ASSOCIATED PRESS Lee Goff, chairman of the forensic science department at Chaminade University of Honolulu, testified during the trial of David Westerfield in July in San Diego.

Isle scientist’s
insect study
aids conviction

Lee Goff’s testimony showed
the San Diego man had time
to get rid of the child’s body

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By Genevieve A. Suzuki
gsuzuki@starbulletin.com

Hawaii forensic scientist Lee Goff, who provided testimony that helped convict a San Diego man of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam's murder, says it is always difficult to work on cases when children are the victims.

"You have to learn to detach yourself from it," Goff said. "It's hard to remain objective, but you have to."

A San Diego jury yesterday recommended the death penalty for David Westerfield, a 50-year-old neighbor of the van Dam family. Van Dam's body was found about a month after she was last seen on Feb. 1. The case gained nationwide attention in part because the girl was abducted from her house in the middle of the night.

Goff, the chairman of the forensic science program at Chaminade University, testified for the prosecution, but said he was first approached by Westerfield's defense team.

"I didn't particularly want to get involved because it seemed the defense was shopping for a particular opinion," said Goff.

He was later approached by the prosecution and accepted their offer. Goff, who had been under a gag order until yesterday, said he was paid about $4,000 for two days of testimony but declined to disclose the additional amount he was paid for his research.

"The defense had the specimens all tied up," Goff said. "I never got to see the evidence, which is too bad."

Instead Goff used other entomologists' reports, climatic data and autopsy photographs to write his report.

Entomologists were used by the defense to testify that insect activity at the crime scene proved that Westerfield was innocent, Goff said.

The defense claimed that Westerfield could not have disposed of van Dam's body in time because he had become a suspect so early, according to Goff.

Defense attorneys argued that their entomologists found that insect activity in the body began Feb. 21, but Goff testified that the minimum date for the onset of insect activity was Feb. 9.

"The times the defense entomologists were giving were absolute so he had an iron-clad alibi," Goff said. But Goff said it is impossible to offer an absolute time for insect activity because several factors need to be considered.

The three entomologists who testified for the defense did not agree on that date, which hurt its argument, Goff said.

Goff said he also disagreed with the data and methods the defense's entomologists used.

The temperature of the area where the defense extracted its data samples was about 80 degrees, but the temperature around the crime scene was in the 60s, Goff said. Warmer temperatures speed up insect activity, he said.

Goff said he and the prosecution's other entomologist, Bill Rodriguez, the forensic anthropologist with the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, visited the crime scene at different times and conducted independent experiments.

"We came up pretty close. We reinforced each other's ideas," Goff said. "I think we presented a picture that showed that yes, this was a possibility that the alibi he presented didn't hold up."