BREAKING: BRENDA VAN DAM DANCED WITH WESTERFIELD: (Modern Day Westside Story?)7-9-02 Trial Watch

KFMB ^ | July 9, 2002 | KFMB

[FresnoDA]

WITNESSES SAY BRENDA VAN DAM DANCED WITH DAVID WESTERFIELD

(07-08-2002) - Three defense witnesses testified Monday that Brenda van Dam and David Westerfield, the man accused of murdering 7-year-old Danielle van Dam, danced together the night before the girl was discovered missing.

"Mr. Westerfield and Mrs. van Dam were dancing," said Patricia LePage, describing the scene at Dad's Cafe and Steakhouse the night of Feb. 1.

Since the prosecution introduced hair and fibers found at the defendant's house and motorhome, the defense has tried to show the evidence could have been transferred in some other way, such as dancing.

The 50-year-old defendant would face the death penalty if convicted of kidnapping and killing Danielle van Dam, who lived two houses away in Sabre Springs. He is also charged with misdemeanor possession of child pornography.

In testimony near the beginning of the trial, Brenda van Dam told the court she did not dance with Westerfield.

But LePage said van Dam rubbed her hips and chest against Westerfield during several dances together, recalling the movie "Dirty Dancing." That was just part of what LePage described as "frisky" behavior exhibited by van Dam that night.

LePage said she was in a smoking lounge at Dad's with her daughter, Cherokee Youngs, when van Dam came in and struck up a conversation with the younger woman.

"Well, she did ask my daughter if she liked girls," LePage said when asked to describe the conversation. Van Dam, she said, asked Youngs if she wanted to come to her house for a party later that night.

Youngs testified about the encounter last week.

Duane Blake, a fisherman who said he goes to Dad's a couple times a week, said he caught a glimpse of the defendant dancing with van Dam.

Blake confirmed an interview with the District Attorney's Office, in which he described their dancing as, "huggy, huggy." He testified he even thought Westerfield might be trying to pick up on van Dam.

Earlier Monday, another woman testified she saw Westerfield dance with Danielle's mother.

Glennie Nasland, who began her testimony last week, said she was on the dance floor and saw the pair turn toward each other while dancing with other people.

Nasland, who described herself as a friend of Westerfield, said she watched them for 20 seconds before they turned away again.

In other testimony Monday, Dave Laspisa said that going to the desert to look for friends, and without bringing an all-terrain vehicle, was not an unusual activity for Westerfield.

The witness, a self-employed Poway man, said he's known the defendant for 15 years and has camped with him near the Imperial County community of Glamis for 10 years.

The witness was one of several people who testified as the defense began to move away from what happened at a Poway night spot the night before Danielle was discovered missing Feb. 2 to Westerfield's weekend wanderings.

Westerfield's attorney, Steven Feldman asked Laspisa to explain why someone would avoid Interstate 8 while taking a motorhome to the desert. Laspisa said high winds and black ice were common on that route, which traverses altitudes over 4,000 feet.

Heather Mack, a security guard at Coronado Cays, testified that she saw Westerfield drive his motorhome into the exclusive neighborhood in the afternoon or evening hours of Feb. 3.

Mack said Westerfield smiled and waved at her as he drove past her security kiosk, but she never saw him again.

The witness told Dusek that she originally told a police officer that she "vaguely remembered" seeing the defendant's recreational vehicle.

Glen Seebruch, an engineering manager at Nokia, testified earlier that Westerfield called him the morning of Feb. 1 and told him he planned to go to the desert that weekend.

Feldman, told Judge William Mudd that his case may be completed by the end of the week.

Insect expert David Faulkner is expected to testify about how long the victim's body may have been in the East County before volunteer searchers found it on Feb. 27.

Feldman has said Westerfield would have had no opportunity to dispose of the body because he was under constant police surveillance from Feb. 4 until his arrest Feb. 22.

[Rheo]

Did Jeff Graham testify to any new info?...or just to say that DW was excluded from any prints in the VD home?..where did Jeff go with the unidentified palm prints?...anything else?

[Spunky]

What are we then to say of Damon VD, however, who surely must be the main reason for a 7-year-old girl not to be a virgin.

Are you just spouting or do you know for a fact that she was not a virgin?

[Jaded]

That they were only interested in if the prints matched David Westerfield. Also they didn't check the prints against each other. What a coinkydinkle.

[crystalk]

Of course DW is not a "middle-aged bachelor," but had twice been married, and had more or less successfully raised a son and a daughter to adulthood.

[Rheo]

That not matcing the unID'd prints is mind boggling..wouldn't they even want to know if they have 1 unID'd print throughout the house or 16 different ones.??

And just how many people were by Danielle's room that were not on the parents list or LEO's??..

[Jrabbit]

Oh just the usual unidentified prints and not trying to match them against each other. Just trivial stuff. Nothing to see there, move along...(sarcasm) Actually, I was gone for his testimony. Would have loved to have heard it. Mz. Bloomingidiot said something about the closet, but I had the TV turned way down because her voice causes my dog to howl!

[GoldenBear]

I agree completely. If your goal is to find the killer of this little girl, don't you check every print? I do not understand what the SDPD was doing!

[jacquej]

Well, Judy, there are reasons for the questions, and it is to exclude those who would continually make trouble.

While I am sure you aren't the guilty party, someone managed to get on from here, and was reporting back to certain people here what the conversation was over there, and people started getting nasty Freepmails regarding their comments.

This, in my opinion, comes pretty close to 'net stalking, and it is why those asking for permission to read the board, or post to the board must be "cleared"...

Not to exclude well-meaning people, but to exclude these stalkers, trouble-makers, and people who are more interested in attacking posters who do not share their point of view.

[Rheo]

but I had the TV turned way down because her voice causes my dog to howl

Your poor dog....thank you for being so kind to animals as to not subject them to annoying media heads.

[John Jamieson]

They claimed one case 3 years ago, how could it be just "recent". More lies.

[fnord]

ltns!

[jacquej]

I meant "middle-aged bachelor" to describe his present unmarried state, not to assert that he had never been married...

[crystalk]

Serious medical information has been presented on these threads time and again, that shows that Danielle had a number of physical as well as psychological indicators for precocious sexual activity. This included budding breasts at age 7, and a vaginal discharge and distention.

I am only repeating what I have already read on here. The hypothesis of sexual activity is by far the most likely (occams razor, remember) to explain these phenomena, and the type of home she lived in would almost make it inevitable...

Whose ARE all these prints all over the house including Danielle's room? Adult women, adult men, all unidentified.

[jacquej]

and here I thought all along it was your dog's howling that mine were responding to...

Now I know who to balme for all the noise around here!

[Rheo]

I just don't get it either.

You have techs come thru and print on 2/3 and 2/4...unidentified prints are found..then someone goes back on 2/13 and hydro tests..more are found.

They don't check them against each other...a sexual offender database might have been good...Did they sit the parents down and say..Look, we need you to think a little harder on your list of people as we have unidentified prints on her desk in her room and the door outside of her bedroom, from where she was supposedly taken!

Somebody had better look into the SDPD's handling of crime scenes and investigations...something stinks.

[jacquej]

Let's add nailbiting, nosepicking (frequent nosebleeds), and some of poor little Danielle's on-camera behavior, covering her little budding breasts, etc... to the list of behaviors not seen in a healthy happy and well-adjusted innocent 7 year old.

That poor child.

[MizSterious]

"You really should... all comedy and tragedy aside, it's easier to contain it all and look at it at leisure rather than hunt and search for it throught the threads. ya silly goose. :- )"

Kim, with all due respect, and I'm saying this with the best of intentions--if you don't like how Fresno posts on his own threads (i.e., the ones he starts), then why on this good earth don't you go start another thread that suits you? Or, I know what, tomorrow why don't you start the thread?

[John Jamieson]

They had already decided DW was guilty and bascially were just waiting for the body to showup at Glamis. How inconvient that it did not.

[Jaded]

What's interesting about the way they handled this investigation is that they let the family back in the house the next day, 2/3. The house that was a crime scene. In the Jahi Turner case, SDLE put the parents up in a hotel for a week while the sealed the crime scene. What the heck is up with that? Why the glaring differences?

[Rheo]

Feldman was going for the scratches on the leg..not back.

Where did he get the leg info from?...DW?....if so..she had been scratched prior to cookie day, altho that does not put blood in the RV as it wasn't there.

BVD has been stressing Tues as cookie day....DW has said it was Wed or Thur...next door neighbor mentions Friday.....somehow the dog scratch and cookie day tie in but I'm not clear how....help this dimwit out please.