They called the police at 9.39 a.m. The police come and pretty quickly, Danielle became the subject of one of the largest search efforts in state history. And we're talking about hundreds of volunteers coming to aid law enforcement in this search. They were searching the deserts, remote areas. A Daniel Recovery Center was set up in a real estate office to coordinate the search effort. And again, very quickly, that day, all of this stuff started happening very quickly.

Now, while this is all going on, police are also interviewing neighbors and they soon discovered that David Westerfield and another neighbor, they weren't home that Saturday morning as they're going, you know, house to house. Police pieced together that Westerfield had left early that morning. He had gone to go get his motor home. He had this pretty fancy motor home, but he didn't park it at his house, right? He parked it in another part of town. So he went to go get that, stocked it with supplies, and left town at 9.50 a.m. Police also found out from talking to neighbors that they called him Desert Dave. Desert Dave. Desert Dave.

D.D. D.D for short. Yeah. Double D.D. for short. Uh, let's not go there. Because he made these frequent camping trips to the desert. So he would get in his RV, drive out to the desert. And I guess stay in the RV. If that's what you call camping. Right. Some people do. Some do. Some do. Some people call it glamping. I know you're not happy unless you are in the elements with just a K bar, a pair of boxers, and a pup tent. Yeah. And some mosquitoes and nibble on me. But not everybody's into that.

They want the camping experience, but they want the luxuries. They want the TV with the direct TV antenna on top. They want the bathroom that you don't have to go find a spot for. You know where it is. Yeah. Now David Westerfield didn't return home until about 8 a.m. Monday morning and police were there to talk to him. And eventually they would interrogate him for quite a long time. I read maybe up to like 16 hours. And he told the police that he had driven around the desert, the beach had stayed at a beach campground.

And this all was confirmed, right? There were witnesses that saw him there when they checked the cell phone records. right, the pings, it all confirmed what he was saying. He also had credit card receipts that backed all this up. Now, what he told police was that he intended to go to the desert. But somewhere along the way, he figured out that he had forgotten his wallet, either inside his home or back home inside his truck. So instead, he drove to a campground at Silver Strand State Beach. He paid in advance for a two-night stay.

but I guess it was pretty cold and he decided that the weather was too cold. So he went back home to get his wallet, which he did. And then he went to the desert. Now, there would be a witness from the Silver Strand Beach that would later testify that he saw Westerfield pull out his wallet while he was at the campground. Right. So that's true. It goes against everything that he's telling police about this wallet.

But he did drive to the desert where on Sunday he got stuck in the sand. It's about a quarter mile off the road. And eventually he had to get a tow truck to help him get the RV out of the sand. There's even a video out there on YouTube. I didn't record it because it's not really good audio. What you see are a bunch of people on four wheelers. looks like they have maybe a GoPro or something attached to their helmet and they're just riding around right in the sand in the desert but they're going back and forth and they're seeing this pretty

fancy RV it would turn out later to be Westerfield's RV D D D D D D. So they're interrogating him they're talking to him police eventually get him to take a polygraph I think in part Gibbs by telling him that you know what all the other neighbors are taking them they're everyone wants to help investigators clear people right so let's start by clearing you absolutely get me off the block yep that's how they couched it to him and he finally agrees and goes to the station takes this polygraph but he fails and when authorities tell him that he's failed this polygraph apparently his reply was i don't know why maybe it's because you weren't telling the truth Most likely.

Maybe it's because you were being deceitful. It's normally what happens. But you know what? I don't know why. Now, another thing happened on his way home Monday, right? Before he's talked to police. But he's not going to tell them this, obviously. But he's barefoot.

And he stops in at his regular dry cleaners. And he dropped off two comforters, two pillow covers, and a jacket. And this jacket would later have traces of Daniel's blood. blood on it. DNA. D.D. DNA. So like you said, when he first talks to law enforcement, he's not giving out this information, right? It wouldn't be good for him. He's not going to talk about going to the dry cleaners, even though he detailed out pretty much everything else that he did. From that point on, Monday morning, Monday sometime after they talk to him, he becomes their prime suspect. It all happens very quickly.

They place him under 24-hour surveillance on February 4th because they found out that he had thoroughly steam cleaned his RV with bleach. So I don't know what that means to you, Gibbs. Well, it's not something I think I would go to the trouble of doing. I get cleaning up. But not would the whole, I mean, I know people like the clean with bleach. Yeah. But steam cleaning the whole RV.

Yeah. I think it really put in vans. investigators on edge about him. Now, he's going to say, you know what, it's normal for me. I always steam clean the RV with bleach when I get back from, you know, taking it out. But I think they were a little leery of it. They impounded his RV, his SUV and some other property the next day on February 5th. And during all of this time that they're talking to Westerfield, he's saying, he doesn't know what happened to Daniel, doesn't know where she is, but he did admit to being at the same bar with Brenda Van Dam, Daniel's mother, that Friday. And Brenda confirmed that too.

But like I said, she denied dancing with him as he claimed, although later on a witness is going to testify that that did happen. I don't really think it has much to do with this case, but it's an important detail, I think, to talk about anyway. Once they get inside the RV, police found strands of Danielle's hair, drops of her blood. They found a palm print and a fingerprint belonging to Danielle above the RV's bed. That's not good. That's not good. It also means, I don't know what kind of steam cleaning you're doing with bleach. You're not doing a very good job. No, not at all. Because they find quite a bit of evidence inside that RV. Based on that, they were able to get a search warrant for his house. And inside they find more strands of Daniel's hair in his bed and mixed in with his

laundry. They also found some orange and blue fibers that are going to come up big later on. And then they searched his computer Gibbs and they found a large amount of, uh, pornography, some of it violent, some of it involving children. And police would put the case against Westerfield together like this based on their investigation. So David Westerfield had seen Brenda with some of her friends at a bar the previous Friday before January 25th. Then as we talked about, Brendan, Danielle go to David's house to sell him Girl Scout cookies. This is about five days later, just a few days before Daniel disappeared. Again, they're in there.

They're having a conversation. But while she's in the house, Brenda talks about the fact that they're going to go back to the bar again on Friday, her and her friends. but she adds that she needs to get a babysitter for Danielle because her husband and the boys were scheduled to be out of town. So we know David was at the bar with Brenda that Friday. They believe he left to prepare for Danielle's abduction. Now, what he didn't know was that Brenda's husband, Damon, and the two boys, they had to cancel their trip.

So there was no babysitter at the house. They theorized that Westerfield snuck in. He was able to find Danielle's bedroom, didn't wake anybody else up, didn't alert, you know, the dog or anything like that. This is their theory. Managed to subdue Danielle without her, you know, yelling or waking anybody up. He then carried Danielle, whether there's a little bit of her, you know, yelling, you know, yelling or waking anybody up. He then carried. whether Gibbs, she was either she was sleeping or he was able to muffle her mouth.

But he carried her outside of the house back to his home, which was only two doors down. Yeah. A few hours later, he put her in the back of his Toyota SUV and then drove to where he parked his motorhome, his RV. And then he transferred Danielle into the RV. Now, what they, they don't know at that point. whether she was alive or dead, as they're putting this theory together. On February 22nd, even though they had not found Danielle, police arrested David Westerfield on a charge of murder after they found some small stains

of Danielle's blood on his clothing and in his motorhome. This was three days before his 50th birthday. The murder charge carried with it a special circumstance that allowed prosecutors to seek the death penalty. And you hear that all the time, right? Special circumstance. A lot of times it has to do with carrying out a felony with a firearm or there's a bunch of different things that can be. This one centered around the fact that they believed the murder occurred during a kidnapping. And prosecutors came out and made the announcement that they believed Danielle was dead, even though her body had not been found.

And you know that had to have been tough for the parents who are trying to hold out hope that they're going to get their daughter back. But prosecutors are making the announcement that she is most likely death. They also charged Westerfield with kidnapping a child under the age of 14, which is a felony, and possession of child pornography, a misdemeanor.

So Gibbs, in the, in the, in the matter of about three weeks. They have charged David with this crime. They have made the declaration that they believe Danielle's dead, which I guess they have to do. Yeah, I think so. You can't charge him with murder unless you believe she's dead. It's tough for the family to hear. It would be.

But yeah, I mean, I think you have to do that for sure. It's only five days later. February 27th, people are still out searching for Danielle. And they're on Dessa Road, about 25 miles from her home. And one of the reasons they're there is this was a possible route that people believed he could have taken out to the desert. And it was there that they found Danielle's partially decomposed nude body. And they also noticed that she was missing some teeth. So very brutal.

Yeah, that's terrible. But because of the conditions. condition of the body. And you and I talk about this, right? The decomposition over that three week time period, almost four weeks now, the coroner was unable to determine a cause of death or whether she was sexually assaulted. They were only able to identify her body using dental records. You know what, Gibbs? The killers that we talk about on this show highlight the need for a good security system, probably none more so than the case we're talking about right now. That's why I'm glad SimpliSafe home security is a partner of this show.

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So Westerfield has been charged. He pleaded not guilty. and went to trial on June 4th, 2002. Seems like everything in this case, Gibbs, happened very quickly. It does. It seems like it was rapidly progressing. Yeah, you and I have covered a lot of cases, you know, from being charged on February 22nd to your trial starting June 4th, seems pretty quick.

Now, prior to that date, they had some pretrial motions. His lawyers wanted to have all of the statements that he made to police excluded. because they put forth the charge that he was not interrogated fairly. You know, it was more than nine hours at a stretch. And they said detectives repeatedly ignored his requests for a lawyer or to take a shower, to eat, to sleep. I mean, they just kept, they just kept on interrogating him. But the judge didn't buy it.

The judge said, no, he wasn't interrogated unfairly. And he allowed the tape statements to be introduced at trial. So the prosecution presented their evidence, which included, you know, Daniel's bloodstains on his jacket, the ones they found on the floor of his motorhome, the fingerprints and palm print they found in the motorhome, the hairs, they found in his bed. I mean, they had a lot of evidence of Danielle either being in his RV or his house. And I mentioned the orange and blue fibers that they found on his property that would come back. Those matched some fibers that were found at the scene where they found her body.

Now, from his side, Westerfield's lawyers made the suggestion that, you know, the police were in a rush to solve this case. And they zeroed on him. They had tunnel vision. They didn't look at anybody else. They also suggested that the child pornography found on his computer was downloaded by his son, who was 18 at the time of the murder. But the son would take the stand.

And he would say, no, that wasn't mine. So I don't know if that was the defense attorney's idea. Sounds like a defense attorney's idea. It does. Yeah. But as a father, you're going to be okay with that? Trying to pin that on your son? Who's 18 at the time?

It's not a 13-year-old kid who's going to get a slap on the wrist. He's an adult. There's always a slap on the wrist. Well, I know you think it is. You think everything's a slap on the wrist. If they don't get Gibby justice, it's nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Slap on the wrist. Gibby justice.

Now, this was a pretty big trial. There were a lot of witnesses on both sides. And I think what made it really hard was that a lot of the witnesses had contradicting information, right, between the sides, the two sides. The prosecution witnesses were saying one thing. The defense's witnesses were saying in a lot of cases the opposite. And a lot of it had to do with the statements that Westerfield had made. So defense would bring somebody on that said, yep, that happened.

It happened the way he said it did. the prosecution would bring somebody on that said, nope, didn't happen like that at all. It must have been extremely tough, Gibbs, for the jury to figure out what was true solely based on the witness testimony, right? When you have essentially two sides that are saying two completely different things, who do you believe? It makes it tough. It makes it tough.

And maybe it comes down to just the physical evidence at that point. Maybe you say, I don't know who to trust. I can't believe any of these people. There was so much that, you know, we can't even get into all the witness testimony from both sides. We don't have that amount of time. It was massive. Now, I do want to talk about the prosecution's computer expert.

You know, he took the stand, said that they found a hundred thousand images on Westerfield's computer. A hundred thousand images of porn. It's a lot, man. That is a lot. I mean, you got. Well, let's just say it's well south of 100,000. All right.

And the right answer is none. Goals. You're saying I got something to strive for? That's insane. That's so many. I can't believe that. Good thing. It wasn't back in the ALL days or dial up internet.

It had taken a long time. Yeah. One a day. Now, of all these images, there were 80 that they considered to be. be child pornography. That doesn't seem like a big number, but that's a situation gives where the number has to be zero, right? So any number above zero of images of child pornography is a lot, too much. They also found some movie clips. It wasn't just images. They found some videos. One in particular was of an underage girl being sexually assaulted.

And they played these in the courtroom for the jury with sound and all. So not only are they seeing these very disturbing images, but they're hearing the sounds. We talk about what juries go through. Nobody wants to see that shit. No. But they don't have a choice, right? They have a duty. They've got to weigh all this evidence.

And as part of that, they have to view this. And that, that's tough. So it was said that they played two different movie clips, some animated cartoons and a number of images that they believed to be child pornography. But what's laughable is that Westerfield said that, you know, he didn't, he didn't download these because he was a pervert. He wasn't using these for his enjoyment. He was gathering these Gibbs. he was accumulating images because he was going to send them to Congress as examples of what type of smut was out there on the internet.

That's the old, I'm helping Congress. This is what I'm doing. Yeah, that's the, I'm helping Congress defense. Yeah. It's laughable.

Yeah. Doing my good deed. My civic duty. D.D. is doing a good deed. I guess you have to come up with something, but I mean, Desert Dave, I think, he's reaching a little bit on that one. And then we get into more of Westerfield's defense. And a lot of it,

sadly, focused on the lifestyle of Danielle's parents, Brendan Damon. The defense brought up to the jury arguments about them having an open marriage, said they were swingers. You know, they smoked marijuana in their garage on a regular basis.

But it wasn't only that. They used all. of that to say that, you know, because of this lifestyle that they led, they probably let people in the home that were of questionable character. And maybe some of the people that were in the home that night. Both of her parents did acknowledge on the witness stand that they had multiple sex partners and, you know, they smoked marijuana. They drank beer. I mean, they were truthful on the stand. But again, attorneys hammered home. The theory that bringing in multiple people into your household, you could have invited the killer in is essentially what they're saying.

Yeah, so I think it's kind of rough to do it that way, but I think you probably agree, it's probably like the only way that they could have. Yeah, I would agree that it's probably, that they probably felt. This was their only option. You know, they had some pretty damning evidence against their client. So they're going to throw this poor girl's parents in the mud and see if they can get the jury to believe that maybe it was one of their acquaintances that they smoked with or did whatever with. They killed their daughter. The other thing the defense did was they had three entomologists testify. And this was all around trying to determine when Danielle's body was, was,

was dumped. And the way that the entomologist did this was talking about when insects colonized her body. It's kind of macabre to think about. And they tried to make the argument that it happened in mid-February long after David Westerfield was under police surveillance. So how could he have been the to dump her body where it was found if he was under constant surveillance. That's, that's the argument that they were making. Yeah, I get that. But the prosecution from everything I read gives, they did a pretty good job of raising concerns under cross-examination of all three of these entomologists about their timelines.

And they had their own entomologists as well who testified that Daniel's body could have been colonized as early as February 2nd. And obviously that would play into the prosecution's theory because that's the day that, you know, they believe she was killed, either late at night on the first or early in the morning on the second. So we've talked about the evidence that authorities gathered linking Daniel to David.

But his attorneys would argue the prosecution didn't present a single piece of evidence that linked their client, Westerfield, to the Van Dam residence. They couldn't put him in there. Yeah. You know, they didn't find a hair. They didn't find DNA. They didn't find anything that said he was in there that night. They also didn't find anything of his at the dump site.

Now, they did find some fibers that kind of tied back to his house, but not to like his person directly. None of his DNA was found on her body. And the defense made a huge argument about a hair that was found under Daniel's body that wasn't David's. But the prosecution argued that it's possible, right? It's possible for somebody to enter a home without leaving evidence, especially if that person is taking the proper precautions Gibbs.

And we can kind of imagine what those might be. You know, wearing gloves. What else? I know this is kind of more your... No, I mean, there's so many different things that they could do, you know, if they study ahead of time, you know, think about it and map it out that they could avoid all type of different DNA detection. Somebody could wear a hairnet, maybe. Wear a headnet? You can put a jumpsuit on.

I've heard of... I've heard of criminals shaving their bodies. Get rid of all the hair? To get rid of the hair. to get rid of the hair less than the chance that they would leave behind DNA. I've heard of a lot of strange things that people do. Yeah. Take a little surgical scrubber, get all that dead skin off.

Yeah. You're actually scrubbing yourself. So you've got sound effects to go with it. I thought it would be important. And they just kept coming back to the evidence they had, right? That it was too much that they found in his home, his motor home, his motor home on his jacket. The prosecution said there's no reasonable explanation for that amount of trace evidence

to be found on his clothing, in his home, and in his RV other than he kidnapped and murdered Danielle and had her in these different places. The trial lasted two months and it wrapped up on August 8th. But it wouldn't be until August 21st that. the jury made up of six women and six men found David Westerfield guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping, and possession of child pornography. They deliberated for quite a long time. It was said to be about 50 hours spread out over 10 days. Wow. We've talked about a lot of cases where it's two hours, three hours, four hours. It was some heavy thinking going on. Yeah,

they really took their time. But again, I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that, that they listened to a lot of witnesses contradicting information on both sides, and they had a lot of evidence to weigh through. So he's been convicted, and now you get into the penalty phase of the trial. And it's at this point that David Westerfield's 19-year-old niece testified against him. And what she said was that when she was seven years old, her uncle David, entered her bedroom and she woke up Gibbs to find him rubbing her teeth, which is very strange. It's very strange.

And apparently she bit his finger as hard as she could. And then she ran downstairs to tell her mother. And her mother was David's sister-in-law. And as you can imagine, she was pretty upset, started questioning David about, you know, what the hell are you doing in my daughter's bedroom? him. So his story was he went to check on her and he was trying to comfort her. And you know that old trick, Gibbs, rub some ice teeth to calm him down. Exactly. How weird is that? That's very strange. I never heard of it. But after that, it was kind of blown over, right? The incident was forgotten.

She hadn't spoken to anyone about it for 12 years until her uncle was arrested. And, And she went to talk to investigators. Now, the prosecution, they wanted her to testify. They wanted to show that David Westerfield had a history of making improper advances towards underage girls. He's already been convicted. They're just trying to figure out the sentence. What's appropriate.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's what they want her to come on the stand and, you know, tell her story because they want to make sure this guy gets the maximum sentence. Daniel's parents, Brendan Damon, also took the stand. And as you can imagine, they talked about the unbelievable pain that the family had suffered because of the loss of their daughter. And Brenda said, I don't know where to begin. And she was bawling. She was one of the most precious gifts anyone could ever receive. I was so happy when I learned I was pregnant because I had miscarried before. It's just the,

too hard to explain. And she went on to talk about her daughter, you know, said she was very loving and caring, always concerned about the welfare of others. Damon said that his daughter loved school, playing the piano. She talked about becoming either a teacher or a veterinarian. And then Brenda directed some statements at David. And she said, it disgust me that your sick fantasies and pitiful needs made you think that you needed Danielle more than her family. You do not deserve any leniency, any mercy because you refuse to give it to Danielle. Woo, gifts. I can feel the emotion. I can just imagine the anger of a parent talking to the person that has killed their child. I don't know how you and I would handle it. I think we may have touched on this before.

Knowing you, they would, there would be four people restraining you. Absolutely. While you talked. It'd be hard not to come across. And maybe that would not be enough. I don't know. And knowing you, maybe it never gets to trial. I'm just saying.

Eh, probably wouldn't get to trial. I'd do it my own way. Maybe something happens where trial's not necessary. Daniel's dad told the judge he would never get to see his daughter grow up, be a sister or two or two brothers, get married, have her own children. that's rough. It's very rough to think about. Now, Westerfield's defense attorney argued that a life sentence would be easier on the Van Dam's and the San Diego community because a death sentence would pry at the scab of Daniel's death because of all the appellate hearings. And I don't know if he's

wrong about that. Now, I don't know that that's what Brenda and Damon wanted. But as we know, with a death sentence comes years and years of appeals. And a lot of times it's opening up the wounds every time. So he's making that argument. I don't know if I, I don't know that he's wrong, but I don't know that I agree that that's what should happen. Right.

But how do you argue that? How do you argue against what he said? Yeah. Well, I think people that are pro death penalty make the argument that you took a life and you deserve to die. I think that's the argument that people make. Yeah.

Now, defense called their own witnesses during this penalty phase. And you and I don't talk about the penalty phase all that much other than to normally say what the sentence is. We don't talk a lot about the witnesses that come forward. Most of the time, the people that we're talking about, they don't have anybody that's willing to stand up for them. Right? We're talking about heinous individuals that have killed. killed multiple people. David Westerfield had a lot of people that were willing to stand up and speak on his behalf.

He had family, friends. He even had people that he had helped or that had been helped by some of the devices that he invented. You know, I talked about the fact that he had some patents for medical and rehabilitation devices. Which is big money. Oh, he made a lot of money. He was well off.

His defense attorney also said this, and I have to point this out. He said, we don't try to excuse the crime. There is no excuse. But David Allen Westerfield is not the worst of the worst. That was his argument. He's bad, but he's not the worst of the worst. That's kind of. It's not funny, but it almost is because, okay, is he the worst person who's ever lived?

No. but he's pretty damn bad. Right. And you're going to say, well, you know, go easy on him. Right. He's a bad guy, but he's not the worst guy that ever lived. Exactly. It seems like such a strange argument to make about a person that's been convicted of killing

an innocent seven-year-old girl. Let's not forget that. Seven years old. Wow. Second grade. Shocking. The penalty phase ended September 16th. The jury came back and they recommended death.

And in January of 2003, the judge sentenced him to death. Not sure why it took so long between September of 2002 and January of 2003. Now, what I found interesting, all these people are talking during the penalty phase. Westerfield never said a word. Not once? Nope. Did not speak on his own behalf. It was said that he didn't show an ounce of emotion at any point, even when the judge read his

sentence that he would be put to death, nothing. Didn't even get up and give a, I'm an innocent man. I didn't do it. You're putting the wrong, you know, you're putting the wrong man to death. Didn't say a word. Most cases, you're best not to talk. But sometimes if you're educated enough that you can get up there and do it the right way, it could benefit you. And he was educated.

Yeah. Right. We know he was. I just find it odd that, yeah, what you said, right, we usually say, don't talk in the beginning. But he's already been found guilty. What do you have to lose by talking and pleading, you know, your case at the sentencing trial? I don't get that one. So they sent Westerfield to San Quentin, as we like to say, big boy prison. Big boy prison. And he's still there. Right now? Yeah. Loosening. He's, he, he, he, may be listening on a prison computer. I don't know what he has access to. But he's, you know, he's going through his appeal process. I don't know if this guy will ever be put to

death. You know, California hasn't executed anyone since 2006. And ever since then, there's been this quasi-mortatorium on executions in the state. He's on death row, I assume, but he may never face execution. He may just die in prison. But we do a lot of cases in California. We do. San Quentin comes up quite a lot. There have been some pretty famous and infamous people at San Quentin. I mean, how can you not talk about Johnny Cash and his famous concert at San Quentin?

You call this water. You're always with the you call this water. You called his water. Manson, right? He's not still alive. I have to always say that. Yeah, he's not. he's gone.

He is still dead. But, uh, yeah, William Bonn, the freeway killer, Scott Erskine, uh, Danny Trejo. Really? The actor. Did you know that he was, I knew he was in prison. I didn't know he was at St. I knew he did time at one point. Yeah, I knew he did time.

Yeah. But, uh, I mean, that guy's been in, man, he's been like 500 movies. It's, it's either, it's between him and Samuel L. Jackson. I mean, those guys have been in more films than. Yeah. And Michael Kane. You got to throw Michael Cain in there. Yeah.

I think Danny's got it. I think he did five years. Five years? That's San Quentin. Really? Mm-hmm. That's not easy. I actually think he was a boxing champion at San Quentin, which tells you it's probably a guy you don't want to mess with.

Oh. Just looking at him you don't want to mess with it. Yeah, I think that's actually how he got into, started into entertainment. He was kind of like a tough guy. Like a trainer? Yeah, maybe a trainer, maybe a boxer, but a tough guy that was consulting. And they said, you know, next thing you know, he started taking acting acting classes and then the rest of history. Now, the Van Damns would sue David Westerfield for the wrongful death of their daughter.

The case was settled out of court. I think they got somewhere north of $400,000 from some insurance companies. That doesn't seem like a lot of money, Gibbs, for the death of your seven-year-old daughter. I mean, there's no amount of money. No, there's none. But to put a number on it, which is what insurance companies do, it never seems enough. $400,000 and change. But what it also did, and probably the most important thing, was it prevented him from ever

profiting from his crime. Like he could never sell the rights to his story and make any money from it. Never should be able to make money from it. No, and most of the time, I think it was even if he got. out or even if somehow that's what I was thinking because I didn't think you could profit from your crimes anymore. I didn't think so either but so I was thinking this had something more to do with if for some strange reason he was able to that the money would go to the van dam so wouldn't make you know he would never get the money I guess is what I was thinking right now after the trial the media came out

and reported that David Westerfield was moments away from a plea deal with authorities when Daniel's body was discovered. So apparently the deal would have him take them to her body in exchange for a life sentence. But they discovered her before the deal went through. So obviously the minute they discovered her, they didn't need him. They took it off the table. Is that the best scenario? as opposed to what?

I don't know. As opposed to them actually going through with the deal and him getting a life sentence. I don't know. I guess it depends on how the family feels. I really didn't get that from the research, whether they were life sentence type people or whether they wanted him to die. She did make comments, right? No mercy.

I think there was even one comment I read Gibbs where she said that she hoped that his fellow, prisoners felt as bad about child killers as she thought they would. Meaning, right, we've talked about that. He should be on the bottom of the totem pole. Most inmates don't like people that, that harm kids. And I think she said, you know, I hope he experiences two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten times the amount of pain that my daughter did. She wants this guy to suffer.

He should suffer at the hands of other prisoners. She's basically saying, hey, guys, he's here. Go at him. Every day. Yeah. Make him suffer every day. Yeah. I'm with her on that.

I knew you would be. Yeah. Don't mess with kids, man. No, that's something you and I have always talked about. Just don't. And I guess it's strange for me to say this, but it's the one thing that I like about the prison hierarchy system. You know, these are all guys in there for doing bad things, many of them murderers.

But still, you get a guy like David Westerfield in there and they view him differently. Yeah. You know, these guys raped, killed women, men, whatever, but they view him as a piece of shit. Well, that's what he is. Yeah, I don't disagree with you. The other thing that happened after his. trial was over is the audio tapes of his interview started to get out to the media. And in one of his first interviews, you can hear Westerfield ask one of the officers to leave their gun. And people

took that as he wanted to commit suicide. That's such an easy way out for him. It would be. It would be the easy way out for him. You know, there was, in one point of the police interviews, he told them that he didn't feel stable, didn't feel emotionally stable. And we talked about the fact that he, you know, he failed the polygraph. In one of the interviews, you can hear them talking about it. And Westerfield says that he wants to take it again, that he was not involved in Daniel's disappearance. And there are a lot of people, Gibbs, that think he wasn't. Really? No, you can go out on the internet, you can find pages devoted to the fact that David Westerfield is innocent. Now, I think that's true in a lot of cases, right?

Scott Peterson has a bunch of, oh, tons. Websites of people that, you know, think he's innocent. The same is true for, for David Westerfield. What's their biggest, uh, counter defense? The, the biggest argument that he was, he's, uh, not guilty. Yeah. I think they cite lack of. direct physical evidence, which has to be on the side of his DNA or something from him being found

in her house. That's the only thing I can think of. There was quite a bit of evidence of her found, as we mentioned, in his RV, in his house, on his clothes. They also point to the fact of the interrogation, like we mentioned. They didn't think it was. fair, mainly because many people believe he did ask for an attorney and he wasn't provided one. But again, those are all things that are going to come up on appeal and probably already have. They're going to be vetted out. I mean, if he asked for an attorney and he didn't get one, that's true. I'm imagine that's a...

What was argued before the trial even started and the judge struck it down. So, you know, it'll be up to appeals courts to, you know, look at it and, you know, see what they think. But something strange happened in 2003. San Diego police received a letter from someone confessing to Daniel's murder. And the guy claimed to be James Selby. This was a man accused of a lot of sex related crimes in five different states. Wow.

But along with that, some of those were in the San Diego area where this happened. they took it pretty seriously. But in the end, they deemed it to not be credible. Now, to be fair, James Selby also said that he murdered John Bonae Ramsey. Oh. So, there you go. He's taking credit for a number of high profile. High profile murders.

Yeah. He committed suicide while he was awaiting sentencing in Arizona in 2004. So make of that what you will. I mean, if that was the only thing he ever claimed, okay, maybe you'd take it a little more seriously. If he's also claimed to kill John B'nai Ramsey and this person and that person, right. After a while, you have to say, that's a little far-fetched. Yeah, absolutely, you would.

Just a attention seeker. Yeah, more than likely. Yeah. Go ahead. It might be something in there that's true, but I, you know, you can't claim all those. There's no way. Yeah. The guy, the guy did kill people.

Yeah, yeah, but you can't claim all the, and you know, I mean, come on, John Bonnet. Now, another thing happened in 2003, and that's that David Westerfield's son filed a petition to change his name. A week later, his sister did the same thing. They didn't want their last name Westerfield anymore. Didn't want to be associated with it. It's kind of hard to blame them with what their father did. Now, apparently, when you go into the court, you have to give a reason for.

for the change. And they wrote, Disassociate from Father's name. But they didn't change it all that much. They changed it to West. So from Westerfield to West. And there's just a few things Gibbs. I wanted to mention,

you know, the elementary school where Danielle went, they dedicated some open areas to her memory. There's an overpass named for her. It's called the Daniel Van Dam Memorial Overpass. Yeah. It's very close to where her body was found. And then the last thing I want to talk about before we wrap up is this place called dads.

And we talked about in the beginning. This is where Brenda went. This is where David went. It's a bar, but it's a tavern. It's a place where people can eat. It got super busy after the arrest of David Westerfield. It was packed. It was like everybody wanted to go to this place that they were talking about on the news.

Really? Yeah. I got fascinated reading this story about it. This was the place that they were known to have been before the murder happened. People said they just wanted to maybe sit on a stool that David Westerfield had sat on or maybe Brenda or one of her friends that was there that night. That's really weird. It's very strange, isn't it? I think so. But, you know, to be fair, we know a lot of people are into that. Oh, exactly. Whether it's. People listen to, this podcast right now going, I want to go there and do that. Right. We've talked about, like, staying at the Amityville house or we've talked about people buying memorabilia of serial killers online and collecting it, just having a piece of these infamous

people that did, you know, horribly bad things. But I found that interesting. There's a whole story in the paper about it. Yeah. It isn't. I like that kind of stuff. Yeah, they had the owner. He was saying, we've never been this busy.

It was a horrible thing. And the guy felt bad. Yeah, because he's like making some money off of it for sure. Yeah, he felt bad that in a way he was profiting off the death of this seven-year-old girl. Now, obviously, that's not his fault, but he was remorseful that he was making money just, you know, because of that. But that's it. That is the story of. David Allen Westerfield.

And I mentioned it up front. It's a different type of story for us. Right. This is not a serial killer. This is not a mass murderer. It's not a spree killer. It's not a guy who had as a kid all the makings of a future killer. You don't see that.

There's not a lot out there about his background, but I sure didn't see anything like that in it. You know, he seemed to have a pretty normal life. He was successful. A lot of people liked him. He had friends. He wasn't the loner in the basement that we often talk about. But again, these are the stories that I think scare me the most.

The seemingly normal person living two doors down from you that is plotting or one day gets it in their head that they are going to do something horrible. That scares the bejeebies at him. It does. You know, Jason from Friday the 13th doesn't scare me. I mean, he probably should because he's kind of invincible. Right. But, you know, the thought of a killer like that with a hockey mask, I can see you're wearing a hockey mask.

I know to get away from you. Now, whether I can, that's a different story. But the mild-mannered accountant that lives down the street. Right. That I see out cutting his grass, I'm not running the other way from that guy. I don't have a concern about him in the least. He hasn't done anything. He's not exhibiting anything that would make me worry about that person.

All right, Gibbs, we have some voicemails. You want to check those out? Yeah, let's do it. All right. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Nisha. I'm calling from England and I want to say hi. And I must thank you as well as congratulations on getting to 100 episodes.

I'm totally, totally obsessed with T-CAT. And I actually spent the summer doing an internship in London. and I listen to your podcast every single day on the tube, which is what we call the subway. And I also want to suggest a case, which is super intriguing and actually happened just a few miles away from where I grew up. It's the case of Fred and Rose West

who murdered a whole bunch of young women in the house in Gloucester nickname, The House of Horrors. It's a really interesting case. I think they actually killed one of their own daughters, and they buried a whole bunch of them under their patio in their garden because Fred was a builder. So really gruesome, but really interesting case and lots of information around out there. I'd also love to hear give you massacre all the pronunciations of the places around me

and do some really shocking English accents because that's always very enjoyable for me. The quick heads up there is, the place that it happened is in a time called Gloucester, not Gloucester or Gloucester, which I've heard both from American family, and the county that it's in is Gloucestershire. So that's one of those thing for you to get wrong. but I really hope that you have a chance to do that. And I want to say, thank you so much for keeping me company on many, many long journeys. And as you always say, keep your own time ticking.

All right. That was a great episode. She had such a cute accent. She died how a cute accent. It was very subdued compared to that. Very subdued. Whatever you just did. But I will say the West, we're going to have to do them.

That's, we're probably getting more. requests for that case right now than any other. Yeah, I started kind of looking into that a couple weeks ago and we were talking about it. Yeah. So I think that we're going to have to move that up the list just based on the amount of requests we're getting for it. The question is, are we going to remember her pronunciations by the time we get to it? We'll have to wait and see. Yes.

Hey, Mike and give me, this is a job from something that would know I call. I'm trying right now. I wanted to wish or tell you guys congratulations on your 100th episode you guys get me through a lot of how it runs so I really appreciate it. Thank you. Have a good day guys.

Stay safe and keep your own time ticking. All right, so John is either training for a marathon as he said. Right. Or he's running away from someone or he's chasing someone. There's really only three options. Now the fact that he's taking time to call

and congratulate us on our 100th episode leads me to believe he's training for a marathon. Let's record a podcast while we run. I mean, it'd be a very short one. I was going to say, what is it going to be, a two-minute podcast? Maybe we do, like, just like one voicemail as we run on your treadmill. I get a stitch in my side after about two minutes. You can do set your treadmill right here, and you can do your part. I do my part.

How about if we get one of the, let's get dual fancy Peloton bikes? You ever seen that commercial? Yeah, yeah, that would be good. And we'll do the podcast as we race each other. Oh, that'd be good. Oh, I wonder if we can show the results, like, on the website. Well, I know those things are expensive, but they have a video screen in them. I don't know.

I think you take video devices. Can you buy them and then return them? Can we, like, buy them, use them for a week and then return them? I doubt it. I doubt it. It's not Walmart, so. That's true. Maybe it'd be like one of the betting places where you get the mattress.

and if you don't like it after 60 days, you call them and they give your full refund, I don't know what they do with a mattress. Why would you want that back? They have to throw it away. Well, they do, but why? You can't sell that to somebody else. I mean, why don't just, I mean, there's like,

because they know nobody's going to do it. There's like 12 mattresses places, so you could get two years of free mattress. Well, first of all, nobody thinks like you. The second is mattresses don't go bad in 60 days. Well, it's like a year, year and a half mark where you start to get it. You got 60 days to try it out if it doesn't feel right to you, they're coming and take it back. Right, but it's not going to, they're banking

on the fact that it's not going to not feel right within the 60-date period. Yeah, but even felt good. I mean, you'd be like, hey. If you like it, just keep it and use it. I'm going to try the other company now. You got a, you got a warped. I try them all, and then I get back to the one I had that I really liked. Right. Three years later, after you've run through every company. Location, congratulations, good work. Love the show. We love when Ness checks in. He actually It actually checks in much more than what we put on. Cutting the cotton. Yeah.

Illegal activity. It probably is illegal. I did get a kick out of that when you said the hills are alive with the sound of cotton. Have you listened to Cotton before? No. It's so tranquil. So relaxing. It's one of the most famous movies ever made.

Cotton? Never heard of it. The sound of music. Youthball. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Jocelyn calling from Wednesday. They're Ontario. I just finished your Richard Ramirez finale episode,

and my husband was in the other room listening to you guys, Chad afterwards about coming out with a line of serial killer figurines. He piped up and was like, I'd buy them. We collect all things strange and unusual. We have a lot of figurines from different horror movies over the years and strange little artifacts we've collected. I work from home and listen to your podcast all the time. You guys have to know that you are my favorite.

favorite. Thank you for all you guys do. You guys keep it respectful and just enough humor. I love your guys chemistry together and just keep doing what you guys do. Thanks. Bye. Awesome. Love it. Yeah. First of all, get me a job where I can work from home. Yeah, me too. Somebody hooked, give me an eye up with jobs where we can work from home. That's right. We're near a major airport. We can be anywhere. But you know, it's funny, Gibbs. People always say we said X. Yeah. Whatever X is in an older episode.

Right. I don't remember. I think we've done so many episodes. It's hard for me to remember. I think we've done so many episodes. We just did episode 100. Why do you say we've done like 100 episodes? Why do you say, I think we've done so many?

We've done 100 plus. 102. Yeah. On this one. So there you go. But it is hard to remember back, like in the BTK. I can't remember last week, man. I know.

It's hard with all the, it kind of. all gets blurred a little. I don't even, what was this podcast about again? It's funny, but it's so true. It's, if they only knew. He's already forgotten it. If they only knew. All right, nothing in the mailbag this week.

What? Nope. Nothing. Nope. A lot of messages from people that have stuff coming on the way. It's Halloween time. Where's my Twizzlers? But a lot of things coming from overseas.

So it takes a while to get there. But where's my Twizzlers? Gibby likes Twizzlers. Halloween time. And we haven't had beef jerky. We always like beef turkey. We like things to chew on. Give you something to chew on.

Yeah. All right, everyone. That is it for another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike and Gibby. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.