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| Experts say attorney Steven Feldman's questioning of the van Dams gives clues to the strategy he will pursue during the trial. |
| Feldman's questions show defense strategy |
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| by Lynn Stuart |
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Posted on 03/19/2002 2:33:12 PM PST by FresnoDA
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Is Mark Klass being paid by the family (like PR)? He has compared doing drugs around kids to having a beer..
It can only have come there at some much earlier time. Read my earlier posts on all this.
With that, David Westerfield, 50, will stand trial on charges of kidnapping, murder and possession of child pornography, after a three-day preliminary hearing.
"There's no question. He will be held to answer," Domnitz said in ruling there was enough evidence to hold Westerfield for trial.
Westerfield could face the death penalty if convicted. That decision will be made later by District Attorney Paul Pfingst.
The twice-divorced defendant lived two houses down and across the street from Danielle. He fell under suspicion after returning from a trip to the desert the weekend she disappeared.
Brenda and Damon van Dam reported their second-grader missing the morning of Feb. 2.
Her partially decomposed body, lying face-up, was discovered by volunteer searchers the afternoon of Feb. 27 off a road in Dehesa, in San Diego's East County.
The defendant will be back in court March 28 for arraignment and to get a trial date.
Brenda van Dam testified that a few days before her daughter's disappearance, she gave Westerfield her name and phone number after he told her he hosted "adult parties" and barbecues.
The mother testified that Westerfield mentioned the "parties" as she, Danielle and her son, Dylan, were leaving his residence after selling him four boxes of Girl Scout cookies.
Brenda van Dam said she wrote her name and her husband's on a piece of paper and gave it to Westerfield.
"He said, 'I have adult parties and barbecues,'" the mother of three testified.
Under cross-examination, van Dam told defense attorney Steven Feldman she immediately called her husband Damon after Westerfield told her about the "adult parties."
She denied making the call out of disbelief because she didn't realize there were others in her neighborhood engaged in the "swinging" lifestyle.
She also denied telling Damon van Dam about Westerfield's "adult parties" because she was new to the "swinging lifestyle" herself.
Domnitz stopped the witness from answering when Feldman asked her to explain a "swinging lifestyle."
Instead, the judge asked her: "Do you know what a swinging lifestyle is?"
"Yes," she answered.
Earlier, van Dam (pictured, left) cried as she testified that a night filled with drinking and pot smoking was followed by a morning of "total chaos" after she found her daughter's bed empty.
Van Dam described how two of her friends, Barbara and Denise, arrived at her home about 8 p.m. on Feb. 1.
She described how she, her friends and her husband went into the garage to smoke marijuana -- locking the door to the house from the inside -- while her two sons played video games and Danielle wrote in a journal.
The mother said she and her two friends then went to Dad's Cafe, a Poway restaurant and nightspot, where they had gone a week before and seen Westerfield.
On the night of Feb. 1, van Dam said Westerfield bought her and her friends drinks. She testified that she drank several alcoholic beverages, plus a shot of tequila, played pool and danced for several hours when two male friends showed up.
"Did you dance with Mr. Westerfield?" Deputy District Attorney Jeff Dusek asked.
"No," van Dam said.
Attorneys on both sides agreed that two other women who were at the bar that night told police that they actually saw Brenda van Dam dancing alone with Westerfield.
Brenda van Dam said the women and two male friends smoked more marijuana in the parking lot outside.
"Any sex?" Dusek asked.
"No," van Dam said.
"Any kissing?" Dusek asked.
"No."
"Did you get involved in any kissing?" Dusek pressed.
"No," she said.
The five then returned to the van Dam home, she said, where the mother noticed a security light blinking, meaning a door or window was open. That door turned out to be the one leading from the garage to a side yard.
Van Dam testified that she asked her husband if everything was OK when he had put the children to bed and was told "yes."
"I had no reason to check on them," she said of her children.
Van Dam testified that the guests stayed for about 20 minutes before leaving.
She said the next morning she went downstairs to find Damon with their sons, but no Danielle, who was a late sleeper. Then two children she had agreed to babysit arrived.
"I went up to her room," van Dam said.
"What did you find?" Dusek (pictured, right) asked.
"An empty bed," she answered tearfully.
"Did you see Danielle?" Dusek asked.
"No," she said, crying more.
Becoming "frantic," van Dam said she rushed to Damon and they searched the house inside and out before calling 911.
Officers arrived and told them to remain outside until investigators arrived, she said.
"Before I knew it, it was total chaos," van Dam said. "There were people on the street. Our neighbors were looking for Danielle."
Early in her testimony, van Dam said she and Westerfield would wave back and forth at each other, as she did with other neighbors, but only had more substantial contact five or six times.
"I didn't know his name until Danielle and I went to sell Girl Scout cookies," she said.
When she first took the stand, van Dam tried to choke back sobs and forced herself to speak. When asked if the door to Danielle's bedroom was decorated, she blurted out: "She has pink and yellow hearts and flowers!"
Then, just as suddenly, she calmly described the decorations in detail.
Van Dam regained her composure after Dusek asked about Danielle's recent trip to the dentist and how she wore plastic "jewelry."
The defense wanted to know more about the woman's drug use and drinking habits.
Van Dam told Feldman she had used marijuana 30 times in the past, and that she couldn't tell the difference between "good" stuff and "bad."
She told Feldman she doesn't consider herself to have a "drinking habit."
Damon van Dam (pictured, left) testified that he took a couple of "hits" from a marijuana cigarette before his wife and her friends left for the night on Feb. 1.
He said he tucked his children into bed about 10 p.m., then went to bed himself a short time later.
The father said he woke up when his wife, her female friends and two men returned home at 1:55 a.m.
Van Dam said Barbara jumped on his bed, they kissed and he "caressed her back." Then, minutes later, they went downstairs with the others, who were eating leftover pizza.
He said that about an hour after he and his wife went to bed, he woke up to go to the bathroom and saw a red light illuminated on his home security system.
The witness said he went downstairs and closed a sliding glass door that was ajar. Van Dam said he assumed that one of his wife's friends had opened the door because they were smoking.
"I didn't check on the kids," van Dam told Dusek. "I didn't think there was any reason to."
On cross-examination, van Dam admitted that he didn't initially tell police that he had smoked marijuana, or that Barbara had jumped into bed with him.
He told Feldman that he had a relationship with the woman.
"I made a decision that I didn't believe it was relevant," van Dam said.
The comments of Rick Roberts source (a high placed law enforcement official) are in bold type. Additional information from other sources (press, etc.) are in italics.
David Westerfield has been quoted in the press as saying that he was a friend of the van Dams.
The van Dams have denied this, stating that their only contact with him was when Brenda and Danielle came to his home to sell girl scout cookies, and when they exchanged greeting as they passed by.
The bar has been identified in the press as "Dad’s Café and Steak House."
David Westerfield openly admitted that he was at the bar that night. He claims that he danced with Brenda van Dam. Brenda denies this.
Hypocritical? a little maybe..
''To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.'' -- Theodore Roosevelt
"Well, certainly I can emotionally give them support, and I can tell them what to expect ... and how important it is to really take care of yourself, despite the fact that it's so terribly difficult," Marc Klaas told reporters.
The founder of the Polly Klaas Foundation said he had conferred with Danielle's father, who seemed "to be doing as well as one could do" under the circumstances. The Klaas Foundation is a missing-child advocacy and crime-prevention agency created after Marc Klaas' 12-year-old daughter's 1993 abduction.
"I mean, when your life is dominated by fear for ... your daughter, it's kind of hard to function as a normal person," he said.
In turn, Damon van Dam expressed gratitude for Klaas' offer of a helping hand at the start of a 12th day of widespread searching for his 7-year-old child and intensive investigations into her presumed kidnapping.
"I'm very glad to have him here, and I think he'll help a lot," van Dam said.
From behind the wheel of a car in front of his house, the Sabre Springs father added that he and his wife, Brenda, had received welcome support from a number of other parents who have "lost children."
"It helps," he added. "But, um -- it still hurts a lot, you know?"
Rewards for information about Danielle's whereabouts reached $185,000 this week, even as police began acknowledging that the odds of finding her alive are waning.
"We are not real hopeful on her condition," SDPD homicide Lt. Jim Duncan said Tuesday.
Klaas, however, spoke more optimistically about the possibility that the Creekside Elementary School pupil has not met the grim fate his own daughter did.
"I think that if Danielle got through that first night, the chances are very good that she's alive, and I think people should keep that in their minds and they should go forward and try to find her," Klaas said.
Also Tuesday, authorities took a highly trained tracking dog through the van Dam home in hopes of turning up clues that will clear up the mystery of her disappearance.
Officers led the bloodhound, on loan from the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, from room to room in the van Dams' northern San Diego house and through their yard late in the afternoon.
"We're going to try to pick up a scent," Duncan said. "This dog is different than the dogs we used the other day, and it's supposed to be maybe a little bit better-trained."
Investigators said they were unsatisfied with a canine search of the two-story home they conducted within the first few days of the 7-year-old's presumed kidnapping.
"The FBI has utilized this particular dog in the past, and they felt very confident in its abilities," Duncan said of the hound.
Officials would not say if the brown-and-black, floppy-eared dog seemed to have detected anything of value.
Danielle's disappearance 12 days ago has generated intense searching, heavy national news coverage and the offer of rewards.
A retired San Diego phone company owner named Don Blakstad Tuesday added his own $100,000 reward to the $85,000 in reward funds previously announced.
On Monday, the van Dam family offered $25,000 for their daughter's safe return and San Diego bail bondsman George "King" Stahlman put up $50,000 for information leading to whoever is responsible for her disappearance.
It is assumed that a reward of $10,000 offered by the Millennium Children's Fund still stands, despite a rather public rift between the charity's head and the van Dam family.
Blakstad's reward offer was based on the girl's safe return, according to his attorney, Charlie Becker.
A fund-raiser will be held Thursday night at the Pat and Oscar's Restaurant in Carmel Mountain Ranch. Proceeds will go to assist in the search for Danielle.
When they filed a missing-person report the morning of Feb. 2, Brenda and Damon van Dam told authorities that the last they'd seen of their daughter was when the father put her to bed after 10 p.m. the night before.
Since then, various law enforcement agencies and teams of citizen volunteers have searched the upper-middle class neighborhood and its environs, as well as large sections of the Imperial County desert.
The sun-baked region near Arizona became a focus of the investigation when authorities learned that a man who lives two doors away from the van Dams traveled there around the time the girl vanished.
The neighbor, 50-year-old David A. Westerfield, apparently took his recreational vehicle to a spot near Glamis over the weekend of Feb. 2-3.
Duncan said the investigation remained focused on the self-employed design engineer and off-roading enthusiast. Detectives have twice gone through his house with service dogs.
During those searches, officers carted off 13 boxes and bags full of household items. Included in those boxes and bags of evidence was an unknown amount of child pornography, according to 10News.
In addition, police impounded Westerfield's sport utility vehicle and the motor home he took to the desert.
Duncan said that a DNA sample submitted by Westerfield to police has been forwarded to the FBI crime lab in Washington, D.C.
Westerfield has hired criminal defense attorney Steven Feldman to represent him in the case, although he has not been charged with any offense.
No arrest in the case is imminent, Duncan said.
So much for the dogs going straight to DW's..also since this pooch is better trained does that mean he doesn't pee on carpets and tear up his dog bed and barks when an intruder comes in?LOL...
On another note since this was after DW was prime suspect, what are the odds the dog hit on something in DW's house the other "less highly trained" dogs didn't? Again if they weren't happy with the first results why wait 10 days...?
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