A witness testified yesterday she saw Danielle van Dam's mother "dirty dancing" with David Westerfield at a Poway bar Feb. 1, and another witness recalled seeing Westerfield's motor home at the Coronado Cays two days later.
On the 17th day of Westerfield's murder trial in San Diego Superior Court, the defense called these witnesses in an effort to make two main points:
That Brenda van Dam danced with Westerfield the night her 7-year-old daughter vanished from her Sabre Springs home, which might explain how fibers and hairs from the girl wound up in Westerfield's house and motor home.
And that Westerfield, who lived two doors away from the van Dams, told police the truth about his whereabouts on the weekend Danielle disappeared – a weekend in which he said he took a 600-mile trip in his motor home to the beach, the desert and back to the beach again.
The self-employed design engineer – who prosecutors believe kidnapped, molested and murdered the girl the first weekend in February – told police he returned from the desert in his motor home the evening of Feb. 3 and slept that night in the Cays parking lot across the street from Silver Strand State Beach. He said he returned to Poway before dawn the next morning, dropped off his motor home at its storage space and drove back to his Sabre Springs house in his Toyota 4Runner.
By testifying she saw Westerfield drive his motor home into the Cays development on Feb. 3, Heather Mack, a Cays security guard, provided at least some support for Westerfield's story. Earlier in the trial, prosecutors called a Coronado police officer who testified he didn't see Westerfield's motor home while patrolling the Cays that night.
Prosecutor Jeff Dusek immediately attacked Mack's credibility, and noted her story contradicts the story Westerfield himself told police. Mack testified yesterday she saw Westerfield drive up to the Cays entrance from the south, as if he were coming from Imperial Beach. Westerfield told police he entered the development while heading east from the Strand.
Mack also couldn't remember whether she saw Westerfield during the day or at night and couldn't explain why she waited until two weeks ago to provide this information to authorities. She denied telling police several months ago that she didn't remember seeing Westerfield's motor home that night.
On the day the police officer questioned her, she was off duty, she'd been drinking a beer and she didn't feel very cooperative, which might explain the poor communication between her and the officer, she explained.
Mack was the final witness of the day. Earlier yesterday, two witnesses said they saw Brenda van Dam dancing with Westerfield at Dad's Cafe & Steakhouse the night of Feb. 1. Both said van Dam and her two girlfriends were drinking and flirting with a number of people.
Van Dam has described Westerfield as a neighborhood acquaintance whom she and her friends ran into and chatted with briefly at the bar that night. She denied dancing with him.
Patricia LePage, who was at the bar with her daughter, Cherokee Youngs, said she spotted Brenda van Dam acting "frisky." She described van Dam, 39, as a "flamboyant person."
"I don't know her age," LePage testified. "Maybe this is how younger people act."
At one point, van Dam invited LePage's daughter, whom van Dam had never met before, "to come over to her house to party after Dad's closed," LePage testified. LePage's daughter declined the offer, she said.
LePage said she saw van Dam and Westerfield "dirty dancing" together later that night, with Brenda van Dam rubbing her "hip bones and bosom" against Westerfield.
Duane Blake, who was also at the bar that night, said he spotted van Dam and Westerfield dancing in a "huggy-huggy" manner. Van Dam's two girlfriends seemed drunk, and the trio's two male friends – Keith Stone and Rich Brady – appeared "loaded, stoned," Blake testified.
In other developments yesterday, defense lawyers called a friend of Westerfield to the stand to testify about Westerfield's travel habits during previous trips to the Imperial County desert.
Dave Laspisa, who said he's known Westerfield about 15 years, said he and his family have taken 25 to 30 camping trips to the desert with Westerfield over the years. Usually, but not always, everyone would bring their "toys" – dune buggies and all-terrain vehicles that they'd ride around on the dunes.
Laspisa said it wasn't uncommon for Westerfield or other members of the group to get their motor homes stuck in the sand. He said it also wasn't uncommon for members of the group to drive their motor homes to the desert using back roads rather than Interstate 8, which he said sometimes has problems with wind and "black ice."
He also said it wouldn't surprise him if Westerfield drove to the desert alone and without any of his dune buggies, since he'd sometimes meet up with friends in the desert. Westerfield told police he drove out to the desert alone, avoided Interstate 8 and got stuck in the sand once he arrived in Glamis.
On cross-examination by Dusek, Laspisa called himself "a good friend" of Westerfield and acknowledged winking at the defendant after taking the witness stand. Laspisa also acknowledged that many commercial truckers don't hesitate to use Interstate 8 and that taking the back route out to the desert could add more than 20 miles of winding, hilly terrain to the trip.
Among the other defense witnesses to testify yesterday was another friend of Westerfield, Glen Seebruch, an engineer, who said he talked to Westerfield in the late morning of Feb. 1, before the girl had been kidnapped.
Seebruch said Westerfield told him he wanted to head out to the desert that weekend but didn't have anyone to go with him.
Westerfield's lawyers called the witness in an attempt to contradict the prosecution's theory that Westerfield's trip to the desert was a rushed, unplanned event – a spur-of-the-moment journey undertaken for the purpose of getting rid of the girl he'd abducted.
Testimony continues today.
Alex Roth: (619) 542-4558; alex.roth@uniontrib.com
