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Van Dam Jury In Overtime

Aired August 09, 2002 - 14:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: These folks didn't have to go to court today, but the men and women charged with deciding the fate of another accused child killer wanted to. That jury received the case of David Westerfield just yesterday.
And CNN's Rusty Dornin is waiting and watching along with everyone else in San Diego to allow those jurors to deliberate.

Hi there -- Rusty.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No one knows really why the jury sent the judge a note yesterday asking to work today when they weren't supposed to. We can only surmise that they have a daunting task before them. They have a huge amount of evidence: 199 pieces. There have been over 116 witnesses, testimony that they need to go through. And it has been a two-month trial. So there is a huge amount of information that they need to go through.

But over the last few days, both sides tried to condense their case, in order to persuade the jury of their -- to prove their point.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She went to the rear of the motor home...

DORNIN (voice-over): A final chance for the prosecution to blow holes in David Westerfield's defense. Prosecutor Jeff Dusek led the jury one last time through the evidence that he says pins the kidnapping and murder of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam on Westerfield. But nothing speaks louder, says Dusek, than the jacket that Westerfield took the cleaners two days after the 7-year-old was kidnapped.

DUSEK: This is the smoking gun, right here, this jacket. This is the smoking gun. Danielle's blood is on that jacket. And after hearing all of the closing arguments yesterday and part of the day before, this wasn't touched, how it got there. This wasn't touched at all.

Give me an explanation. You have to be sitting there. Give me another explanation of how it got there. Please. You didn't hear one. Not one.

DORNIN: Defense lawyer Steven Feldman hammered home his message to the jury. The evidence is all circumstantial, he claimed, seeds planted of reasonable doubt. When there is reasonable doubt, Feldman told them, they must acquit his client. Prosecutors theorize that Westerfield entered the van Dam house that night and hid in a closet before kidnapping Danielle. Not possible, says the defense.

STEVEN FELDMAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: ... that somebody else was in that residence that was not David Westerfield. You know, without being facetious, we see all of their boards. If I was to put this board up on the wall, this the evidence they have of David Westerfield in the van Dam residence.

DORNIN: Shortly before the final proceedings, Brenda van Dam broke down and left the courtroom, but returned a few minutes later. Both she and her husband remained calm throughout the prosecutor's closing statements, even when Jeff Dusek made an emotionally charged appeal.

DUSEK: Danielle, please tell us. Who did this to you?

DORNIN: He urged jurors to imagine that by some miracle, Danielle van Dam was standing before them.

DUSEK: I've told you with my hair, and you where found it. I told you with the orange fiber that you found on my choker, and where you found it. I told you with the blue fibers that were on my naked body and where you found it. I told with you my fingerprints and I told you with my blood. Please listen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN: Those were the last words that the jury heard right before they received the case. Of course, the defense attorney hopes that those words will still bring to mind some kind of reasonable doubt.

If jury does not reach a verdict today, they will resume deliberations again on Monday -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, we'll be watching. Thanks very much, Rusty Dornin, from San Diego.

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