Past crimes scrutinized in van Dam disappearance [San Diego case]

San Diego Union Tribune ^ | February 19, 2002 | Joe Hughes

[crypt2k]

SAN DIEGO – Investigators in the Danielle van Dam case are looking for similarities to other abductions over the years, including an unsolved 1974 crime in which a girl was kidnapped and killed three miles from Danielle's home, authorities said Tuesday.

The body of Patricia Lee Kuzara, 7, was found in a field on Midland Road in nearby Poway, Calif., on Sept. 29, 1974. She had been beaten to death. Her killer was never found.

"We are taking a fresh look at this case," sheriff's homicide Lt. Jerry Lewis said, as the search for Danielle continued.

Detectives admit it may be a long shot, but they are hoping to find any evidence from the area where Patricia's body was found and compare it with what has been collected in the current investigation.

Danielle, 7, was last seen when her father put her to bed the night of Feb. 1, police said.

Patricia was walking home from her baby-sitter's house when she disappeared. Her body was found about 12 hours later by three boys on their way to church.

One investigator said the 1974 case is not the only one being looked at. Cases in the area where young people vanished over the years are being checked "for common characteristics," the investigator said.

In other developments Tuesday, San Diego Police Department crime lab staffers returned to the van Dam home about 10 a.m. to look for more fingerprints in Danielle's room and remove several more items from the residence. They were there for four hours.

"At this point, more than 100 items of potential evidence have been gathered from the van Dam home, a neighbor's home and two vehicles belonging to that neighbor," police spokesman Dave Cohen said.

The neighbor, David Westerfield, remains the focus of the investigation. He has not been arrested.

Cohen said evidence is being examined by the FBI and police.

"The examinations are complex in nature," he said. "They do not produce results instantaneously and can take weeks or more before producing useful information."

Police have not said what caused them to focus on Westerfield. He attracted police interest after he came home Feb. 4 from a weekend trip to the desert. Westerfield said he encountered Danielle's mother at a Poway nightspot the night of Feb. 1 before leaving for the Imperial County dunes in Glamis.

As part of a neighborhood search of about 200 homes – a rare event that employed police dogs – officers went into Westerfield's house with his permission after he returned Feb. 4. Detectives obtained a warrant for a second, more thorough search the following day and took numerous containers filled with property, in addition to the motor home Westerfield drove to the desert and his sport-utility vehicle.

Volunteers looking for signs of Danielle concentrated their search Tuesday in Jamul. They also began distributing 3,000 lapel buttons with her picture and a police number for anyone to call if information turns up.

[crypt2k]

Similarities? They were both 7.

Sounds like the SDPD is really short on clues to be dredging up this case.

[crypt2k]

My advice would be to start searching the San Diego landfills.

[crypt2k]

Westerfield said he encountered Danielle's mother at a Poway nightspot the night of Feb. 1 before leaving for the Imperial County dunes in Glamis.

Coincidence? How often did either of them frequent "Dad's"?

One fact of note: KUSI reports that Westerfield is reported to have cleaned his motor home with bleach to the point of overkill. I checked and found out that bleach can generate false positives when using luminol. Sounds like he's trying to mask evidence, why not just arrest him right now?

[crypt2k]

One investigator said the 1974 case is not the only one being looked at. Cases in the area where young people vanished over the years are being checked "for common characteristics," the investigator said.

What common characteristics? Swinging parents?

[crypt2k]

Any news? The trail is getting colder and colder IMHO.

[RGSpincich]

We are taking a fresh look at this case," sheriff's homicide Lt. Jerry Lewis said, as the search for Danielle continued.

In other words,

"We're real sorry for dragging out everybody's dirty laundry for nothing. The real perp may have got a head start but we will catch up."

[japaneseghost]

It looks to me that someone knew of the parents swinging and stole the kid to put her in a better home.

There is always the chance that she was kidnapped for white slavery, as she is a natural blonde (and yes, you naive Christians, that does go on big-time in the middle-east).

[Chad Fairbanks]

Ya know, not to be an apologist for the suspect, but the last time we went camping - we used my in-law's tent trailer - we cleaned that thing with bleach to the point of overkill... If you don't, and only do a half-assed job at it, the next time you go to use it the mold would be out of control... just something to keep in mind... :0)

[crypt2k]

It is unclear what Westerfield could know at the club other than that Brenda was not at home with her kids. By Brenda's account, they didn't dance and probably didn't even talk. Westerfield would have to assume that there was a baby sitter at the van Dam house or the father. It's difficult to believe that Westerfield would sneak into the house and take the girl. On the other hand, his actions afterwards look like he was trying to get rid of a body and cover up a crime.

[crypt2k]

We can only pray she is alive and well. Personally, I would have preferred that the police tear into the van Dam's lifestyle, because the odds are good, IMHO, that the kidnapping had EVERYTHING to do with the swinging and ancillary activities (i.e. drugs).

[sandydipper]

I betcha Danielle was "abused" and her real Dad found out and come and took her out of the sex club.

[opinionator]

White slavery. I think your really onto something. Contact SDPD.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Her "real Dad"?

[paul51]

It's a sick California phenomena. Girl disappears and then body shows up in a field somewhere.

[FresnoDA]

Major ritual "sabbat" dates on the Occult/Witchcraft/Satanism calendar.

February 2, 2002    Danielle Van Dam, Age 7

September 28, 1974  Patricia Lee Kuzara, Age 7

DATE: October 31 NAME: *SAMHAIN; ALL HALLOWS' EVE; HALLOWEEN; NOVEMBER EVE WITCHCRAFT: Rituals to contact the dead SATANISTS: Sexual and blood rituals with animal or humans & animal or human sacrifice

DATE: December 21/22 NAME: YULE; WINTER SOLSTICE; WITCHCRAFT: Rituals celebrating the rebirth of the sun SATANISTS: Sexual rituals, animal or human

DATE: February 2 NAME: IMBOLIC; IMBOK; CANDLEMAS; OIMELE; LADY DAY; BRIGID DAY WITCHCRAFT: Sexual rituals; Celtic triple goddess Brigid honored. SATANISM: Sexual rituals, human

DATE: MARCH 20/21 NAME: Spring Equinox; Vernal Equinox WITCHCRAFT: This is a fertility sabbat. Pagans celebrate the coming of fertility of the earth; Sexual rituals celebrated by various groups. SATANISM: Orgies held; Animal or human sacrifices

DATE: April 30 NAME: *BELTANE; MAY EVE; ROODMAS DAY; WALPURGISNACHT WITCHCRAFT: Rituals focusing on the love between male & female. In fact, many pagan handcastings (weddings) take place at this sabbat. Rituals celebrating the fertility of the Mother Goddess (Earth) are carried out. SATANISTS: Blood rituals; Animal or human sacrifices

DATE: JUNE 21 NAME: SUMMER SOLSTICE; MIDSUMMER'S EVE; WITCHES: Bonfire rituals SATANISTS: Orgies; Animal or human sacrifices

DATE: AUGUST 1 NAME: LUGNASADH (Named for Celtic Solar god Lugh);LAMMAS DAY WITCHES: Harvest rituals SATANISTS: Animal or Human sacrifice

DATE: SEPTEMBER 21 to 23 (Date varies annually) NAME: AUTUMN EQUINOX WITCHES: Some covens have rituals reenacting Pluto or Hades (grim god of death) forcefully carrying of Persephone (young goddess of life) to the underworld. SATANISTS: Sexual orgies and or animal and human sacrifice.

[FresnoDA]

In other developments Tuesday, San Diego Police Department crime lab staffers returned to the van Dam home about 10 a.m. to look for more fingerprints in Danielle's room and remove several more items from the residence. They were there for four hours.

"At this point, more than 100 items of potential evidence have been gathered from the van Dam home, a neighbor's home and two vehicles belonging to that neighbor," police spokesman Dave Cohen said.

Regarding San Diego Law Enforcement returning to the Van Damned residence, could it be that they are following up on this quote posted on the Union Trib website by Douglas Pierce, with the Millennium Children's Fund?  Pierce stated unequivocally that "our nation will be shocked" and that the best thing for Police Department to do is use "luminol" in the child's bedroom (to check for bodily fluids).

"In 7 hours you learn allot, maybe too much. Judge me in the future. Our Nation will be shocked. The best thing that happened I believe is going back to her bedroom with "luminol" chemical. I have done my best for Danielle and her brothers."

Douglas Pierce
www.mcfworld.org

[FresnoDA]

The photos below are of the Van Dam backyard and show the sliding glass door reported to have been found open the morning Danielle was reported missing. Detectives say this is likely to be the way a possible kidnapper may have entered the home.

The slider is the only "egress" in the rear of the house.  The front of the house, main door, and door to side of garage!

Egress into this home, both from the front and from the rear, is very limited.  The "perp" would have walked right by the front of the garage, using the front door and the gated fence from the rear of the house traverses directly adjacent to the garage.  Maybe Damon VD had his "radical" stereo blasting at full volume?  Disco, rap???  What about the neighbors, were they ever bothered by the late night comings and goings (and noises) at the VD estate?

And how do the "SWNG VISITORS" get into the garage, using the remote control? Side gate?  Do they drag these anonymous strangers through their house.  If the garage is made into the rumpus room one could imagine the VD's have made, then it is unlikely they are going to simply open the garage door for all to see!

So that leaves the abduction of Danielle.....

ONE OTHER THEORY......again, for it to have been random, the perp would have to know at a minimum the following details:

PARENTS ARE IN GARAGE, and not in the house??  How could a random perp have such knowledge. Lucky guess, no way, they are too shrewd.  Would have to have been either a previous SWNGER or one of the PLYRS that night/morning.  Could they have gone for "break" from the melee, and stashed the girl out back to retrieve later, on the way out?  We still can not ignore....

1. Alarm did not work, stoned or not, why would Damon VD ignore?
2. Rottwieler is tame, and can't bark.  Denied by the Kennel that sold to them.....
3. Intimate knowledge/layout of the house, 4000Sq feet is bigger than most track homes....in a dark house, plodding around upstairs, luckily finding the female child     and not one of the boys?
4. No scent trail for dogs...that is strange....a short trail of the child to the street, where it is lost in a vehicle is expected.....
5. Parents were "indisposed, very late, very long time" Note that the timeline of the Van Dams has varied, reported by LE in San Diego.

After the "gang" left around 3 A.M., San Diego L.E. is expected to believe that the VD's just cleaned up, locked up and headed to bed? What if kids need water or bathroom during the night, are they forbidden? Stay in room at all cost, Kids, that is an order?? 

I don't buy it, not for one minute. A "stay-home" mom is always overly protective, and she would have checked on the brood before calling it a night. She was gone early (6 P.M.) off to dinner, then dancing, then "the parking lot episode" then back home for the garage party.....and not once did she check in on her children....if San Diego L.E. cracks this, it will be revolting.

But these type of criminals are amazingly cunning, crafty and without remorse. If the VD's stick to their planned story, and if they have planted enough dirty evidence on Westerfield for L.E. to find, then they will walk....too bad there are other kids...maybe males mean more than females with these types....I think the main reason why the VD's are not denying and protesting the SWNG LFSTYL any louder, is that they know many will say, "Oh, well they were doing that, we don't want to be judgmental" and all the while, it is a diversion.  Hope I am way off base.....

[FresnoDA]

Disappearances go back 4 decades

By Pauline Repard
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

February 20, 2002

Danielle van Dam isn't the first girl in the county to vanish under strange or tragic circumstances.

In eight cases dating to 1960, five girls were found dead and two turned up alive. One was never found.

 Mary Lou Olson, 10, headed for a drugstore in National City on Jan. 3, 1960. She was found dead nine days later, 13 miles south of Tijuana.

When she didn't return to her home on E Avenue, her father called police. Intense searching ended when a farmer found her body in a gully. She had been raped and suffocated. Her killer was never found.

 Patricia Lee Kuzara, 7, of Putney Road in Poway, was walking home from her baby-sitter's house the evening of Sept. 28, 1974. Her body was found in a field off Midland Road the next day. The day after that, the 40-inch-long piece of iron used to bludgeon her was found near Community Road. Her killer was never found.

 Leticia Hernandez, 7, disappeared while playing in front of her home on Bush Street in Oceanside on Dec. 16, 1989.

A search expanded to dozens of officers and 200 volunteers. The FBI checked hundreds of reported sightings of Leticia all the way to Florida.

It ended March 9, 1991, when a ranch caretaker found Leticia's skull off county Highway S16, two miles south of the Riverside County line. She had been dead about a year. Suspicion centered on a man who lived near the Hernandez family, but no arrest was made after a grand jury investigation.

 Crystal Anzaldi, 14 months old, vanished from her parents' bedroom at their 30th Street apartment in Golden Hill the morning of Dec. 8, 1990. An extensive search yielded no clues.

Seven years later, Crystal turned up alive in Puerto Rico, being raised by Nilza Gierbolini. She claimed that a man who had shared the Anzaldi apartment gave her the toddler, but he was never charged with kidnapping. Crystal was returned to her then-divorced father.

 In June 1991, a man lured a 4-year-old girl by offering her a dollar bill in the front yard of her Escondido home. She was found later, alone and crying, by a couple who gave police a description of a car nearby. Police arrested Garry Burr, then 35, who pleaded guilty to kidnapping and sexually molesting the girl.

 Laura Arroyo, 9, of Monterey Pine Drive in Chula Vista ran to answer the door on the night of June 19, 1991. Her parents later saw the open door. They checked with neighbors, then called police. The next day, two women found Laura's body three miles from her home at a Bay Boulevard industrial park. She had been beaten and stabbed. Her killer has never been found.

 Rasheeyda Wilson, 9, told her mother she was going to play outside their downtown San Diego residence at the Yale Hotel on July 15, 1991. Six hours later, her mother called police to report the child missing. Officers scoured the area, passed out fliers and broadcast her name from a helicopter. Rasheeyda has never been found.

 Amanda Gaeke, 9, never came home after riding her bike near her home on Landis Street in North Park on Oct. 3, 1991. Police searching door to door were not suspicious when David Allan Webb, 16, said he knew Amanda.

Her body was found 11 days later in a canyon five blocks from her home.

In May 1996, police acting on a tip arrested Webb, then 21. He had lured Amanda into his home, drugged her, raped her and hid her under his bed while he went to school. After 36 hours he strangled her, then dumped her body. He was sentenced to life in prison.

[in_troth]

September 28 is wayyyy too far after the autumnal equinox, sorry.

Now the candlemas date, Feb 2--that's interesting. Anybody investigating the groundhog?

[MizSterious]

That was my question too. According to the press, they caught him with child porn, his clorox cleaning might have been cover up evidence--yet still he's walking around free. Some think that the police are playing mind games with him. Me, I'm not so sure. I think they have enough to at least hold him until more evidence comes in. If they're not, then maybe it's because they think either (a) he didn't do it, or (b) he didn't do it alone, and they're waiting to grab an accomplice.