Updated: 8:24 a.m. PST March 11, 2002
David Westerfield (pictured, right), a 50-year-old self-employed design engineer, is charged with murder, kidnapping and misdemeanor possession of child pornography in connection with the second-grader's disappearance and death.
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The preliminary hearing is expected to last more than one day, at which time Superior Court Judge H. Ronald Domnitz will decide whether there is enough evidence to try Westerfield on the charges.
The victim's parents, Brenda and Damon van Dam, reported their daughter missing from their Sabre Springs home the morning of Feb. 2.
After weeks of searching, the girl's partially decomposed body was discovered Feb. 27 off a road in Dehesa.
Westerfield was arrested days earlier when police announced that lab tests had detected the child's blood on his clothing and in his recreational vehicle.
In addition, traces of DNA found on one of Danielle van Dam's garment in her room matched Westerfield's, police Chief David Bejarano said. He called the genetic evidence a "very, very strong link" between the defendant and the missing girl.
The chief offered little insight into what might have motivated Westerfield -- a divorced father of two -- to take Danielle van Dam from her home and family.