Brenda van Dam also corroborated her husband's testimony that the two of them and the two friends had smoked marijuana on the night Danielle disappeared.
A murder trial currently underway in Southern California is proving that “alternative sexual lifestyles” practiced by “consenting adults” in the “privacy of their own homes” can have unforeseen consequences for society at large — and in this case, may have cost the life of a little girl.
Seven-year-old Danielle van Dam was discovered missing from her bedroom on Saturday morning, February 2, by her parents Brenda and Damon van Dam. On February 27, her badly decomposed and nude body, minus a foot and reproductive organs, was discovered along a rural roadside in East San Diego County. Because of the body’s condition, the medical examiner was unable to determine the exact cause of death or if little Danielle had been sexually molested.
David Westerfield, a 50-year-old self-employed design engineer and van Dam neighbor, has been charged with Danielle’s kidnapping and murder. He is also charged with possession of child pornography after police found thousands of pornographic images on his computer.
In opening arguments last week, prosecutor Jeff Dusek told jurors that DNA evidence found in Westerfield’s motor home and on a jacket would conclusively link him to Danielle, and that his possession of child pornography would supply the motive needed to convict him of her murder.
However, the prosecution’s case against Westerfield has been complicated by the van Dams' debauched lifestyle. Westerfield’s defense attorney Steven Feldman argued that Brenda and Damon van Dam’s “risqué behavior” — including their promiscuous sexual relationships and marijuana and alcohol use — opened their home to several people who could have abducted and killed their daughter.
‘SWINGING,’ DRUGS, AND ROCK-AND-ROLL
On February 1, the night Danielle vanished from her home in the upscale San Diego suburb of Sabre Springs, her mother and two female friends, Denise Kemal and Barbara Easton, partied at a local bar. Before leaving for the bar, the three women drank alcohol and smoked marijuana in the van Dams' garage, where a door leading into the house had been altered so that Danielle and her two brothers, then aged 5 and 9, could be locked out from inside the house. Damon van Dam also admitted drinking and smoking marijuana with the women before they left.
Damon stayed home with the children while Brenda, Barbara and Denise went to nearby Dad’s Café. There, according to court testimony, they continued drinking, danced provocatively, and went outside at one point to smoke more marijuana supplied by another “family friend,” Rich Brady. They also ran into Westerfield, whom Brenda and Danielle had visited earlier in the week to sell Girl Scout cookies.
When the bar closed, the women — described as “toasted” by that time — came back to the van Dam home with Brady and another male friend, Keith Stone, who had expressed a sexual interest in Easton. Upon arriving home, Brenda van Dam noticed that an alarm light was in the house. She and Kemal searched the house and found that the side garage door was open. While they did so, Easton went upstairs to the van Dam bedroom, where she got into bed with Damon van Dam, rubbed his back, and they kissed.
Noticing Easton’s absence, Brenda van Dam went upstairs and found her with her husband. She told the two to come downstairs to join the others. Shortly thereafter, all four guests left, and Brenda and Damon went to bed. Sometime after 3:00 a.m., Damon van Dam awoke to find another alarm light blinking. Going downstairs, he discovered the kitchen sliding glass door open. He closed it and went back to bed without checking on the children. Hours later, when Danielle failed to emerge from her bedroom, the van Dams called 911 to report her disappearance.
‘SWAPPING’ OR ‘SEX PARTY’?
Initially, the van Dams lied to police detectives about their sexual activities and acquaintances. However, on the stand last week, Brenda and Damon confirmed that many of the rumors about their “lifestyle” which had circulated throughout San Diego since their daughter's disappearance were true.
In addition to his activities the night of Danielle’s disappearance, Damon van Dam testified that, on at least three occasions, he had sex or tried to have sex with Easton in the presence of his wife. He and Brenda also admitted having had sex with Kemal and her husband, Andy, at a Halloween party in October 2000.
When asked by the prosecuting attorney if she had had a “sex party” at her home the night of Danielle’s disappearance, Brenda van Dam denied it, saying, “There has never been a sex party at my house.” She subsequently admitted to the defense attorney during cross-examination that she and Damon had engaged in sex with the Kemals during the Halloween party but said, “I don’t consider that to be a sex party.” Kemal similarly downplayed the Halloween party, saying it was “more like a swap” and adding that the van Dam children were not in the home that night.
To date, the remaining van Dam children have not been removed from the home.
MOLES: ‘SWINGING’ MOCKS MARRIAGE
According to The San Diego Union-Tribune, the Westerfield trial is “one of the most closely scrutinized trials in San Diego County history.” Its aspects, including the van Dams’ sexual proclivities, “have generated a raucous public discourse ranging from pedophilia to proper parenting.”
The case also turns a spotlight on organizations like the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF), based in Washington, D.C., that advocates “alternative sexual expressions” such as “swinging” (wife-swapping), “polyamory” (multiple simultaneous sexual relationships), and “consensual” sadomasochism. See the April 18, 2002 C&F Report article to learn more about the full agenda of the NCSF, which now works closely with major homosexual and transsexual activist groups such as the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) and GenderPAC.
Cindy Moles, director of Concerned Women for America of San Diego and Imperial Counties, has followed the van Dam case and said: “This ‘lifestyle’ cheapens marriage and reduces it to nothing more than a contract between two people who share a house and a checkbook. The ‘swingers’ movement makes a total mockery out of fidelity and marriage, and threatens the children who would normally find safe haven in a home with parents who are faithful to each other.”
Moles said it is interesting that “just as special interest groups worked to normalize and legalize homosexuality, organizations like the NCSF are advocating for this appalling ‘swinging’ lifestyle.”
Child advocate Douglas Howard Pierce warned on his Millennium Children’s Fund Web site: “America needs to be aware about another type of hidden swingers called ‘family affair.’ This is when the children are involved in family group sexual encounters. This type of underground activity is prevalent via the Internet and chat rooms titled ‘family affair.’”
‘LIFESTYLES’ HAVE CONSEQUENCES
San Diego pro-family attorney Bill Trask offered the following analysis of the van Dam story: “In a criminal case, the defense has to produce enough evidence that causes the jury to doubt that the defendant committed the crime. One way of doing that is to show that there is another reasonable explanation” — in this case, that the van Dams opened their doors to a variety of unsavory characters.
“I think what this case boils down to is a principle that is generally applicable regardless of what the lifestyle is, and that is that even though in our society we are free to engage in any lifestyle we want, it doesn’t mean that we’re free from the consequences of that lifestyle,” Trask added.
Allyson Smith, a regular contributor to Culture & Family Report, is a freelance reporter based in San Diego, California.