Van Dam friend describes Westerfield as 'creepy'

Van Dam friend describes Westerfield as 'creepy' KIMBERLY EPLER Staff Writer SAN DIEGO ---- David Westerfield, the man accused of killing Danielle van Dam, was described Monday as "creepy" by a friend of the girl's parents who saw him at a bar hours before the 7-year-old disappeared.

"He was very quiet and weird," Denise Kemal, one of two women who went out drinking with Brenda van Dam, testified of Westerfield, the self-employed engineer standing trial for the crime.

The 28-year-old flight attendant said Brenda van Dam introduced her to Westerfield on Feb. 1 when they arrived at a Poway bar for a girl's night out.

Kemal said she thought it was "creepy" the way Westerfield stood watching her, the other two women and some of his friends play pool without saying anything. Judge William Mudd ordered the remarks stricken from the record after Westerfield's attorney, Steven Feldman, objected to the characterization.

Kemal also testified she saw Westerfield outside of his house the next afternoon when she went to the nearby van Dam home to speak with police about Danielle's disappearance.

Kemal was one of five witnesses on Day Four of Westerfield's trial on charges he kidnapped Danielle from her bedroom the first weekend of February and murdered her. Westerfield lived two houses down from the Sabre Springs second-grader.

Westerfield, a twice-divorced father of two, faces the death penalty if convicted. He also is charged with a misdemeanor count of child pornography. Prosecutor Jeff Dusek said that he expects to wrap up his side of the case by the end of June.

Danielle's parents, Brenda and Damon van Dam, did not attend Monday's proceedings. Judge Mudd told the couple last week that they would be notified when they could sit in on the trial. Each spent several hours on the witness stand last week, answering questions about their drug use, giving intimate details about their marriage, and describing the events leading up to their daughter's disappearance. The couple also has two sons.

Other witnesses on the stand Monday were Rich Brady, a friend of the van Dams; Keith Stone, Brady's friend and ex-brother-in-law; Garry Harvey, a friend of Westerfield's who met him at Dad's Cafe and Steakhouse on Feb. 1; and Yvette Wetli, Garry's friend, who also was at Dad's.

Most of the witnesses gave the same basic details about the events at Dad's the night Danielle was last seen alive. There were some variations. When questioned by attorneys, some of the witnesses denied making statements contained in police reports or conversations assigned to them by previous witnesses.

Kemal, a petite brunette dressed in a purple sweater and black pants, spent much of her testimony talking about the night Danielle disappeared. She testified she smoked marijuana in the van Dams' garage with Brenda van Dam and another friend, Barbara Easton, before they went out.

Kemal also said she got a phone call while in the garage and went out the side door to try and get better reception. When she came back in, Kemal said she closed the door, but didn't lock it. She testified the door was wide open at about 2 a.m. when she and Brenda van Dam went to check it after finding a warning light blinking on the home alarm system.

Kemal said she found out about Danielle's disappearance on Saturday, Feb. 2, when Damon van Dam made a brief phone call to say police wanted to talk to her about the side door.

"He told me quickly that they couldn't find her," Kemal said. "That she was missing."

When asked by Feldman, Kemal insisted she never had a conversation with Brenda or Damon van Dam about withholding from police their previous sexual relationship. Kemal testified about having a sexual encounter with Damon van Dam nearly three years ago while Brenda van Dam was with Kemal's then-husband.

The van Dams each admitted to having a sexual relationship with the two women Brenda went out with the night Danielle vanished and their male partners. Westerfield's defense team has attacked the credibility of Danielle's parents, questioning their integrity and the company they kept.

The defense attorneys have implied that the van Dams' lifestyle put their children at risk. The prosecution, meanwhile, has argued Westerfield stole Danielle from her home to satisfy his sexual fantasies for young girls.

Kemal testified the couples "swapped" their spouses after a Halloween party. Kemal testified the van Dam children were staying somewhere else that night.

She said the Halloween gatherings were not "risque," but simply costume parties complete with prizes for first, second and third place. Kemal said she briefly talked to Westerfield the morning Danielle was discovered missing after seeing him on the street.

"He said, 'I can't believe what happened,'" Kemal said, adding Westerfield told her he left by 9 p.m.

Also on the stand were Brady ---- a van Dam family friend ---- who admitted he supplied the marijuana the three women smoked that night. He said he and Stone ran into Brenda van Dam and her friends at the bar. Brady and Stone each testified they went back to the van Dam house to eat pizza about 2 a.m.

When asked by Feldman, they each said they didn't remember Brenda van Dam or Kemal talking about a side garage door being opened after they arrived at the van Dam house. Stone said Damon van Dam looked "surprised" to see him and Brady at his kitchen table when he came downstairs.

Under questioning from the prosecutor, Dusek, Stone and Brady said they did not take Danielle out of the house. Kemal also said that neither she nor Barbara took Danielle.

Later in the afternoon, Westerfield's friend, Harvey, took the stand. He said police searched his residence twice after Danielle disappeared, once with police dogs and a helicopter. A Fallbrook resident and a truck driver, Harvey said he has known Westerfield for about four years after meeting him at another Poway bar.

Harvey didn't look at Westerfield during his testimony. He said he went to a barbecue at Westerfield's house about three weeks before Danielle disappeared and he was meeting with Westerfield at the bar that night because he was helping Westerfield work out some business deals with his roommate.

He said Westerfield introduced him to Brenda van Dam and her two friends. He said he remembered the way Denise had been dancing the previous weekend.

Harvey said he didn't stay with Westerfield the whole evening . The last time he saw Westerfield was about 11:30 or 12:30 when he went to meet Wetli. When Harvey and Wetli returned to Dad's around 1 a.m., Westerfield was no longer in the bar, they each testified.

Wetli testified she had an "uncomfortable" interaction with Kemal and Brenda van Dam's other female friend, Barbara, that night. She said Barbara was sexually aggressive toward her.

Good catch!.....and they were so patient standing by her side througout the entire conversation but as she is at the front door w/DW...they are over on a neighbors rock pile....they didn't ask permission to do that cuz she told them to get down cuz she didn't want the neighbor to have to clean it up.

I believe DW's attitude was that some parents just let thier kids run wild - and Brenda was one of them. It's just bizarre - Remember early on how a couple of people who knew the Van Dams and Danielle described her as being obedient? I thought it was an odd choice of words - were they trying to deflect something like this?

You know - I just heard them saying on TV - that when det. Keene walked up to DW's there were already two other officers talking to him - I assumed that Keene was really the first - my bad. Maybe those other officers even filled him in on some of those details regarding Damon being home.

If the two children were indeed running all over the house, I would expect to find the prints of both children at various places in the home. If only Danielle's prints are found then he is a liar. If no prints at all were found, then he is one fine housekeeper and probably is the neat freak described. I'm curious about the hair. Was any found on his vacuum cleaner brush head and in the bag (did they look?). If the children were bouncing all over the house, one would expect shed hair in the vacuum cleaner to be more likely than in the dryer lint trap. I am forever cutting the wound hairs of my daughters and self from the vacuum brush.

That's right...there is so much to be cleared up yet.

The way the LEO notes and reports are being questioned...one has to wonder what they got wrong in clearing others so quickly.

"Some people I know, some of them engineers, seem creepy"

I represent that,....

..I thought it was an odd choice of words.......

When I read this post, it reminded me of a question I should have asked yesterday.

Speaking of odd choice of words; I think it was Rich Brady but could have been Keith Stone, when asked why the party broke up at the VDs house, he said something about "the mood was somber". Why was the mood "somber"? Sounded like an odd choice of words to me. Did anyone else hear this?

Missed that one too...surprise surprise!

But I did catch that he stated no one asked them to leave but Damon stated he asked them to leave.

Could be everyone was just hungry, tired from drinking/dancing..and kind of supports the idea that everyone left after about 25 mins or so.

I agree. He seems to have really emphasized the kids "running all over" line. One reason I've doubted his assertion is that the primary purpose of the visit was to sell GS cookies so Danielle would be present for the cookie selling part of the conversation at least.

Could be everyone was just hungry, tired from drinking/dancing..

I thought about that but remember they were all pepped up from the drinking, smoking and some had the "energy drink"...Red Bull? Or something like that. As I said, "somber" just seemed an odd choice of words to me...

...and kind of supports the idea that everyone left after about 25 mins or so.

Seems to me that the time everyone left is one of the few things they all do agree on.

On the other hand, maybe it's a backhanded reference to how unsupervised they are. How do you know he didn't say "She doesn't even watch her kids in other people's homes. They were running wild everywhere, inside, outside, upstairs, jumping on furniture." ? Does that make a difference? Sounds like my nephews.

They were running wild everywhere

I can understand how something like that might upset a man who's being painted as such a neat freak.

I'd like to know if Brenda gave her account to the police of the cookie selling visit before DW did. I suppose you could say BvD didn't want to portray her children as unruly to the police, but after being confronted with evidence before, the van Dams have a history of finally 'fessing up. At this point I think DW was setting up a reason for any forensic evidence the police may find. I really am curious if any of Brenda's or her son's hair was found. They both were admittedly in the house, too. We shall see.

Sounds like my nephews

I can relate to this-----there are unruly kids, that is for sure!

I'd say the odds of Brenda being a "watchful" mother are slim to none.

Is it reasonable to believe that the same mother who left her little girl unsupervised in a public dressing room, sons alone in a toy store, and doesn't check her sleeping kids when most would.......is the same mother whose side they cling to at a neighbor's house? I doubt it.

My money's on Dave's story. Maybe that won't prove to matter if there is too much indisputable evidence against him, but I don't believe her that the kids were constantly at her side.

They were running wild everywhere.....

Yep, I've had visitors with children like that before too and it bothered me. Not because I'm a neat freak but because I didn't want them getting hurt or breaking things (my things or their bones).

Something else I just thought of ... If Damon was running outside and looking into the backyard of the vacant house next door, wonder why he didn't go a few feet further and look into DW's backyard? Especially since DW has a pool and Danielle had shown an interest in the pool a few days prior.

Very good point !!! Drownings are more common than anything else.

Did he ever say if he went to her friends house that lived around the corner and up the hill (I believe) that BVD said she would go sometimes to play?

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