By Harriet Ryan
Court TV Two more witnesses for David Westerfield testified Monday morning that Danielle van Dam's mother was in a bar propositioning strangers the night the 7-year-old vanished from her home just outside San Diego. "When you get an invitation like that it's not everyday so I took it kind of seriously," said Ryan Tyrol, who testified that Brenda van Dam approached him and a female companion, Cherokee Youngs, Feb. 1 and invited them back to her house for sex. Youngs told jurors last week that van Dam said of the young couple, "I wouldn't mind taking these two home with me." Youngs' mother bolstered that account Monday, testifying that she overheard the conversation at Dad's Cafe. "She was interested in having my daughter come over to her house to party," said Patricia LePage.
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| Patricia LePage |
Westerfield, a neighbor of the van Dams' and fellow bar patron that night, is charged with kidnapping Danielle from her bedroom and murdering her. His lawyers have suggested that the van Dams' swinging lifestyle brought their children in contact with unsavory characters more likely to do Danielle harm than Westerfield. When she testified last month for the prosecution, Brenda van Dam, a 39-year-old housewife and mother to two surviving sons, acknowledged participating in group sex in the past. But she said the night her daughter vanished was just a "girl's night out" with friends and claimed she did not make sexual advances to anyone. Van Dam also denied having more than brief contact with Westerfield, a 50-year-old engineer, and specifically said she had never danced with him that evening. But four defense witnesses who testified Monday morning contradicted that account and painted van Dam and her friends negatively. LePage said she saw van Dam rubbing her "hip bones and bosom" against Westerfield while they danced. When asked to describe van Dam's movements, LePage said, "There was a movie made called Dirty Dancing and I guess I'd have to say that."
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| Ryan Tyrol |
It was unclear whether defense lawyer Steven Feldman would later argue that the contact explains fiber evidence linking Westerfield to Danielle's body. Glennie Nasland, a friend of Westerfield's who concluded her testimony Monday morning, said he was wearing a black outfit at the bar. Westerfield took black pants and a shirt to a drycleaner for rush service the Monday after the abduction. Tyrol said he saw van Dam sitting on the laps of several bar patrons and asking men to dance. LePage, an outspoken woman who took the witness stand chastising Judge Mudd for the hardness of the hallway benches in the courthouse and once seated announced to the court that she had "pinned down" a timeline of events at Dad's, said she immediately noticed van Dam that night. "She was all over the place," said LePage, terming van Dam "flamboyant." "Her actions were just...frisky." Duane Blake, a 41-year-old fisherman also at the bar that night, said van Dam's friends seemed drunk and stoned on marijuana. (Van Dam previously admitted sharing a joint with her husband and female friends.) He said he spotted Westerfield and van Dam dancing in a way he described as "huggy." "It looked like he was trying to pick her up?" asked defense lawyer Feldman. "Pretty much so," said Blake. Tyrol, a 22-year-old mason with bulging biceps and a passing resemblance to Brad Pitt, had the courtroom giggling as he tried to explain his own reasons for going to Dad's that night. When prosecutor Jeff Dusek asked him, "Did you get lucky?" Judge William Mudd interrupted, saying, "We're not going to go there." |
Ballad of Dad's
