ATOT NEWS UPDATE:
Westerfield Gets Death Penalty
From Associated Press
SAN DIEGO -- David Westerfield received the death penalty today for killing 7-year-old Danielle van Dam, a neighbor whose body was found in a rural area near San Diego weeks after she died.
Superior Court Judge William Mudd rejected defense pleas for a life sentence without parole and a dismissal based on alleged prosecutorial misconduct.
"The victim...was taken out of her home in the middle of the night out of her own bed," Mudd said during today's sentence hearing in San Diego. "The weight of the evidence is overwhelming."
As she awaited hearing whether her daughter's killer would be sentenced to death, the victim's said that what mattered most was that he never be allowed near another child again.
A jury already recommended the death penalty for Westerfield.
"Just knowing that he's off the street, it makes me happy," Brenda van Dam said on NBC's "Today" show. "I know that his life is over. He is going to be living in a very small room. ... It will be a horrible existence."
The slaying was the first in a string of high-profile child abductions last year.
Westerfield, 50, will become the 617th inmate on California's death row.
In motions filed last week, prosecutors said there was no justification for anything less than the death penalty for such an "evil, selfish, cold-hearted child killer."
Attorneys for Westerfield said police misconduct would justify a lesser sentence. They contend detectives interrogated Westerfield without reading him his rights or letting him talk to a lawyer. If he is sentenced to death, they are required by state law to appeal.
Danielle was last seen Feb. 1, when her father put her to bed in the family's home in an upper-middle class neighborhood of San Diego. Her nude body was found nearly a month later along a road outside the city, too decomposed to determine the cause of death or whether she had been sexually assaulted.
Westerfield, who lived two doors away and bought Girl Scout cookies from Danielle days before her disappearance, became an early suspect.
Investigators learned he was at the same bar as Danielle's mother and two friends the night Danielle vanished. He left in his motor home early the next day as police and volunteers searched the neighborhood.
Ultimately, the girl's blood was found on Westerfield's jacket, and her hair was discovered in his bedroom. Investigators also found Danielle's blood, hair and fingerprints inside his motor home.
For reasons the defense has not explained, Westerfield decided to exercise his rights to a speedy trial. On Aug. 21, he was convicted of murder, kidnapping and possessing child pornography-- an unusually rapid end for a capital case.
During the two-month trial, the defense suggested Danielle's parents' lifestyle had put the little girl in danger by opening their home to potential suspects. The couple and authorities maintained their personal life had no connection to the abduction.
California's death row is by far the largest of any state. Just 10 people have been executed there since 1976, including one in 2002.
Westerfield Gets Death Penalty
From Associated Press
SAN DIEGO -- David Westerfield received the death penalty today for killing 7-year-old Danielle van Dam, a neighbor whose body was found in a rural area near San Diego weeks after she died.
Superior Court Judge William Mudd rejected defense pleas for a life sentence without parole and a dismissal based on alleged prosecutorial misconduct.
"The victim...was taken out of her home in the middle of the night out of her own bed," Mudd said during today's sentence hearing in San Diego. "The weight of the evidence is overwhelming."
As she awaited hearing whether her daughter's killer would be sentenced to death, the victim's said that what mattered most was that he never be allowed near another child again.
A jury already recommended the death penalty for Westerfield.
"Just knowing that he's off the street, it makes me happy," Brenda van Dam said on NBC's "Today" show. "I know that his life is over. He is going to be living in a very small room. ... It will be a horrible existence."
The slaying was the first in a string of high-profile child abductions last year.
Westerfield, 50, will become the 617th inmate on California's death row.
In motions filed last week, prosecutors said there was no justification for anything less than the death penalty for such an "evil, selfish, cold-hearted child killer."
Attorneys for Westerfield said police misconduct would justify a lesser sentence. They contend detectives interrogated Westerfield without reading him his rights or letting him talk to a lawyer. If he is sentenced to death, they are required by state law to appeal.
Danielle was last seen Feb. 1, when her father put her to bed in the family's home in an upper-middle class neighborhood of San Diego. Her nude body was found nearly a month later along a road outside the city, too decomposed to determine the cause of death or whether she had been sexually assaulted.
Westerfield, who lived two doors away and bought Girl Scout cookies from Danielle days before her disappearance, became an early suspect.
Investigators learned he was at the same bar as Danielle's mother and two friends the night Danielle vanished. He left in his motor home early the next day as police and volunteers searched the neighborhood.
Ultimately, the girl's blood was found on Westerfield's jacket, and her hair was discovered in his bedroom. Investigators also found Danielle's blood, hair and fingerprints inside his motor home.
For reasons the defense has not explained, Westerfield decided to exercise his rights to a speedy trial. On Aug. 21, he was convicted of murder, kidnapping and possessing child pornography-- an unusually rapid end for a capital case.
During the two-month trial, the defense suggested Danielle's parents' lifestyle had put the little girl in danger by opening their home to potential suspects. The couple and authorities maintained their personal life had no connection to the abduction.
California's death row is by far the largest of any state. Just 10 people have been executed there since 1976, including one in 2002.
Facebook
Twitter