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Westerfield On Trial (WEEK 1 Recap): Brenda Van Dam, Dad's Bar
KGTV 10 News-San Diego ^ | June 7, 2002 | KGTV

Posted on 06/06/2002 10:15:36 PM PDT by FresnoDA

Westerfield On Trial....WEEK 1 Recap....

 

Day 3: Brenda Van Dam, Dad's Bar

Mother Of Murdered Girl Breaks Down On Stand

Posted: 7:16 p.m. PDT June 6, 2002
Updated: 7:42 p.m. PDT June 6, 2002
SAN DIEGO -- No concerted effort was made between Brenda and Damon van Dam to withhold "lifestyle" information from police officers investigating the disappearance of their daughter, the mother testified Thursday.
Brenda van Dam was on the witness stand most of the third day of David Westerfield's kidnap and murder trial.

Westerfield, 50, is accused of abducting and killing 7-year-old Danielle van Dam and could face the death penalty if convicted. The child's mother reported her missing the morning of Feb. 2.

Brenda van Dam told prosecutor Jeff Dusek she disclosed to officers everything about her "open marriage" once they made it clear that it was important.

The mother said she didn't discuss her decision not to disclose information with her husband.

"I would have told (the police) anything they needed to get Danielle back," the mother said.

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Brenda van Dam said nothing else was taken the night Danielle was abducted.

"I wish they'd taken everything else but her," the mother said tearfully.

Earlier in the day, Brenda van Dam testified there were never any sex parties at her Sabre Springs home.

She later said that during a Halloween party last October, she and her husband had sex with a friend and her husband in the van Dam home.

Westerfield, a self-employed engineer, is accused of kidnapping the second- grader, killing her and dumping the body near rural Dehesa Road, where it was found more than three weeks after she disappeared.

Brenda van Dam broke down a minute into her testimony, when asked to name her children and give their ages, then later while testifying about a father-daughter dance Danielle was scheduled to attend with her father a week after she vanished.

Dusek asked the mother about the first of two "girls nights out" at Dad's Cafe in Poway with two girlfriends. Dusek asked if any men were invited to the Jan. 25 get-together at Dad's Cafe. Van dam said no.

"Was there a sex party at your house when you got home?" Dusek asked, hoping to pre-empt an anticipated defense attack on the mother during cross-examination.

"There's never been a sex party at my house," she responded matter-of-factly.

She also described previous contacts with the defendant -- she had said he bought her a drink at Dad's -- including a visit to his house with Danielle and her younger brother to sell Girl Scout cookies.

While the children were playing in his back yard, she said the twice-divorced Westerfield told her he was interested in her friend, Barbara Easton, who had caught his eye at Dad's.

On the second outing to Dad's, Easton walked right up to Westerfield and began talking to him, van Dam told the court.

Brenda denied dancing with the defendant on either occasion.

Earlier in the day, Medical Examiner Brian Blackbourne was asked about the cause and time of Danielle's death.

The girl's body was so decomposed when found by a volunteer searcher that it was impossible to establish a cause of death, Blackbourne had said Wednesday.

Thursday, he estimated her time of death at anywhere from 10 days to six weeks before the body was found Feb. 27.

Blackbourne also said it was possible that air temperature could be a variable in judging when she died. That led defense attorney Steven Feldman to suggest that especially hot days in late February could have accelerated the decomposition process.

In his opening statement Tuesday, Feldman told the jury that Westerfield could not possibly have dumped Danielle's body after Feb. 6, because he was under constant scrutiny by the police and the media.

"Is it your professional opinion (Danielle) could have been alive Feb. 6?" Feldman asked.

"Based on my observations? Yes," Blackbourne said.

"Feb. 7?"

"Yes."

"Feb. 17?" Feldman pressed.

"Possibly, yes," Blackbourne answered.

"Depending on the weather conditions, Feb. 22nd?" Feldman asked.

"That's pushing it for what I can accept," Blackbourne said.

He also testified he checked Danielle's body for signs of sexual assault but found none, primarily because of tissue damage from decomposition and animal activity.

Wednesday, the child's father admitted he lied to police about use of marijuana in the garage of his house the night of Feb. 1 -- hours before his daughter turned up missing.

He also told the court that on prior occasions he engaged in sex with both of Brenda's female friends.

A bartender at Dad's Cafe in Poway characterized Westerfield as a "people watcher," but termed a police report on the behavior of Brenda van Dam and two friends inaccurate.

Sean Brown said he was at work as a bar manager on the two nights that have come up in testimony in the case: Jan. 25 and Feb. 1.

It was Feb. 2 that the Sabre Springs 7-year-old was discovered missing.

Westerfield would talk to a regular customer, "hang out" and watch people as they drank and danced, Brown said. The bartender said he never saw the defendant dance or play pool.

Brown said Westerfield would drink 16-ounce rum-and-cokes.

"I believe David had a few drinks," Brown said of Feb. 1. "He was feeling good. He'd taken the edge off. I don't believe he was drunk."

He said the same about Brenda van Dam.

"I don't think she was drunk," Brown testified. "She was in good spirits but was in control of herself. She wasn't slurring."

Under cross-examination by co-defense counsel Robert Boyce, Brown said a police report containing his statements on the behavior of Brenda and her two friends was inaccurate.

Brown testified he warned prosecutor Jeff Dusek about the discrepancy during the lunch hour -- hours before he testified.

The statement from police indicated the women were "flirtatious toward males" and "partying hard."

Brown testified that the women were having fun as girlfriends do. He said he never saw them act inappropriately.

Brown was dismissed as a witness as the court day ended.



TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: vandam; westerfield
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To: Southflanknorthpawsis
I remember it very clearly.

Could you direct me to the website of the TV or radio station that had that interview with them? I'd like to listen to it again but can't find it. :-(

281 posted on 06/07/2002 11:31:26 PM PDT by Karson
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To: Karson
Oh my goodness.....I haven't a clue where I heard it. Because I live in San Diego County, I heard many interviews, many times.

It might be worth a try to look at SanDiegoChannel.com where they have numerous short video clips that are identified and dated on a menu. Maybe it is on one of those.

282 posted on 06/07/2002 11:46:21 PM PDT by Southflanknorthpawsis
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To: MizSterious
This has probably already been posted on this thread but I thought I'd post it anyway. Here's a clip from a Feb 8th article on Entertainment Tonight's website. Look at the last paragraph

"It's a heartbreaking case, I think every parent's worst nightmare -- your little seven-year-old daughter taken out of your home in the middle of the night," AMW host JOHN WALSH told ET.

"So far we're all at a dead end. A neighbor was a suspect. Police haven't completely eliminated him as a suspect, but they're not holding him right now. And the heartbreaking thing is the not knowing -- it's almost been a week."

Danielle was last seen on Friday night by her father, DAMON VAN DAM. He had put her to bed at approximately 10 p.m. in her bedroom on the second floor of their suburban family home. She was discovered missing Saturday morning when her mother, BRENDA, went to wake her and found her gone. Police are treating Danielle's disappearance as a kidnapping.

"In other cases like the JonBenet Ramsey case," says Walsh, "the parents didn't cooperate with police and didn't go in for polygraphs. That always creates innuendo and speculation. Danielle's parents have gone through hell. They've cooperated with the police from the beginning. They both passed polygraph tests. They're not suspects."

Brenda van Dam said she does not believe her daughter could have run away. And since the family is not wealthy, she does not think that anyone would have taken her daughter for ransom. Walsh believes the police need to look in the van Dams' own backyard.

"Right in [the van Dams'] wonderful middle-class neighborhood, where everybody thinks they're so safe, there are 13 registered sex offenders. The cops've got a lot of work to do -- they've got to check out every one of these sex offenders."

Danielle is described as four-feet tall, weighing 58 pounds with blue eyes and dark blonde hair. She may be wearing blue pajamas with small flowers.

283 posted on 06/08/2002 12:02:06 AM PDT by Uni-Poster
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To: Jaded
28th probably means less than one in hundred. Two of them is one in Ten thousand, matching his name is one in one million. I think that is hard to ignore.
284 posted on 06/08/2002 12:36:45 AM PDT by John Jamieson
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To: Uni-Poster
"They both passed polygraph tests."

Kinda hard to believe with all the lies they have been caught in since.

285 posted on 06/08/2002 12:38:52 AM PDT by John Jamieson
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To: John Jamieson
"They both passed polygraph tests." Kinda hard to believe with all the lies they have been caught in since.

Does anyone know if any of the 4 guests that evening took the polygraph tests?
286 posted on 06/08/2002 1:09:08 AM PDT by sbnsd
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To: Rheo
..BVD said there were decals on all three kids doors??

Visible in the dark??

287 posted on 06/08/2002 6:00:13 AM PDT by RnMomof7
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To: Jaded
Update on pics. It was the mother's camera and a pool party(not adult) at DW's. The mother e-mailed him the pics to print.

Would you send that info to the pro fornication /adultery commentatior on Court TV ..She mad a BIG deal out of that pic.......with ohhhhhhhsssss and ahhhhhhhhhsssss how discusting it was

288 posted on 06/08/2002 6:10:51 AM PDT by RnMomof7
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To: John Jamieson
"Feldman is going to try to show that Danielle died after the police were already trailing Westerfield. That's going to be hard to do if she died at home".

My take on it, is that Feldman is going to try and prove that Danielle's BODY was deposited after Westerfield was under 24 hour surveillance {right after he got back from his camping trip} and could not have dumped her body where it was found...IF the "Bug expert, Dr. Faulkner" can pinpoint precisely how long the body was in the desert OR that it was kept else-where before it was actually found.

Steven Feldman says he can and will prove this.

sw

289 posted on 06/08/2002 6:27:19 AM PDT by spectre
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To: Rheo
Preliminary hearing transcripts

I'm sorry, I don't have official transcripts for the trial yet, but often you can find "running transcripts" (someone is typing in what they're hearing) here. Hope this helps?

290 posted on 06/08/2002 6:59:40 AM PDT by MizSterious
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To: Rheo; John Jamieson
Folks, be sure to check the preliminary hearing transcripts. Lots of info there, including the blood on the stairway (or was it stair well?) and the drag marks. Do a word search on each day, as I don't recall which day these references occurred. If you search on "drag" I think you'll also find a place where the searchers found drag marks near the child's body.
291 posted on 06/08/2002 7:04:22 AM PDT by MizSterious
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To: Jaded
You are correct, Jaded, about no one reporting anything strange. This is despite a false claim by John Walsh on one of his shows that he'd molested his own two children. A fellow on Jameson's website is his brother in law, and says he has lived with Westerfield at times, and seen nothing at all. The man seems to have no history of prurient interests in children. He didn't seem to avoid them--he has two of his own--nor did he seem overly interested in them. If he did this horrible thing, it came up all of the sudden out of nowhere.
292 posted on 06/08/2002 7:09:31 AM PDT by MizSterious
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To: MizSterious
I only found one reference and that was Brenda being asked if her husband had to drag her,or if he could carry her ...I think that is also a point for DW..he obviously would not need to drag her anymord than her father
293 posted on 06/08/2002 7:09:34 AM PDT by RnMomof7
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To: Rheo
"...daddy had no problem closing off her room in case they needed evidence...he knew it wasn't there.."

Except, perhaps, a pair of undies stuffed in the dresser drawer, as described by the PH transcripts. From these, they gathered some of her dna from "yellowish stains".

294 posted on 06/08/2002 7:21:22 AM PDT by MizSterious
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To: Rheo
And consicer, also, Rheo, that in the trial this week, Feldman brought up the likelihood that the vDs had their own collection of porn--could some of it have been kiddie porn? The question was immediately objected to and sustained, but perhaps we'll learn more when the prosecution's "porn experts" are on the stand.

I bring this up primarily because of your questions about them not dusting the zip disks for fingerprints. Maybe, at that point, they didn't want to know. Maybe the zip disks were "presents" from the nice neighbors from a couple doors down, and the PD wouldn't want to share the fingerprint evidence with Feldman at that point. It could, after all, blow a few holes in their case, which depended heavily on "all that" child porn.

295 posted on 06/08/2002 7:32:39 AM PDT by MizSterious
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To: Karson
"Did we ever hear anything else about a wiretap and phone call on 2-16-02?"

Do you recall who was on the stand? I can try to look it up. I was watching Court TV too. (They're just maddening sometimes, aren't they!)

296 posted on 06/08/2002 7:34:25 AM PDT by MizSterious
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To: Uni-Poster
Thank you, Uni-poster--I keep finding the "blue eyes" description in all the posters, etc. that have been archived. Yet Brenda says green in that 911 call??
297 posted on 06/08/2002 7:38:22 AM PDT by MizSterious
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To: Rheo; FresnoDA; Mrs. Liberty; demsux; Jaded; skipjackcity; UCANSEE2; RnMomof7; spectre;BARLF...
SW directed me to the Larry King Live transcripts, where she had found this little gem from February 6th. It's an interview with both parents. I'll just post this one snippet, but the rest can be found HERE.

D. VAN DAM: Yes, I totally understand. And we've done everything we can. We opened up our home to the police. We asked them to come in. It was frustrating at the beginning for them to start the investigation, however, because of course this started off as a missing person -- she walked away.

Isn't this an odd thing to say, when you're claiming the child was kidnapped?

298 posted on 06/08/2002 7:45:55 AM PDT by MizSterious
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To: MizSterious
Indeed...Is someone sending this stuff to DW's attorney?
299 posted on 06/08/2002 7:56:42 AM PDT by RnMomof7
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To: RnMomof7
Certainly not me--and I'll betya that Feldman and crew already have covered the same ground we have, probably some time ago. For one thing, they were able to work unimpeded by flame wars. :)
300 posted on 06/08/2002 8:08:04 AM PDT by MizSterious
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