Westerfield Transcripts Released

SAN DIEGO -- New information was revealed Thursday about the closed-door hearings during the David Westerfield murder trial.

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Court Released A Lot Of Paperwork

Sealed transcripts of those hearings were ordered released by the 4th District Court of Appeal, revealing several bits of information that jurors never heard.

The allegations include:

Woman Says She Was Raped By Westerfield

Man Says He Heard Scream From Motor Home

Dog Was 'Agitated' In Westerfield's Home

Barbara Easton Asked Not To Be Photographed

Jurors Complain Of Brenda Van Dam's Glaring

Feldman Lashes Out At Judge Mudd

Dusek: Westerfield Used Binoculars For Peeping

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Woman Says She Was Raped By Westerfield

WESTERFIELD TRIAL Judge William Mudd Issues Death Penalty Sentence Hear Jury's Death Penalty Recommendation Watch The Jury's Verdict Being Read Share Your Thoughts DANIELLE VAN DAM 1994-2002 Watch Danielle Video Montage E-mail: daniellevandam @yahoo.com Send mail to: P.O. Box 501515 San Diego, 92150

The jury never heard from a woman who alleged that Westerfield raped her in 1989, according to the court transcripts.

Prosecutors wanted to introduce the testimony of Sarah K. during the penalty phase of Westerfield's trial.

"It is an act of violence that this jury should hear about in determining the punishment in this case," Deputy District Attorney Jeff Dusek told Judge William Mudd.

According to the transcripts, Sarah K. said she met Westerfield at a nurses convention in Florida.

The woman later got a hotel room while visiting Westerfield in San Diego and the two had sex, according to the documents.

"She says that she says 'no' while they were having sexual intercourse," according to the transcripts.

Westerfield's attorneys said the woman only later claimed that the incident constituted a "date rape."

They said Sarah K. had accused two or three other people -- a politician and possibly a doctor -- of acts of rape.

After a "Phillips" hearing, Mudd refused to allow Sarah K.'s testimony, but did allow Westerfield's former niece to testify about an incident that allegedly occurred about 12 years ago. She said her uncle was rubbing her teeth with her fingers while she slept upstairs.

Jenny N., who was about 7 at the time, testified that she told her mother that "Uncle Dave" was being "weird."

Man Says He Heard Scream From Motor Home

A man said he heard a scream coming from inside Westerfield's motor home at Coronado Cays the morning Danielle van Dam disappeared, according to transcripts.

In a closed hearing two days after Westerfield was convicted, Mudd ruled that George Johnson could not testify in the penalty phase because he had not been called in the guilt phase of trial.

"Strategy aside, the man likely could have been, if believed, a percipient witness to the actual commission of the crime," the judge said. "To allow this at this stage, I think, is completely misleading to the jury."

Prosecutors said they learned of Johnson's eyewitness account after their case-in-chief was under way.

The potential witness had a robbery conviction from Nevada.

"We were certainly skeptical of what he had to say," prosecutor Dusek told the judge. "We needed to interview on multiple occasions and try to determine some background information."

Dog Was 'Agitated' In Westerfield's Home

A dog trained to detect Danielle van Dam's scent became agitated as it went through Westerfield's home but never actually alerted, according the transcripts.

The hearing, convened the day before the trial began, involved the search dogs Hopi and Cielo. Westerfield's attorneys tried to prevent much of the testimony of Jim Frazee, a volunteer dog handler for the San Diego County Sheriff's Department.

Because Hopi only showed certain reactions in the house, and never gave his alert signal as trained, Mudd ruled that part of Frazee's testimony was inadmissible.

As a result, jurors never heard what happened when Hopi went into Westerfield's house on Feb. 4 -- two days after Danielle was reported missing.

"What happened when (Hopi) got upstairs?" Dusek asked Frazee.

"He made an immediate right turn and went across the bridge, went into the walk-in closet ... came out of the closet and jumped up on the bed and turned and stared at me for five seconds approximately."

"What did that mean to you?" Dusek asked.

"That meant to me that he had possibly picked up some scent, (that there) was possibly stronger concentration than other places," Frazee (pictured, right) answered.

"What does it mean, though?"

"My interpretation is that it's possible that Danielle was there," Frazee testified.

Later, Frazee was asked to take Hopi into the garage.

"He sniffed several articles ... they may have been cushions ... he seemed to be agitated in the sense that he was ... he appeared to be frustrated that he could not find whatever it was that was emanating the scent."

"What part of the garage was this?" Dusek asked.

"Mostly he wanted to go in the area of the workbench on the east side and the storage cabinet," Frazee said. "He even jumped up on the workbench at one point."

During a search of Westerfield's Southwind motor home, Hopi tried to bolt from the interior during a search and later refused to look at the vehicle. Frazee told the court that he thought Hopi was spooked by the scent of fear, produced by high adrenalin levels.

The other dog, Cielo, then alerted at an exterior storage compartment of the vehicle. Cielo was trained to search for cadavers. That evidence was allowed by Mudd -- and Frazee testified about it during the trial.

Evidence was also presented about hair consistent with Danielle's found in the bedroom and garage. A police detective testified she smelled bleach in the area of the garage near the workbench.

Barbara Easton Asked Not To Be Photographed

A friend of Brenda van Dam's who was a potential witness trial asked not to be photographed, according to the documents.

Barbara Easton sent a letter to Mudd in late June, asking that she not be photographed on the witness stand or when entering or leaving the courtroom.

Easton was one of two friends who joined Brenda van Dam for a pair of "girls nights out" at Dad's Cafe and Steakhouse in Poway. One of those outings occurred the night Danielle van Dam was taken from her Sabre Springs home.

According to court testimony, Easton was flirtatious during the outings. And after arriving at the van Dam home in the early morning hours of Feb. 2, she joined Brenda's husband, Damon, on his bed for about five minutes, according to the testimony.

The behavior attributed to Easton aroused public and media curiosity, but she was never called to testify.

Mudd said he would accommodate her request not to be photographed. The judge later granted all such requests when members of Westerfield's family took the witness stand.

Jurors Complain Of Brenda Van Dam's Glaring

A number of jurors complained to the Mudd that Brenda van Dam (pictured, left) "glared" at them as they came and went from the courtroom, according to the transcripts.

A week into the trial, Mudd spoke with the jury outside of the presence of the media and public.

An anonymous juror had passed the judge a note, saying that some of the panelists felt that Danielle van Dam's mother was glaring at them, the transcripts show.

"So I need those of you that feel that in some way you're being intimidated by Mrs. van Dam or Mr. van Dam at this time simply to raise a hand and let me know that. Anyone feel that way?" Mudd asked the jury on June 13.

Alternate juror No. 13 told the judge she noticed the woman glaring at her.

"When we came in this morning, she was standing right out front here and it really made me feel uncomfortable," the juror said. "Just because I don't know, every time you leave or ... I can't see her where she's sitting ... but when I came in she was glaring at all of us when we came in. I guess, you know, like staring at us."

Another juror said Brenda van Dam stared at the panel during breaks in the period when she was on the witness stand.

Mudd told Dusek to talk to the victim's parents to let them know how the jury felt.

Damon van Dam was later kicked out of the courtroom for "mad-dogging" the defendant.

The judge let the victim's father back into the trial after the father promised to curtail his actions.

Feldman Lashes Out At Judge Mudd

The lead defense attorney complained about a public scolding from the judge in the case and said he might have given ineffective counsel, according to the documents.

Steven Feldman (pictured, right) received his dressing-down from Mudd in open court on June 25.

That came shortly after Feldman "theatrically" insinuated during cross-examination of a police expert that of about 100,000 images found on Westerfield's computers, only 13 potentially supported a charge of misdemeanor possession of child pornography.

In a hearing the next morning, Feldman complained that "there was no misrepresentation of any kind to the jury under any circumstance. Frankly, I'm concerned about the manner in which the court directed its comments in a public manner."

Mudd responded that Feldman's "conduct and insinuations" were made in "full view and in open court."

Prosecutor George "Woody" Clarke reminded the court that even though the jury saw just 13 images, the computer equipment contained images of thousands of female adults and juveniles.

Feldman also told Mudd that he may have been guilty of "ineffective counsel under the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution." Ineffective counsel is a frequent issue on appeal.

By suggesting such a small portion of the images contained potential child pornography, Feldman led Mudd into entering all the images into evidence.

"And, Mr. Feldman, it was intentional," Mudd said. "It fits into the pattern of what the defense intends to argue. And it clearly, clearly left a false impression with this jury. And this court was not about to allow that to occur."

Dusek agreed that Feldman's "mistake" was intentional.

"Even when we were picking this jury (Feldman) was asking the jurors ... will you be able to handle adult women in consensual sex positions ... it's our impression, certainly my impression, that he intended to get into this all along," Dusek said.

"It was a tactical choice either to keep out all the evidence, when he failed that, then he was going to try to minimize the number of pictures we had with the overall number."

Dusek also suggested that Feldman would have material for an appeal if Mudd allowed the rest of the images in -- which he did.

Dusek: Westerfield Used Binoculars For Peeping

Prosecutors wanted to introduce more testimony from one Westerfield's neighbors, claiming that the defendant used binoculars to spy on people and to look in Danielle van Dam's home, the documents revealed.

Dusek wanted Angela Elkus to testify after Westerfield's attorneys introduced evidence that the defendant used the binoculars to look at the stars out in the desert, according to previously sealed court transcripts.

"In fact, (Westerfield's attorneys) were aware, and have been aware, that the binoculars are used certainly to look at this lady (Elkus) who lives back behind, which adds an evidentiary value to answer the question of how did he know his way around the van Dam house," Dusek told the judge.

"Because (Westerfield's) looking in other people's houses. He was caught looking in someone else's house."

Mudd disallowed the neighbor's testimony because the incidents happened 18 months earlier.

Westerfield's ex-wife, Jackie, also told authorities that she would wake up in the middle of the night and catch the defendant coming back into the house at night with his binoculars, saying he was just checking out odd occurrences outside, the prosecutor told the judge.