SAN DIEGO -- The televised trial of David Westerfield had people riveted to seats over much of the summer. The lurid testimony, often graphic, often emotional replaced soap operas for many.

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

But there was more that the jury, and the television and radio audience never saw or heard.

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The Untold Westerfield Evidence Part I The Untold Westerfield Evidence Part II

On the last weekend of her life, Danielle van Dam was taken to the desert near Glamis -- that much investigators do know. What they don't know is if the second-grader from Sabre Springs was alive or dead when Westerfield drove his motor home off the desert's hard-pack, looking for solitude.

Dan Conklin is with Dano's Towing. Westerfield called Conklin for help when he got stuck in a sand drift about a third of a mile beyond the hard-pack and had to be towed out.

"There's still the sand from all the shoveling I had to do just to get him out," Conklin said.

He testified at the trial that Westerfield was nervous and acting suspiciously as Conklin worked to get him out of the sand.

Conklin also told of the wooden leveling ramps that Westerfield abandoned because he was in such a hurry to get away. He still has the ramps and showed 10News where tires had left burn marks in the wood.

"He actually dug into the wood," Conklin said.

He didn't testify, however, about the other wood left behind -- six or seven bundles of firewood from a grocery store.

"They were just laying all over outside the motor home. I never saw a campfire or any other tracks from any other people or camps near him or anything," Conklin said.

Conklin said he saw several sets of tracks from Westerfield that led away from the motor home toward stands of trees. Conklin said the tracks showed that Westerfield would walk out to a tree and then walk back to the motor home.

"He went from tree to tree to tree, just zig-zag patterned," Conklin said.

One stand of trees seemed to draw Westerfield, Conklin said. He identified it to investigators, and strands of police tape remain on the tree to this day.

He said the set of tracks leading to the stand was deeper than the others, as if Westerfield were carrying extra weight. Alongside the tracks were a trail that Conklin believes was caused by Danielle's hand dragging in the sand.

"It would drag because (the ground) is high enough to do that," Conklin said.

Conklin said he thinks Westerfield wanted to build a fire underneath the trees so he could burn the body and destroy the evidence.

"With the cover of the tree it wouldn't be uncovered by the wind," Conklin said. "Nobody knew he was coming here, and he could have come and left; nobody'd ever know."

But Conklin said he believes Westerfield abandoned the idea after his motor home got stuck. A witness could have placed Westerfield out there, in the middle of nowhere.

The jury, however, heard almost none of this information. Lead prosecutor Deputy District Attorney Jeff Dusek told 10News that even he couldn't remember if he had heard it, but even if he had, it wouldn't have been of much use.

"I'm still not sure I have read any reports that describe any footprints or hand-draggings. But you have to understand that this was a desert region," Dusek said. "That information, had we known about it, would probably not have been any great weight in this case. You simply cannot interpret that type of physical evidence."

As far as the firewood is concerned, Dusek said Conklin appears to have been the only one to have seen that.

"We had nothing else about any fires out being there. Anybody speculating as to why it was there is simply inadmissible under the evidence code," he said.

Dusek said that after Westerfield was arrested, his office began receiving hundreds of tips. People claimed to have seen Westerfield or his motor home in areas all throughout San Diego County.

"We could have introduced any number of witnesses who said they saw (the motor home) on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, at any hour. Because there were so many, and of such a wide variety, there was no reason to believe that any of them were right," he said.

But among the endless tips and comments that preceded the trial, Dusek said he got help from an Internet discussion board.

"They questioned the age of the hair that was found in the motor home, and because of that we checked and determined when Danielle last had her haircut," he said.

That bit of information helped put to rest a theory by Westerfield's lawyers that Danielle had gotten into the motor home long before she disappeared. The length of the hair found in the motor home was only 8 inches -- her hair had been cut, from a length of 12 inches, only a few days before she disappeared.

Many trial watchers wondered what happened to evidence of scratches on Westerfield's arm that was introduced during the preliminary hearing.

Dusek said the District Attorney's Office was convinced the scratches were the work of Danielle, but the evidence was dropped after a forensic specialist showed that the scratches didn't match Danielle's hand.

"They didn't fit," he said.

Dusek said that although he knows Westerfield killed Danielle, he still wrestles with questions about the case, particularly questions about Westerfield's movements after Danielle's disappearance.

"That's the one that we had the most difficulty with -- trying to understand why he did that. Why would he come back to the neighborhood with Danielle, either alive or dead?" Dusek said.

However, Dusek responded claims by defense lawyers that Danielle was killed in her bedroom.

"I am convinced that she was alive in the motor home, because of the fingerprint and the blood that we found," he said. "She was alive when she got in that motor home."