Friends of man convicted in van Dam killing testify in penalty phase of trial

<br>SAN DIEGO (AP) _ A former high-school sweetheart, co-workers, friends and family testified in court Tuesday to try to spare the life of the man convicted of killing 7-year-old Danielle van Dam. <br><br>People

Wednesday, September 4th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

SAN DIEGO (AP) _ A former high-school sweetheart, co-workers, friends and family testified in court Tuesday to try to spare the life of the man convicted of killing 7-year-old Danielle van Dam.

People who have been close to David Westerfield described the 50-year-old engineer as a warm person who contributed to society by designing devices used in physical therapy.

``He was a member of the family,'' said Margaret Hennon, who wore the earrings Westerfield gave her while they were dating in the early 1970s. ``He called my mother 'Mom.'''

She wept as she read a greeting card she sent him after his arrest, offering to help him any way she could.

The defense planned to call two more witnesses Wednesday in the penalty phase of the trial. The defense has attempted to portray Westerfield as a family man who has contributed to society through his design work on devices used in medicine and other fields.

After prosecution rebuttal and closing arguments, the same jury that convicted him Aug. 21 of murder and kidnapping charges was to begin deliberating whether to recommend the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

A former supervisor, Wesley Hill, said he and Westerfield remained close friends since working together in 1977, taking annual canoe trips on the Colorado River and playing on the same softball team.

``We were together a lot, we just seemed to hit it off,'' said Hill, who now lives near Salt Lake City and has visited Westerfield in jail.

Two of Westerfield's aunts spoke of happy times the defendant spent with them as a child on a family farm in Maine. They remembered picking blueberries with him and water-skiing.

But the two women, Ina Bousselot and Andrea Whittwer, acknowledged they had only scant contact with him in recent years. Hennon also said she knew little of what happened to him since high school.

Danielle was reported missing from her San Diego home on Feb. 2. Her nude body was found nearly a month later along a rural road.

Under California law, Judge William Mudd can reduce the sentence to life in prison without parole but he can't impose a death sentence without the jury's recommendation.