Posted on 02/20/2002 6:13:26 AM PST by 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.
DATES ARE EERILY CONNECTED
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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. |
(golitely) Agree with your cogent comments, and allow me to reiterate, I am not being dogmatic, just that it is important to remain open to many possibilities, this case will not conclude (if ever) as a typical kidnapping, there is a deeper sinister level here, and it has to do with the parents deviant lifestyle. IMHO!!
Remember, these threads are mature, they have been discussed by Freepers for several weeks since the original post, and the same conclusion continues to reappear for me.
1. Yes, the Van Damned couple are prolific and dedicated SWNGRS.
2. They lived in the suburbs, in an upscale (Yes Hildy!) $400,000 dollar home. Also New Excursion SUV.
3. Damon VD has questionable income to debt ratio. Would need to make $100,000 or more per year as the contractor he is. Other freepers have confirmed that phone tech engineers earn from 50-75K, with luck!
4. Finally, the VD's alibi is bizarre and suspect, to say the least. I agree with many other post that in fact Westerfield is a diversion, or is simply a willing accomplice with the VD's in this tragedy.
5. As for the Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) connection, it is ALWAYS a bizarre and unbelievable consideration. And that is exactly why it is so difficult for the masses to accept. And yes, I am aware that in the early 1990's, the FBI did an in-depth investigation into SRA, and concluded, totally a hoax.........
Just my thoughts, welcome other angles as usual!!
FresnoDA
(02-19-2002) - Efforts continue on this 18th day in the search for Danielle van Dam. Volunteers combed several desert areas near Imperial County and the East County for any sign of the missing 7-year-old.
Were holding together as a family. We havent given up hope that Danielles coming home alive, said Brenda.
Brenda van Dam says she and Damon will begin counseling along with their two sons on Monday.
SAN DIEGO (AP)-- San Diego police crime scene investigators have returned to the home of a missing 7-year-old girl.
Police called the visit to Danielle van Dam's home Tuesday routine follow-up from an earlier visit. A spokesman declined to discuss what evidence is being processed at the scene.
Investigators have gathered more than 100 pieces of potential evidence from the van Dam home and the home and vehicles of neighbor David Westerfield, who is described as a potential suspect. Dozens of items are being examined by the San Diego police lab. Others are being scrutinized at an FBI lab.
Police say it could take weeks before the labs produce any useful information.
San Diego Insider, 02/20/02
Rarity of abductions outside family raises interest in such cases
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By Anne Krueger February 10, 2002 The apparent kidnapping of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam from her bed has been featured on national news shows, detailed in newspapers across the nation and around the world, and sparked countless discussions on the Internet, around water coolers and over kitchen tables. That's largely because it is so rare. The abduction of a child by someone outside the family an acquaintance or stranger made up less than 1 percent of the 800,000 cases of children reported missing in the United States last year. A national study of child abductions found that 200 to 300 children each year are snatched by a nonfamily member in a foul-play situation, said David Finkelhor, one of the authors of the study. In San Diego County, of the 6,342 children reported missing in 2000, two were kidnapped by strangers, according to state Department of Justice figures. "The number of these kind of serious, more-than-overnight abductions are relatively few," said Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. When a child is missing under suspicious circumstances, it becomes big news. Danielle's case has attracted national attention, and her parents have appeared on network talk shows pleading for help in finding their daughter. San Diego police investigating Danielle's disappearance from her Sabre Springs home have focused their attention on David Westerfield, a neighbor, but have yet to make an arrest. Danielle last was seen Feb. 1, when her father put her to bed. Will C. Kennedy, a sociology professor at San Diego State University, said Danielle's disappearance is the type of story that gets lots of media attention. "It strikes at your fears," Kennedy said. "When you have children, you worry about them and supposedly this child is taken from her house. When are you ever safe? The media and people seem to get off on the fear. "People don't like to think it would happen. If she was at a mall or camping, why maybe it wouldn't be quite so horrible. To be taken out of your own home is really scary. The media love to play with anything that gets people excited." Yet Jenni Thompson of The Polly Klaas Foundation said the media is a great help in finding an abducted child. "It's vital that they have this kind of media attention," Thompson said. "The only way that Danielle's picture can be seen is through the media." The Polly Klaas Foundation was created after a widely reported abduction of a young girl. Polly, 12, was taken at knifepoint from her bedroom as she played with two other girls during a slumber party in 1993 in the Northern California community of Petaluma. She later was killed. Her kidnapper, Richard Allen Davis, was convicted and sentenced to death. Davis had had many brushes with the law. In 1985, he was sentenced to 16 years in state prison for the kidnap, robbery and assault of a Redwood City woman. He was paroled eight years later. The nonprofit organization that bears Polly's name assists families in abduction cases. Widespread outrage that Polly was killed by a repeat offender led to the passage of California's three-strikes law. The law allows judges to sentence defendants to 25 years-to-life for any felony conviction if they have already been convicted of two serious or violent felonies. The foundation has been assisting the van Dam family, along with the Laura Recovery Center Foundation. That organization was created after the April 1997 disappearance of 12-year-old Laura Kate Smither, who was abducted near her home in Friendswood, Texas. Laura's body was found 17 days later, and the case remains unsolved. In San Diego, the disappearance of 9-year-old Amanda Gaeke from her North Park neighborhood shook the community in October 1991. Her body was found after 11 days, but the crime remained unsolved for more than five years. A tip led police to David Allan Webb, who lived a few blocks from Amanda's home. Webb pleaded guilty to her torture and murder, and was sentenced to life in prison. The chances that a child reported missing will be slain are remote: about one in 10,000. Some cases are like that of the 8-year-old Vallejo girl who was able to flee her kidnapper in summer 2000 when she escaped from his vehicle and was rescued by a passing truck driver. Finkelhor said most child abductions involve a family member, often a divorced parent involved in a custody dispute. Nationally, about 350,000 children are taken by family members each year, he said. A 2000 study of child abductions for the U.S. Department of Justice found that family members were responsible for 49 percent of the kidnappings, and acquaintances were responsible for 27 percent. Strangers committed 24 percent of the kidnappings. The study found differences in kidnappings that were committed by acquaintances, such as a neighbor or a boyfriend, and a stranger. Acquaintance kidnappings more often involved female and teen-age victims, and more often were associated with crimes such as sexual or physical assault. They often occurred at home, and a high percentage of the victims were injured. Kidnappings by a stranger occurred primarily outdoors, and more often occurred in the evening or at night. Despite the popular conception that kidnap victims most often are young children, it is teen-age girls who face the greatest risk, said Ben Ermini of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "At that age they have more freedom, they're out on their own," Ermini said. "They go to the malls without other people, so they are vulnerable to abduction." |
It would be easy and cheap, considering that the stations could use their existing emergency broadcast system to spread the word. And it had been done before, to great success, in Dallas.
More than a year later, despite support from police and politicians, no program is in place.
"I don't know why this is stalled," said John Dimick, operations manager of country station KSON. It's not that anyone doubts whether the project will work. It's proven to be a lifesaver elsewhere.
The idea of using broadcast outlets to help find missing kids was born in Dallas after a young girl named Amber Hagerman was kidnapped and murdered in 1996. A call from a listener inspired radio executives to design the "Amber Plan," which is activated in a limited number of missing-child cases. The emergency broadcast system, which normally spreads the word about bad weather, interrupts radio and TV broadcasts with brief alerts. In Dallas, the Amber Plan has been credited with the safe return of a half-dozen children. In one case, parents told police that their baby sitter had kidnapped their child and driven away in a unique-looking pickup truck.
Five minutes after the broadcast, a motorist spotted the truck and reported it to police. The child was safe. Houston just adopted its own version of the Amber Plan. Florida and Oklahoma have statewide alert programs, and Arkansas is considering one. "It's going to save a lot of kids when it gets implemented throughout the country," said Ben Ermini of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "It's just a logical plan that costs very little."
Back in San Diego, KSON's Randall and Rochester got the high-profile support of Susan Golding, then the mayor of San Diego, who mentioned the project in her 2000 State of the City address.
The Amber Plan became the "Amanda Plan," named after 9-year-old Amanda Gaeke, a San Diego girl who was kidnapped and murdered in 1991. And radio stations set up fax machines in their studios to accept emergency messages. Then, nothing happened. Nothing is still happening.
Part of the problem is that Golding was distracted by the ballpark fiasco and is now out of office, said Mark Larson, general manager of KPRZ and KCBQ and president of the San Diego Radio Broadcasters Association.
Larson said radio stations are ready to go.
"Any time we can bring the stations together to save some lives, that rises above all the different formats and who's playing 12 songs in a row or who's doing hot topics on talk shows," he said.
Even so, radio stations shouldn't wait for politicians to act to get the Amanda Plan in place. Broadcasters should meet with police and get things rolling on their own. Something this simple shouldn't be this hard.
Douglas Howard Pierce, Founder
On 02-05-02 9 PM PST A Reward of $10,000 has been offered for the safe return of Danielle van Dam, age 7 of San Diego, CA
(This offer continues to be valid 02-08-02)
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