Posted on 02/09/2002 6:53:27 AM PST by crypt2k
Suspect's travels included Imperial Valley, Silver Strand
Police continued yesterday to investigate the alibi of David Westerfield and tried to make sense of the kidnapping suspect's wanderings from desert to beach to desert again after the disappearance of his 7-year-old neighbor Danielle van Dam.
Westerfield, an avid camper who has come under intense police scrutiny, drove his motor home to Silver Strand State Beach near Coronado on the afternoon of Feb. 2, apparently after leaving the dunes in the Imperial Valley desert, where the vehicle had been stuck in the sand, officials said yesterday.
Silver Strand park rangers said Westerfield mistakenly paid for four nights instead of the two he intended to stay. He left after a ranger knocked on his door and gave him a refund.
Danielle has been missing from her Sabre Springs home for eight days. She was last seen when her father put her to bed about 10:30 p.m. Feb. 1. Westerfield, who has not been arrested and who friends say is incapable of doing harm, told police he left in his motor home the next morning for the desert and the beach.
Silver Strand rangers said Westerfield arrived at the $12-a-night oceanfront campground Feb. 2. A ranger knocked on his motor-home door to refund the overpayment between 3 and 3:30 p.m., and Westerfield drove off about 20 minutes later.
Westerfield appeared to be alone in the motor home, though rangers did not go inside the vehicle and did not see or hear a child. He did not seem nervous, said Chief Ranger John Quirk.
"There was nothing suspicious about it," Quirk said. "He sounded grateful they'd given him the money back."
Westerfield told police he decided to leave after paying for two nights because "he didn't know anybody down there. He decided to go to the desert where his friends were," an investigator said.
It is not clear to what desert he returned.
Police said they find it curious that earlier that same day, Westerfield, a frequent desert camper, became stuck in the sand in an area most campers know to avoid. Some campers told police they watched as Westerfield continued down a sandy stretch and remarked that he was sure to get stuck.
"He knows the desert real well. What's he doing out there?" an investigator said.
Investigators have been in the Imperial Valley for the past several days. They returned yesterday by helicopter because shifting dunes from a sandstorm Sunday could have covered up clues, and detectives wanted to take an aerial look in a search for possible grave sites or other evidence, one detective said.
"The wind can blow for 15 minutes and you won't see a thing," said Dan Conklin, a towing service owner who pulled Westerfield's motor home from the dunes south of Glamis on Feb. 2.
Yesterday morning, Conklin led members of the news media south from Glamis down a dirt road a mile and a half south of state Route 78, where he said Westerfield's motor home was stuck. There, he hiked up a dune and pointed east to a half-square-mile plot where investigators concentrated their search Thursday.
Conklin said that before noon Feb. 2, Westerfield hiked to an encampment of off-road enthusiasts and told a man he was stuck. That man went to Conklin's business and directed him to Westerfield.
Westerfield was alone and without an all-terrain vehicle or dune buggy when Conklin found him trying to dig out his motor home, which had sunk into the sand up to its frame.
Conklin said he was immediately suspicious, and that he saw a long line of footprints that stretched from the motor home off into the distance. He said Westerfield told him he had been stuck since morning.
Police first showed an interest in Westerfield on Monday when he returned from his weekend trip. Detectives initially said they talked to him because he was the only person in the neighborhood they had not contacted over the weekend.
His house was one of the first of more than 200 Sabre Springs homes that officers searched with the aid of police dogs. Police later returned with a search warrant.
During that Tuesday search, investigators seized Westerfield's motor home and a sport-utility vehicle. They took 13 containers of property from his house and had him retrace his weekend in the desert.
At one point, police dispatched a plumber to the Westerfield house to assist in their search. It was not known what task the plumber performed.
Police are still awaiting results of DNA tests. Undercover detectives also continue to track Westerfield's every move.
As they did Thursday, undercover detectives yesterday followed Westerfield as he drove from his home to the offices of his attorney, Steven Feldman, in San Diego's Golden Hill neighborhood.
Meanwhile, Danielle's parents, Brenda and Damon van Dam, continued to make appearances on several television news broadcasts, where they again pleaded for their daughter's safe return.
The Laura Recovery Center for Missing Children, a Texas group that is joining the effort to find Danielle, launched its first searches yesterday.
From a command post at the Doubletree Golf Resort in Rancho Peñasquitos, the organization sent several groups looking for the girl, said Bob Walcutt, the center's executive director. Searches were conducted by air over the Anza-Borrego Desert, on the ground in east Poway and in an area southeast of Beeler Canyon Road and Pomerado Road, and by car along Scripps Poway Parkway, Walcutt said.
Nearly 150 people turned out last night at Danielle's school, Creekside Elementary, to coordinate efforts for a more extensive volunteer search effort today.
That's why it frightens me when I see/read people saying, "just let them in, if you're innocent, you have nothing to worry about." Next it will be "just agree with them and sign this admission, if you aren't a criminal, you have nothing to worry about."
Here's the problem with that approach. This is how guilty people react...
That is how most innocent people would feel. However having worked for the U.S. Attorneys Office in Chicago, my advice is to get lawyered up as fast as you can. Too many prosecuters want to close cases, not find justice.
So if you give a damn about the result of the investigation, you may want to cooperate with the authorities, and I do not see this as an abrogation of rights in the least.
Exactly. The "open door" policy for swingers....and one of the swingers who knew this may have gone upstairs after Danielle while they were "indisposed" in the garage.
/1/ Westerfield is likely negotiating the body's return for his life.
/2/ The parents know they will look like heartless orgy porgies who were so after chasing their pleasure that they literally left the door open to the abduction of their daughter by one of the many unknown "swingers" they let into their lives. And then they were so spent and consumed by their pleasure chase they didn't even bother to check Danielle's room for over 11 hours until one of her friends came over at 930AM.
They may not have abducted her, but they sure set up the conditions for her abduction.
Why do parents need a garage/party room with locks on the inside?
Can you think of a casual reason for that?
Also, the police have interviewed the folks from the bar who came home to their house. So the cops hve a good idea of what was going on in the garage. That's where the orgy rumors come from.
, the van Dams are the subject of rumors that they are involved in a swinging club, where couples typically engage in sex with other couples.
"This is in no way related to the investigation," Brenda van Dam said. "Nothing would get in between me checking on my children. It's a rumor. I don't know why people would want to be hurtful."
is there a denial in there somewhere????
========
diefree, you may be recalling the reason for the parents having a pair of pj's that were the very same as the ones that Danielle was wearing the night she was abducted.
At some time prior to that night, Danielle had a sleep-over and the mother thought it would be fun for the girls to have matching pajamas.
There was no sleep-over the night that Danielle taken.
Don't despair, and save your pedantic tone. I know the Constitution and I don't need your explanation.
Your argument makes sense....to a criminal.
My wife is a Federal Special Agent. She's not interested in closing cases by railroading innocents, she's interested in finding the guilty %!@%!$#@ and putting them behind bars. People who have committed no crimes, but who are suspects because of their proximity to the crime scene, spouses or friends of the victim, etc, cooperate with her. They answer her questions. They allow permissive searches. This allows the police to ELIMINATE potential suspects and find the real bad guy. It's not always obvious who committed a crime. The guilty are typically discovered through a process of elimination.
Bad guys lie to her all the time. They don't cooperate. They demand warrants. They won't talk to her. They act in the manner you suggest one should act when interacting with police. If you're guilty of a crime and want to get away with it, it's logical to the act this way. But if you're not guilty, and you're uncooperative, i.e. demand warrants, won't talk without a lawyer, etc., it's logical that the human beings who make up the local, state, and federal police agencies are going to suspect that you ARE guilty because you're behaving that way. And you will attract their attention. That's their job. In doing so, you will divert investigative resources away from the real criminal.
As a law-abiding citizen, aren't you glad that criminals do stupid things like allow warrantless searches and get caught? Do you want to see criminals guilty of crimes escape the consequences of their actions? Do you want to make it hard for police to do their jobs? Do you want to see the guilty go free? What's wrong with cooperating with police when you can help with a criminal investigation? If everyone behaved in the manner you prescribe, the police would not be able to solve many crimes now would they?
If you lived next door to the San Diego family that is missing its daughter would you not talk to the police? Would you not allow them to bring the dog into your house so that they could clear you as a suspect? If you said no, the police would be right to suspect that you had something to do with that crime. If they didn't suspect you, they'd be incompetent! You would be hindering the investigation by not helping, and by diverting resources toward you that could be used to find the real bad guy who molested and killed a little girl. If you cooperate, you're quickly ruled out and law enforcement can get on with doing its very important job of finding the real creep.
As I said, exercise your rights. You're free to do so. But there are consequences to the good guys and victims. My value system recognizes that along with our rights, we have civic responsibilities, one of which is cooperating with police when possible.
American Beauty, indeed.
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