By Kristen Green
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
February 8, 2002
Brenda and Damon van Dam believe their 7-year-old daughter, Danielle, was abducted from their Sabre Springs home while they were sleeping, the couple said in an interview yesterday.
"I think someone came into our home and took her out of her bed," Brenda van Dam said.
Danielle is a sound sleeper, they said, and probably would not wake up if someone lifted her out of her canopy bed and carried her outside.
"She could have thought it was Damon carrying her," Brenda van Dam said.
The couple, looking composed but tired during an interview in their living room, said their dog, a sleek gray Weimaraner, would not make much noise if someone entered the house because it cannot bark.
Though Danielle sometimes sleepwalked, the van Dams do not think it is possible she wandered out of the house Friday night or Saturday morning. She never went outside when she sleepwalked. When she did, her mother usually would find her walking in circles in the upstairs hallway.
"It was far too cold for her to walk out," Damon van Dam said.
Instead, the van Dams think Danielle's kidnapper climbed the steps to her second-floor bedroom – decorated in pink and purple – after everyone was asleep.
Danielle's bedroom is next to her brothers' bedroom in the loft-style house, now filled with flowers and gifts, friends answering the door and grandparents sleeping in spare bedrooms. The door to Danielle's room – blocked to secure the crime scene – is decorated with hearts and flowers.
San Diego police said that before the van Dams went to bed early Saturday they noticed red lights blinking on a burglar alarm panel and found a sliding glass door and a garage door open.
Yesterday they said the timing has been misreported by the media, but would not say when they actually found the doors open.
Brenda van Dam, who went to a Poway restaurant and bar with friends Friday night, said she did not think to check on her children before she went to sleep that night.
"They had been put to bed by Daddy," she said. "There was no reason to check on them."
The couple said yesterday they barely know David Westerfield, 49, a neighbor who has become the primary focus of the police investigation. Brenda van Dam said she did not know Westerfield's name until she and Danielle knocked on his door last week to sell him Girl Scout cookies.
"He's never been invited into our home," she said.
On Friday night, Brenda van Dam left home about 8:15 or 8:30 to go out with two single girlfriends as a send-off for one of the women, who was moving out of town, she said. Damon van Dam stayed home, playing video games with his sons while Danielle read.
Brenda van Dam said she ran into Westerfield at Dad's, the Poway restaurant and bar, and that he asked her to introduce him to one of her friends. She agreed, but they did not talk long.
She said she danced and played pool during the evening at Dad's, but did not dance with Westerfield, as he told The San Diego Union-Tribune.
When Brenda van Dam and her friends left the bar, Westerfield was gone, she said. She and her two girlfriends ran into two other friends that night, and they all headed to the van Dams' home.
Damon van Dam said he woke up when they got home and talked with the four friends until they left about 15 minutes later. Then the couple went to bed.
The next morning, Brenda van Dam discovered Danielle was not in her bed when she went to wake her about 9 a.m.
The couple reported Danielle missing to police that morning, six days ago.
Damon van Dam, 36, an engineer for Qualcomm, and Brenda, 39, a stay-at-home mom who recently started selling books to school libraries, mostly have stayed inside their home since then.
The couple's young sons, Dylan and Derrick, 5 and 9, respectively, have slept with them every night since Danielle disappeared. The boys returned to classes Wednesday at Creekside Elementary School, where Danielle is a second-grader.
On top of dealing with a missing child, 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."
The van Dams said they still are praying that their daughter will come home, that her kidnapper will see the media coverage and drop her off somewhere, that she is still alive.
"I can't give up that hope, because if I do, what's left?" Brenda van Dam said.
"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."
That's not exactly a denial, is it?
If this is true, there's a lot more going on in that house than these parents are saying. This is a classic line from a child that's being sexually abused.
, 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????