Parents drug use, sex lives steal focus
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SAN DIEGO (Court TV) — The parents of Danielle van Dam took the stand Thursday at a preliminary hearing for their daughter's accused killer and tearfully recalled the circumstances of the 7-year-old's abduction from her bedroom.
Asked what she found when she went to wake her daughter on the morning of Feb. 2, a red-eyed Brenda van Dam replied, "an empty bed."
But the girl's disappearance and murder quickly took a back seat to questions about her parents' drug use, drinking habits and sex life.
Brenda and Damon van Dam acknowledged smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol the night their daughter vanished from her bedroom. A lawyer for murder suspect David Westerfield also repeatedly quizzed the pair about rumors they were "swingers," sexually involved with others.
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| Danielle's father, Damon van Dam |
Judge H. Ronald Domnitz precluded many of the questions as irrelevant, but Brenda van Dam admitted a female friend tried to grope her breasts in a bar that night. And her husband said he had a relationship with the same woman and had kissed and massaged her in his bed the night his daughter went missing.
Westerfield, a 50-year-old engineer who lived two doors down from the van Dams, is accused of kidnapping the second-grader from her bedroom the night of Feb. 1 and killing her. Her body, too decomposed to determine a cause of death, was discovered in a trash-strewn lot Feb. 27. Spots of Danielle's blood were found in Westerfield's recreational vehicle and on his jacket, according to police. They said they also recovered child pornography from his home and suspect a sexual motive.
At the close of the three-day hearing Thursday afternoon, Domnitz ruled there was sufficient evidence to try Westerfield for kidnapping and murder. He will be arraigned March 28. Prosecutors have not decided whether they will seek the death penalty.
Brenda van Dam, who like her husband wore a picture of her daughter on her lapel, testified that almost all of her contact with Westerfield came in the week preceding her daughter's abduction. On Jan. 25, she said, she saw him at Dad's, a neighborhood bar where she had gone with two female friends. He bought her a cranberry and vodka cocktail, but she said she could not remember what they talked about and still did not know his name.
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| Suspect David Westerfield |
Several days later, she said, she, her son Dylan and Danielle went to Westerfield's home while selling Girl Scout cookies. Westerfield formally introduced himself and bought four boxes of cookies. While the children ran around his pool, she and Westerfield talked, she testified.
He wanted to get to know her female friends, she said.
"He said to tell them I had a rich neighbor to introduce them to," she testified.
She said she told Westerfield that she and her friends might return to Dad's the next Friday if she could get a baby sitter. Her husband, she recalled telling him, would be out of town.
As she left his house, Westerfield took her phone number and told her he "had adult parties and also barbecues" and planned to invite her and her husband to them, she testified.
She said she found the comment so strange that she called her husband at work when she got home.
"It struck me as odd that he mentioned adult parties. I didn't know what he meant by that," she said. On cross-examination, she denied Feldman's charge that she was tickled because "there were others in your neighborhood allegedly engaged in the swinging lifestyle."
The van Dam's testified that on Feb. 1, Brenda and her two female friends planned to go to Dad's bar and Damon, his trip postponed, to stay home with the three children. Damon van Dam said he drank two beers with dinner and a third later.
When the friends, identified as Denise Kamal and Barbara Easton, arrived, the adults went into the garage, locked the door and shared half a marijuana joint. The boys played video games while Danielle sat at the kitchen table writing in her journal.
Brenda van Dam said she had smoked marijuana about 30 times before, and both testified they had the garage lock specially set to keep the children from happening upon them. Damon van Dam said he had one or two hits and Brenda said she had "three or four puffs."
"Did it get you high?" asked defense lawyer Steven Feldman.
"I did," she said.
The women left for the bar, and Damon van Dam said he played video games with his sons and then put all three children to bed at about 10 p.m. Danielle, he said, was already in her four-poster bed when he entered the room to tuck her in.
"I gave her a kiss goodnight," he said. He left her door and those of her brothers open about eight inches, he said.
After watching television and walking the dog, he went to bed, he said. He testified that the dog, Leila, was raised with dogs who had their larynx removed and almost never barked.
Brenda van Dam said that when she arrived at the bar, Westerfield was there with two friends and offered to buy her and her friends drinks.
"He said, Ladies don't buy their own drinks and threw some money on the counter," she testified.
She said that over the course of the evening, she had three cranberry and vodka cocktails and a shot of tequila. She said she did not know how many Westerfield bought because her friends just kept passing them to her. She also said she went to the parking lot with Easton, Kamal and two male friends and smoked the rest of the joint.
"How clearheaded were you," Dusek asked.
"I think I was very clearheaded," she said.
At one point, she and her friends played pool with Westerfield's friends. She said she noticed him watching them.
She said she danced with her male friends and a male stranger and then with Kamal and Easton. Under cross-examination, she admitted that Easton and Kamal were dancing provocatively with each other, and that she told investigators Easton tried to grab her breasts. Brenda van Dam denied ever dancing with Westerfield, but before the hearing ended, the defense listed several bystanders who said they had seen the pair on the dance floor together.
At 1:50 a.m., the bar closed and she drove Kamal and Easton back to her house. The two male friends also joined them.
Damon van Dam said he had just returned to bed from taking the dog out again when his wife and friends arrived home. Brenda van Dam said as she walked into the house, the security alarm indicated a door in the garage was ajar. The alarm was not hooked up to a security company and did not sound continuously when a door or window opened. She said she closed it and then she and Easton went to the master bedroom.
Easton, he said, got on the bed.
"I put my arm around her and kissed her and rubbed her back," said Damon van Dam, adding that he could not remember whether his wife was in the room at the time, but she later left.
On cross-examination, Feldman asked if he and Easton had a relationship with her and he said "Yes."
Eventually, he and Easton joined the two men and Brenda van Dam in the living room. After eating pizza, the guests left and the van Dams went to bed about 2:30 without looking in on their children.
Damon van Dam said that sometime during the night, he woke to use the restroom and noticed a flashing light on the alarm panel. He went downstairs and found the sliding back door slightly ajar. He closed it, thinking one of his guests had opened it, and returned to bed.
At 9 the next morning, Brenda found Danielle's bed empty.
"We started looking everywhere," she said.
"What was your state of mind?" Dusek asked.
"Frantic," she said.