Jury Hears Teen Testify Against Westerfield

By TONY PERRY

Aug. 29, 2002 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SAN DIEGO — A former niece testified Wednesday that, when she was 7 years old, David Westerfield stuck his finger in her mouth while she was sleeping and began “playing with my teeth.”

The testimony came on the first day of the penalty portion of Westerfield’s trial for kidnapping and murdering 7-year-old Danielle van Dam.

Under state law, a jury in a penalty trial can consider prior misconduct by the defendant, even if it did not result in a criminal charge or investigation.

The young woman was called by the prosecution in an attempt to show that Westerfield had a tendency toward making improper advances on underage girls. Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeff Dusek told jurors in Superior Court that Westerfield deserves to be executed.

The witness, 19, who was identified as Jenny Lynn, said she had bitten Westerfield to get him to stop, but that she had not shouted or called for her parents.

“I was too freaked out about it,” she said. “I didn’t understand what was going on.” She added that Westerfield removed his finger from her mouth only after she bit him “as hard and as long as I could.”

Jenny Lynn’s mother testified that her daughter had told her about the incident a week later, and that she had reacted angrily with Westerfield. But she added that her daughter had not given enough details to make her disbelieve Westerfield when he responded that the girl was lying.

Jenny Lynn testified that she had not spoken of the incident in 12 years before she told investigators about it after Westerfield was arrested in late February for the Van Dam murder. Westerfield was married to Jenny Lynn’s aunt at the time of the alleged incident; he and the aunt have since divorced.

Prosecutors played part of a tape recording of a police interrogation of Westerfield that took place soon after Danielle disappeared in which he said that Jenny Lynn’s mother “came to me with a story about how I had molested her children.” A second daughter was said to have been sleeping beside Jenny Lynn at the time of the incident.

In his opening remarks, defense attorney Steven Feldman said he would call dozens of witnesses to testify about Westerfield’s kindness toward them. Among them, he said, will be people helped by the medical and rehabilitation devices that Westerfield, 50, a design engineer, has developed to help handicapped or injured persons.

“We don’t try to excuse the crime. There is no excuse,” Feldman said. “But David Alan Westerfield is not the worst of the worst.”

Feldman also suggested that doubts linger about Westerfield’s guilt. The jury deliberated for 40 hours over nine days before reaching its guilty verdict last week.

Also taking the stand Wednesday were the dead girl’s parents, Brenda and Damon van Dam, who testified to the pain that the family has suffered. An urn with her ashes sits in a place of prominence in the family home, and her room has been preserved “so we won’t forget her,” her father told jurors.

“A lot of time, I can’t sleep at night,” Brenda van Dam said, “so I go in there [Danielle’s bedroom] to cry ...”