Many on the threads think the dad did it...I know a lot thinks the dad is innocent....so since there is all of this doubt..for some, if justice happens, realize it will only be known by God. Others are sure the blood on the jacket, the child porn...have pointed police in the right direction...whether it's dw or his son..
By Jeff Dillon
SIGNONSANDIEGO
June 5, 2002
SAN DIEGO – The father of Danielle van Dam testified Wednesday that he initially lied to police officers about what went on at the family's home the night his daughter disappeared – and that he had previously had sex with two of the women who were there.
Damon van Dam testified that he didn't tell investigators that he had smoked marijuana with house guests and later snuggled in bed with a friend of his wife late at night after they came back from an evening at a local bar.
"You lied to the police, isn't that true?" Damon van Dam was asked by Steven Feldman, the lead defense attorney for suspect David Westerfield.
"Up to the point they told me the gravity of the situation, yes," Damon van Dam said.
Strangers in the house
Feldman had suggested in his opening statement Tuesday that the van Dams opened their doors to strangers, one of whom could have taken Danielle.
Damon van Dam also admitted to having previously had sex with Barbara Easton and Denise Kemal -- two women who'd gone out with his wife, Brenda van Dam, that night -- in the presence of his wife.
"If by intimate relations you mean sex, yes," Damon van Dam said in response to a question from Feldman.
Feldman also grilled Damon van Dam about failing to tell police about Easton, Kemal and other people who would have been familiar with the layout of the family's house, who would have been familiar with the family's dog and who would have known the location of Danielle's bedroom.
Damon van Dam repeatedly said he hadn't considered those details relevant to his daughter's disappearance and that he initially omitted many other details while relating the "short version" of what had happened.
"When I was told it was important to tell the truth, I did," Damon van Dam said.
Dental details
In other developments, a forensic dentist testified that Danielle van Dam's missing teeth were not carried off by animals and probably weren't knocked loose by a sharp blow, bolstering the prosecution's claim that she had been forcefully suffocated.
Dr. Norman "Skip" Sperber said the 7-year-old's four missing teeth could have been knocked loose by an impact with a "soft" object, but testified there were no signs they were hit by a hard, steel-like object or were carried off by predators.
"Animals will usually go after more nutritious tissues such as the liver, the kidney, muscles and such," Sperber said. "Rarely do they attack the face because I think there's not a lot of fat there."
Sperber kicked off the second day of testimony in the trial of David Westerfield, 50, who's accused in the kidnap and murder of Danielle. The girl's father, Damon van Dam, took the stand immediately afterward and answered questions about the family's activities the evening before Danielle's Feb. 1 disappearance.
Though he was matter-of-fact during his initial testimony and even cracked a joke about the mess in his garage, Damon van Dam began to visibly choke up when he was shown photos of Danielle's bedroom and asked to describe it to the jury.
Second day of testimony
The trial began Tuesday with opening statements from lead prosecutor Jeff Dusek and Feldman and testimony from five witnesses. The trial is expected to last several weeks.
Dusek had suggested Tuesday that the dental evidence showed Danielle had been killed by being forcibly suffocated, holding a hand over his own nose and mouth to show how a killer's hand might break loose a victim's upper teeth.
Sperber is a forensic expert who was part of the team that helped New York City authorities identify victims of the Sept. 11 attack and who has helped identify about 4,000 bodies during his career.
Questioned by Dusek, he said he had been called in on the Danielle case after her partially decomposed body was found in a wooded area off Dehesa Road on Feb. 27.
Sperber said he examined the body's teeth, jaw and head on Feb. 28 and compared them with Danielle's dental records and was "very certain" that the body was that of Danielle.
"There could not be anybody in the world with the same set of teeth," he said.
Four of the girl's upper front teeth were missing and others were loose, Sperber said. Those are teeth with relatively weak roots that children often knock out while playing.
Sperber said the remaining teeth showed no signs of chipping or other sharp trauma. He said animals rarely carry off teeth and that there were no signs any predators had been gnawing at her mouth.
Westerfield defense attorney Robert Boyce questioned whether the body was too decomposed for Sperber to rule out predation.
"Based on the lack of animal activity on the tissue, I would say I could," Sperber replied. There were animal teeth marks elsewhere on her body.
While the image of a drunken David Westerfield stumbling unnoticed through the VD house is to me one of the most unbelievable aspects of the prosecution case, another rather obvious thought just crossed my mind. I'm sure it's been brought up before on this board but I'm new here so anyway...
IF DW took the jacket to the dry cleaners BECAUSE it was stained with Danielle's blood, I must ask...WHY WOULD HE DO THAT? Think about it: here's a guy smart enough to eliminate HUGE amounts of evidence, leaving only a fingerprint and a few essentially meaningless fibers, but HE TAKES THE SINGLE MOST DAMNING PIECE OF EVIDENCE TO A DRY CLEANER? What, is he so in love with this jacket that he wants to make sure he gets to wear it on Death Row? He must be, because he could have:
1) Poured some gas on it and burned the thing to ashes out in the desert.
2) Ditched it in any one of thousands of nasty dumpsters behind covenience stores, shopping malls, etc. where it would soon wind up at the county dump and forever lost to posterity.
3) Tossed it in a Goodwill bin (chancy, but better than bringing it home, especially since it would be hard to prove it belonged to him once it got mixed in with a bunch of other clothes).
You get my drift.
