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.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/kgtv/20020208/lo/1073356_1.html
Nothing in the thread says anything about the suspects past. I wonder what he has been arrested for previously.
With all the hoopla liberals make about doing things for the children I wish they would make crimes against children a special hate crime all of its own.Whenever a vile spawn of satan molest's a child or even tries to and the proof is overwhelming, kill them, kill them immediatly, make it torture and very painful. Make it available on pay TV. And last but not least let the father of the child administer the punishment. If they are not up to it I volunteer.
In fact, Walsh is the first person to say (I've heard him say this at least 10 times) to parents in this situation that they are under suspicion, to willingly take lie detector tests immediately without complaining so that they can be ruled out as supects.
I'd be looking real hard at these parents.
They claim to have passed a lie detector test given by the police.
Well, the "long line of footprints" seem to be Westerfield going off to get help. Unless, of course,they are going off in another direction.
I, too, find this story very disturbing. I heard on the local 11:00 pm news last night that the items that were confiscated from Westerfield's home had to do with pornography. I hope that is wrong.
Another thing strange, in this very strange case, is that Westerfield told the police that he danced with Mrs. van Dam and she says that she did not. Why the discrepancy?
The other thing is that the time she came home has changed from 2:30 am to 2:00 am. Why? And why would you invite people over only to have them leave after 15 minutes? Did they stay longer? Did they do the "swinging" thing and not want to prejudice the public against them for their "different" lifestyle? She did not deny the "rumors" that are flying.
It is such a strange case. I'm beginning to seriously doubt Westerfield's involvement in the disappearance. Last thing, the police spokesman on the day we first heard of Westerfield actually reminded everyone of the Richard Jewell case during the Atlanta Olympics. Hmmmm.
There are too many innocent people in jail, proven by DNA.
That's the thing. He's been there for about two years and they don't really know him at all. Supposedly, Danielle sold him Girl Scout Cookies a few weeks back. That is the only connection. He is twice divorced and had two older children, I think in their twenties.
On the UnionTribune website there is a forum like this one and Westerfield's former brother-in-law said that in no way would Westerfield be capable of doing anything like this.
Go figure that one...
Absolutely correct. Even if he is as pure as the driven snow, he should have INSISTED that the police get a warrant to search any of his property. That provision is in the Constitution for a very good reason, and we need to be sure to exercise it. NEVER "allow" the police to search your car, house, or any other property without a warrant.
By the way, airport "security" searches are unConstitutional, but due to the climate of fear and people's need for reassurance, I don't expect that objection to be raised. (They were barely legal when done by a private entity (the airlines) as a condition of using their service. But now the "screeners are Federal employees, which makes them subject to the Constitution)
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