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| June 7 — Is the sexual lifestyle of Danielle van Dam’s parents relevant in the David Westerfield trial? That’s a question many here are asking—and debating—as this emotional and high-profile murder trial continues in San Diego Superior Court. |
| WESTERFIELD, 50, A TWICE-DIVORCED freelance engineer with two grown children who is the neighbor of the van Dams, is charged with kidnapping and killing the 7-year-old daughter of Damon and Brenda van Dam. Police say Danielle’s hair was found in Westerfield’s motor home and her blood was found both in his motor home and on his jacket. But during the opening days of the trial, it is the van Dams who have had to answer difficult questions, including describing and defending the most intimate details of their life together. | |
| Westerfield’s attorney, Steven Feldman, relentlessly questioned Damon van Dam on Wednesday and was equally aggressive with Brenda van Dam on Thursday. Feldman is trying to establish that Danielle van Dam could have been abducted by any number of people the couple brought into their home with what Feldman has called “risqué” behavior. Both parents admitted this week in court to having sex with third parties on more than one occasion. Damon van Dam—who cried as he described pictures of Danielle’s bedroom—admitted to initially concealing details about his sex life and marijuana use from police. He said he later disclosed all the facts about his personal life after police stressed the importance of revealing everything that happened the night his daughter disappeared. |
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| “Since realizing the magnitude of the situation, I’ve opened my private life up and given every detail possible to try to get my daughter back and now to get justice for her,” van Dam said on the stand. He also admitted having past sexual relationships with at least two of his wife’s friends. He said he had sex with one of the women in October 2000 while his wife and the friend’s husband were present. Brenda van Dam’s two friends and two male acquaintances were at the van Dams’ house the night Danielle disappeared. Van Dam testified he and one of the women briefly kissed and “snuggled” in his bed that night while his wife was downstairs. Earlier that night, he and his wife smoked pot with the two women, he testified. When prosecutor Jeff Dusek asked Damon van Dam why he didn’t initially tell police about his activities with his wife’s friend that night, he said, “It didn’t seem relevant.” But is it? Close followers of the trial disagree on the answer. Rick Roberts, a radio host on San Diego’s KFMB 760 AM, has been focusing on the van Dams’ lifestyle on his show since he first mentioned it back on Feb. 8. “Ever since Danielle disappeared, the van Dams have been saying they are just like everyone else and how this could have happened to anyone, but they are not like everyone else,” says Roberts. “The fact is, the van Dams’ lifestyle increases the opportunity for bad things to happen. If you participate in indiscriminate behavior, then you are different than most people and, yes, that is relevant in this trial. This indiscriminate behavior might in fact create a reasonable doubt in a juror’s mind.” |
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| Kerry Steigerwalt, a San Diego defense attorney who is lending his commentary to a San Diego television station that is running gavel-to-gavel coverage of the trial, says it’s possible the parents’ lifestyle could in fact raise a reasonable doubt in the minds of jurors. “First, it goes to the issue of credibility,” he says. “The van Dams weren’t truthful about it when police first interviewed them. At a time when it was very critical for them to tell the police everything, they did not. It raises the question, ‘if they were dishonest about their lifestyle and about smoking marijuana, what else are they being dishonest about now?’” Steigerwalt suggests that the defense is trying to make a case that whoever committed this crime had to be aware of the set-up of the home, particularly the upstairs where the bedrooms are. “Whoever did this evidently got in the house without disturbing the dog and without arousing any suspicion,” he told NEWSWEEK. “The defense has already insisted that Westerfield was never in that home. The defense will suggest that whoever the van Dams did bring into their home would know the layout of the house and would know which upstairs room was Danielle’s.” © 2002 Newsweek, Inc. |
