SAN DIEGO -- Experts said that the kidnapping and murder of Samantha Runnion could mean bad news for the accused killer of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam.

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The jury in the David Westerfield trial was on a week-long break when the horrible news of Runnion made national coverage.

"That will not help the defense case with the new girl," La Mesa-based jury consultant Toni Blake said.

"That's a pretty hard one for the jury to digest," Blake said.

Samantha was playing with a friend at her condominium complex in Orange County early Monday evening when she was abducted by a man who claimed to be looking for a dog.

Her nude body was found the next day off the Ortega Highway at the edge of the Cleveland National Forest. Authorities said she had been sexually assaulted and asphyxiated.

A 27-year-old man from nearby Lake Elsinore, Alejandro Avila, was arrested in the case Friday.

Local defense attorney Kerry Steigerwalt agreed with Blake's analysis, to a point.

"You sure don't want something like this because it gets people's hearts and emotions triggered," Steigerwalt said.

Yet, he said, the effect of the new case could cut both ways.

The defense in the Westerfield matter "keeps saying it wasn't my guy," Steigerwalt said. Jurors could wonder whether the suspect in the Runnion case had any sort of connection with San Diego, he said.

Westerfield, 50, is charged with murder, kidnapping and a misdemeanor charge of possession of child pornography in the van Dam case.

The jury has heard about hair and fiber evidence that police crime lab technicians believe connects Westerfield and Danielle; two drug- and alcohol- fueled "girls' nights out" the child's mother spent with her friends; and a wandering journey the defendant took in his motor home the weekend the Danielle disappeared.

Jurors temporarily returned to their normal lives this week while Superior Court Judge William Mudd took a long-planned vacation. Both the prosecution and defense agreed to the interruption.

Blake said jurors can't control who approaches them and could hear conversations they ordinarily would not on days the trial is in session. And with the media coverage of the Runnion case on par with the van Dam murder, self-policing would be very difficult, Blake said.

"It will encourage the jury to convict," she said of the new case's effect on the Westerfield trial.