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

(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.

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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.

DEFENSE CALLS TWO MORE TO THE STAND

(07-09-2002) - David Westerfield's lawyer called two people to the stand Tuesday morning in an effort to establish alternative ways potentially incriminating evidence wound up in the defendant's motorhome.

Under question by attorney Robert Boyce, Christina Gonzales-- the daughter of a woman who lived with Westerfield-- said she helped him work on the motorhome in front of the park on Mountain Pass Road sometime last year.

Gonzales could not remember the month when she helped Westerfield with the work.

While doing the work, she said, both she and Westerfield walked down the street to his house "a couple times."

A mother and child were playing in the park at some point, but she did not remember the youngster's gender.

Westerfield, 50, is charged with murder, kidnapping and misdemeanor child pornography in the slaying of Danielle van Dam five months ago. He faces the death penalty if convicted of the felony charges.

The prosecution has introduced hair and fiber evidence found inside Westerfield's 1997 Southwind motorhome in an effort to link the victim to the motorhome.

The defense has asked a number of witnesses about how often the defendant parks the vehicle outside his home and how many children roam the neighborhood.

One place he parked the motorhome was close to a route Danielle van Dam took to visit a friend.

Another witness, Stephanie Escudero, said the motorhome was unlocked when Westerfield showed it to her and her husband last year.

"We walked right in," Escudero said.

But neither witness specifically remembered children inside.

"You never actually saw any neighborhood kids inside that motorhome, did you?" Dusek asked Gonzales.

"No, I didn't," she answered.

Escudero said she didn't see children around the vehicle, either. It was parked in an area where the van Dam children are not allowed to go by themselves when she toured it.

In earlier testimony, a San Diego police interrogation specialist said a friend of Danielle's mother gave conflicting statements on what happened after a girl's night out on Feb. 1.

Michael Fisher said when he interviewed flight attendant Denise Kemal, she stated that Damon van Dam did not come down to eat pizza with them and that Barbara Easton didn't come downstairs until it was time to leave.

Damon van Dam "didn't come down at all, I do know that," Fisher quoted Kemal as saying.

The comments go against previous testimony, when it was said Easton visited Damon van Dam in his bedroom when the women returned from Dad's Cafe and Steakhouse in Poway, but both went down to eat pizza after about five minutes. The woman, along with two men, were said to have stayed at the van Dam residence for about 20 minutes before going home.

A Coronado Cays security guard completed her testimony begun Monday. She had said she saw Westerfield drive the motorhome into the Cays the evening of Feb. 3, but she was unable to state a specific time when that occurred.

Westerfield smiled and waved at her as he drove past her security kiosk, but she never saw him again, Mack testified Monday, until he appeared on television.

More evidence that you ARE WHAT YOU EAT!!!!

New AIDS survey disturbing for North County workers

PHIL DIEHL
Staff Writer

OCEANSIDE ---- Health-care workers say they see disturbing implications for North County in a new national study that reports high percentages of AIDS patients, especially young minority gay men, are unaware they've been infected.

The national study reports that officials from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta recently interviewed and tested 5,719 men at dance clubs and bars frequented by gay men in Baltimore, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Seattle.

They said they found that 573 of the men tested positive for the HIV virus that leads to AIDS. Of those, 440, or 77 percent were previously unaware they'd been infected, according to results released by the Atlanta contingent Sunday at the 14th International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, Spain.

Epidemiologists from the centers said people who are unaware they've been infected with AIDS or HIV are likely to continue risky behavior and infect more people.

"We're very sad to see these statistics," said Fernando Sanudo, director of the health promotions center at the Vista Community Clinic. "The numbers are alarming."

Working with young, gay minorities, especially recent immigrants, is different than working with the more established white gay community, Sanudo said.

"Unfortunately, the disease has a stigma to it," he said. "Folks coming from other countries are already dealing with the stigma of being an immigrant. They fear the thought of being tested and coming out positive."

Local statistics show AIDS cases are increasing faster in blacks, Hispanics and other minorities than in the overall San Diego County population, said Dennis Finnell, director of the North County program of Being Alive, which provides AIDS and HIV education and services.

County statistics don't show how many people might have AIDS and be unaware of it, Finnell said, but he said he suspects there may be many. The statistics clearly indicate ethnic minorities are an increasing percentage of reported AIDS cases.

Black and Latino men and women show the fastest-growing percentages of North County AIDS cases, he said. Blacks are 7.1 percent of the 1,346 AIDS cases reported since the county began tracking them about 20 years ago. However, blacks are 12.1 percent of AIDS cases reported in the last year.

Latinos make up 20.7 percent of the 1,346 cases, but 32.8 percent of new cases reported in the last year, Finnell said. Asians and Pacific Islanders constitute a small percentage of the total, but also increased last year.

Meanwhile, Finnell said, cases reported among whites have declined from 68.5 percent overall to 46.6 percent during the last year in North County.

"A lot of this is the fact that some of these communities still feel that this is only a white, gay male's disease," he said.

"Some probably don't have access to the health care that they need, or maybe they are just starting to get access. Testing is available to anyone and everyone. We do testing here that is free and anonymous."

Finnell said he believes recent news stories have given many people the mistaken impression that AIDS is treatable.

"Some drugs let people live longer ... but it's not over," Finnell said. "There's no cure in sight."

Infection rates are climbing and new strains of the AIDS are not treatable with any available drugs, he said.

Contact staff writer Phil Diehl at (760) 901-4087 or pdiehl@nctimes.com.

7/9/02

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