Posted on 07/12/2002 7:06:01 AM PDT by MizSterious
By Kristen Green
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
July 12, 2002
Denise Kemal was fired June 28, more than two weeks after her nationally televised testimony, because the company has a zero-tolerance drug policy.
Losing her job has ruined her life, Kemal said yesterday. "I've always wanted to fly," she said. "It took me years to get my job."
She said she is appealing the dismissal because smoking marijuana "wasn't an everyday thing." While she waits for an answer, Kemal, 28 and recently divorced, watches the Westerfield trial from the couch of her new Florida apartment.
Kemal was called to the witness stand by the prosecution June 10. She was at the van Dam home Feb. 1, the night 7-year-old Danielle van Dam was last seen, and spent the evening with Brenda van Dam, the girl's mother.
The two had become friendly through their husbands, who both work at Qualcomm. A spokeswoman for Southwest confirmed that Kemal had been fired, but declined to elaborate. She said company policy states that the "illegal use of drugs, narcotics or controlled substances off duty and off company premises is not acceptable and may result in termination because it can affect on-the-job performance and the confidence of our customers in the company's ability to meet its responsibilities."
Kemal said she was just answering questions posed to her during Westerfield's trial because "I want to make sure he gets convicted."
"Because of him, it's just ruined everyone's lives," she said.
Kemal testified that she went out with her Tierrasanta neighbor Barbara Easton and Brenda van Dam to Dad's Cafe & Steakhouse in Poway two Fridays in a row, Jan. 25 and Feb. 1. They were celebrating Kemal's upcoming move to Baltimore, where she had been transferred for work.
The second night out, Feb. 1, she was introduced to Westerfield, whom she has described as "creepy." Westerfield is charged with kidnapping and murdering Danielle. If convicted, he could be sentenced to death.
Kemal said the three women first celebrated her move Jan. 25. Kemal and Easton, who lived in the same apartment complex, shared a bottle of wine before driving to the van Dams, Kemal testified. She said she smoked some marijuana in the van Dams' garage before they left for the bar.
The next week, the three women decided to spend that Friday night partying at Dad's again after Damon van Dam canceled plans to go out of town and agreed to stay home with the couple's three children.
On Feb. 1, they smoked pot in the garage a second time, Kemal testified, and she and Easton shared a beer. Later in the evening, they partied at Dad's, where they ran into Westerfield. At one point in the night, they went to van Dam's sport utility vehicle to smoke marijuana again.
Kemal said her supervisors learned that she had smoked pot because customers mailed newspaper articles about her testimony.
She had never had problems at Southwest before the trial, she said. In fact, she regularly received letters of commendation from airline passengers since she was hired in November 1998.
Once, a Texas couple she had met on a flight sent a box of candy to her home. Kemal, in turn, shipped them a set of candles for their living room.
Kemal said that even after Sept. 11, she didn't have any reservations about flying.
"I did it because it's my job, and I love my job," she said. "I get to travel and meet different people. I like to serve the public."
That would be hearsay.
18 A IT'S OUR HABIT AND CUSTOM ON WHENEVER WE'RE 19 DOING IMAGINING TO LOOK AROUND THE SCENE TO SEE IF 20 THERE IS ANYTHING THAT WOULD BE HELPFUL, SUCH AS 21 THESE COMPUTERS I BELIEVE THEY HAD DIFFERENT DEVICES 22 HOOKED UP TO THEM. WE USUALLY LOOK FOR OWNER 23 MANUALS, USER MANUALS, BOOKS, THINGS THAT WOULD HELP 24 US IN, LATER ON IN OUR ANALYSIS. 25 MR. YOUNGFLESH FOUND AN ENVELOPE ON A 26 BOOKCASE THAT WAS STICKING UP BEHIND SOME BOOKS. 27 IT'S COMMON PRACTICE FOR PEOPLE TO PUT EVERYTHING 28 FROM COMPUTER PASSWORDS, MANUALS, THINGS THAT WE 251 1 FIND USEFUL IN OUR EXAMINATION IN THESE TYPE OF 2 ENVELOPES LIKE THAT.
I am thinking he describe what he was told, where it was etc.. (Just my opinion)
Not just the room..THE ENTIRE HOUSE AND YARD. It's NOT abnormal. If a child, especially 7yrs old is missing from the house..at that age, and the yards and garage are checked... it's time to get help. Time is of the essence, especially in the big cities. Not only do you have to ''wait'' for the cops to get there..but THEN you have to wait for them to do their routine before they declare the child missing themselves. That takes precious time. IF the child is found, everyone's happy, alert or call is over and the police are HAPPY that they don't have to find a missing child. We have alerts that go out over radio, tv news..so people can be on the look out..extra eyes looking for the missing child. So far, the child the record's been great. Mostly runaways over age 12
It surely is. I truly believe that most parents would first scour the neighborhood since it was daylight and the child was old enough to walk out the door on her own.
If nothing else, one would not want to immediately think the worst.
But if that's not enough, Brenda volunteered a whole lot of information that seemed unimportant. However, it did serve to set up the scenario that would be the "story".
She made sure to mention that she had been out with friends and what time she had come home. Lots of specifics in a short period of time.
She had all of the "story" facts straight but struggled to describe her own daughter.
A few think her behavior was not strange at all, but most saw it as odd from day one and never saw it any differently as time went on.
The van Dams are as suspicious as can be and that has a lot to do with the interest in this case. Things have not felt right all along. Trying to put Westerfield into their house is proving to be difficult, yet one or both of them were there at all times....or so they say.
TRUE STORY from last night:
My neighbor two doors down has two little boys, 4 and 7. For some reason, she went to pick up the 7 year old at a friend's house (had to drive to get there, so it wasn't nearby) and left the 4-year-old at home alone, because, as she said later, she didn't think she'd be gone long. But she ended up having to wait for her older son to have to find his shoes at his friend's house before they could return home, and it ended up being about 45 minutes that she was away.
While we were having dinner, she rang our doorbell and asked if Jared (4) was at our house. "No, haven't seen him." "I can't find him in our house." So off we went, kids, hubby, and I, as well as a couple of neighborhood kids, to join her searching for Jared. Our house was the first place she looked, so we started down the street in opposite directions, everybody calling his name. Since everyone else was headed down the street (and the mom stopped at the mailbox at the end of the street to check her mail), I went out back to check behind the houses and the next street. Well, lo and behold, whom to my wandering eye should appear than a little kid on a little bike riding down the street, two streets over from ours. (The mom insists he's not allowed to go off our street, but he did, and he does, all the time.) He had been "officially missing" for about 30 minutes at that point.
Same thing happened last summer with a 3-year-old girl, an age I don't think should be left unsupervised AT ALL, but her mother does all the time. This one had been missing all day, but the mother didn't start looking for her until it was after dark and the girl hadn't come home yet. She was located playing inside the home of a new friend on the next street who had just moved into the neighborhood.
I just think calling police before actually LOOKING for the kid was a red flag, indicating the parents already KNEW something wicked was afoot.
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