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.
Why not on TV?
Well then what is your guess as to the percentage of "innocent people convicted" to "guilty convicted"? I get a feeling you think the government usually gets it wrong ... that there is a HUGE percentage of innocent people languishing in jail not just a sorry minority.
BTW, during the O.J. trial I met very, very few conservatives who thought OJ was innocent. The only conservatives who did were espousing the same thing I think I'm hearing.
I thought I heard the father say that too and if he did, something is weird here. I know that if I woke up to my burglar alarm going off and found a door open, there is no way I would just 'go back to bed and think nothing of it'.
Do you really know that to be true?
There were some very troubling allegations on the radio (760 KFMB, in San Diego) Friday afternoon. Citing highly placed law enforcement sources interviewed at length on Thursday, it was alleged the parents had locked themselves in their garage, with "friends"--fellow swingers--smoking pot and engaged in sexual behavior at the approximate time of the 'abduction'.
Mr. Westerfield, not listed as a registered sex offender, allegedly had a substantial stash of child pornography at his home and appeared to be in some sort of negotiations with the authorities in exchange for information about the missing girl's whereabouts. Westerfeld had allegedly offered to host a "swingers" party in his home for/with the parents.
IMHO, if these allegations are true, as quoted on radio, there is certainly concern for the welfare of the remaining two children and some measure of liability on part of the parents.
Frankly, at this late date, it's likely the girl is dead. Unfortunately.
I have no idea of how many people might be innocent who are in jail, but I remember a time when no one believed that anyone in jail could be innocent.
But DNA has proven that premise to be wrong.
And we all know, or should know, that not all policemen and DA's are honest in their pursuit of criminals.
They sometimes let the guilty go free because they are afraid of them, take the Martha Moxley case, for example.
Here's the problem with that approach. This is how guilty people react when confronted by police. When you behave in this manner, you are telling police that you are somehow involved. The investigation starts looking very carefully at you. Time and resources are then wasted on a red herring while the guilty have time to complete their crime and get away. Since you haven't committed the crime, you are keeping law enforcement from finding the real perps. In the initial stages of an investigation, time is of utmost importance.
So, go ahead and exercise your rights. You're entitled. But you're not helping the victims. You're impeding the investigation.
Well, I think money goes along way in BUYING innocence in a court of law (in Moxley's case before it gets there). O.J. bought his innocence with an expensive crack team of attorneys, an inept prosecution and a hopelessly dumb, racist jury. Very sad ... and it happens all the time.
................
I don't think they were bought off in the Moxley case ... and I don't think they were afraid. I think they were "in awe". You and I are probably in agreement about the Moxleys ... though possibly not about the Van Dams and their neighbor. I think the police are right to go after him at this point. And furthermore, neither of us knows what the police have found at this point. Let's wait ... and hope. :)
People who go out in public with their emotions on their sleeves are looking for pity, in my view.
Parents who go on television in the hope of finding their lost children should get help from the public. They should not have to cry in public to get the help.
If they don't cry, it does not neccasarily mean they are not grieving, they might just be private types.
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