Slain girl's mother describes 'girls night out'

Van Dam cries during questioning Thursday in Westerfield's preliminary hearing.

SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- Brenda van Dam fought back tears Thursday recounting dancing, drinking and smoking marijuana on her "girls night out" the evening her 7-year-old daughter Danielle was abducted from the family's suburban San Diego home.

Van Dam's testimony came during a preliminary hearing to decide whether her neighbor, David Westerfield, should be tried for the girl's kidnapping and murder. Westerfield, 50, a twice-divorced father of grown children and self-employed engineer, has pleaded not guilty to those charges and to charges of possessing child pornography.

Authorities found Danielle's body in an isolated desert area 25 miles from her home on February 27, 3 1/2 weeks after her parents reported her disappearance. The cause of her death has not been determined.

Van Dam testified that on the night of February 1, she shared a marijuana cigarette with her husband Damon in the family's garage.

The door leading from the house to the garage was rigged so it could be entered from the house only with a key, ensuring the children would not walk in while their parents were smoking, she testified. The couple left the side door to the garage ajar for ventilation, she said.

Around 8:30 p.m., van Dam drove with two friends to Dad's, a neighborhood bar, leaving her husband to baby-sit Danielle and her two brothers. At the bar, van Dam said she ran into Westerfield, whom she had met a few days earlier when she took Danielle to his house to sell Girl Scout cookies. Van Dam soon lost track of her neighbor after meeting two other male acquaintances, she testified.

Over the course of the evening, she said she drank three vodkas with cranberry juice and a shot of tequila and smoked a joint in the truck. The women played pool and danced until last call around 2 a.m., van Dam said.

Van Dam and her two friends then returned to her house. She said she opened the front door with her key, then noticed a blinking light on the home security system indicating the garage door opened earlier was still open. Van Dam said she did not know whether it had been closed in the interim.

Told by her husband that the "bedtime tuck-in" for the children had gone well, van Dam said she did not check on Danielle. Their guests departed around 2:30 a.m. and the couple retired for the night, she said.

Van Dam said she awoke around 8:15 a.m., and went downstairs, where her husband and their two sons were awaiting breakfast. Danielle's absence, she said, was not unusual, calling the girl "a pretty heavy sleeper."

When she went upstairs to wake her, van Dam said she found an empty room instead.

That day, investigators removed clothing, bedding and furniture from the girl's room. "We put a gate in front of the door and a 'do not enter' sign on the door," van Dam said, her eyes welling with tears.