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Slain girl's dad admits drugs-sex lifestyle

Damon van Dam, the slain girl's father, testified Wednesday.

SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- The father of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam Wednesday admitted he smoked marijuana on the night his daughter disappeared.

Damon van Dam made the acknowledgment as the defense attorney for accused killer David Westerfield tried to use the drug and sex allegations to discredit the girl's father.

Westerfield is charged with murder and kidnapping in Danielle's death. If convicted, he could be sentenced to death.

Beginning his cross-examination of van Dam, defense attorney Steve Feldman attacked him for initially lying about his marijuana use the night of the kidnapping.

Van Dam admitted he lied when first questioned by police, but he added he quickly admitted he had used drugs when the investigating officer said drug use was unimportant compared with telling the truth in the search for his daughter.

Van Dam denied Feldman's accusation that he initially tried to hide from police the identities of three house guests on the night of Danielle's disappearance.

CNN NewsPass VIDEO The father of slain 7-year-old Danielle van Dam weathered hours of cross- examination by the attorney for accused killer David Westerfield. CNN's Thelma Gutierrez reports (June 6) Play video Prosecutors lay out their case against the man accused of killing 7-year-old Danielle van Dam. CNN's Thelma Gutierrez reports (June 5) Play video   RESOURCES • Indictment: People v. Westerfield  (FindLaw document, PDF format) • Court TV: Complete coverage of the trial      LEGAL RESOURCES Latest Legal News Law Library FindLaw Consumer Center Select a topic Bankruptcy Discrimination Divorce Estate Planning Landlord-Tenant Personal Injury Taxes

Van Dam also denied he had sex with either of two women in the house that night.

Describing the women as friends of him and his wife, van Dam said he had had sex with one of them only once recently. The second woman, he said, had sex with him in his bedroom in 2000, with his wife and the woman's husband present.

Van Dam said he shielded his children from his secret lifestyle.

"The kids were spending the night at someone else's house," van Dam testified on redirect. "Given the magnitude of the situation, I have opened my life up -- at first to find my daughter -- and now to get justice."

Asked whether he and his wife agreed in advance to withhold any information from the police about their sexual exploits, van Dam said, "I don't specifically recall that we had that conversation."

Van Dam did say he told police that he had "let the cat out of the bag" with regard to referring to their sexual lifestyle.

During initial questioning by prosecutor Jeff Dusek, van Dam said he and his wife were frantic on the morning of February 1 when they discovered their daughter was missing.

Van Dam said his wife, Brenda, "went upstairs and she yelled, 'Danielle? Where's Danielle?' It got frantic after this."

He added: "She was frantic. ... She was pale and we were both shaking." After searching the house with his two sons, van Dam said he "went out into the front of the street and yelled her name."

Danielle's badly decomposed body was found along a rural road nearly a month after her disappearance.

Van Dam, a 36-year-old software engineer, appeared nervous on the stand, smiling frequently and stumbling over what grade his oldest son attends in school and how long he and his wife had been married.

Earlier, while prosecutor Dusek asked van Dam to identify photographs of the crime scene, he began to weep while explaining that police asked him immediately after his daughter's disappearance to put a gate on the door of the girl's room to keep the family dog out, and not to clean the room. When asked if he could continue testifying, van Dam replied, "I'll try."

He testified that about 1:45 a.m. the whimpering of the family dog awoke him. He said he carried the dog downstairs and let it outside for a time. He said he then put the dog in his son Derrick's room and returned to bed.

About 2:30 a.m., van Dam said, he and his wife fell asleep, and later awoke again at about 3:30 a.m. Van Dam testified that he walked downstairs and felt a cold draft coming from a sliding glass door.

"I assumed that someone had left the door open after throwing a cigarette outside," van Dam said, saying that he checked locks again and returned to bed.

The prosecutor asked van Dam whether he felt the house was secure when he went back to bed the second time. "Yes, I did," he said.

Van Dam, casually dressed in an open-collared white shirt over a white T-shirt, was the second witness called Wednesday in Westerfield's trial, following forensic dentist Dr. Donald Sperber, who used graphic autopsy photographs as he described the process of identifying the young girl's body.

Van Dam identified the balding, goateed Westerfield, neatly dressed in a gray jacket, white shirt and tie, at the defendant's table.

"I didn't know his name until after this," van Dam said, "but I knew who he was."

Van Dam testified he had spoken with Westerfield on only a few occasions very casually.

Danielle's parents, both on the prosecution witness list, are not being allowed in the courtroom as spectators until after they have completed their testimony.