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Posted on 05/01/2002 4:03:29 PM PDT by FresnoDA
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—Thomas K. Arnold
Talk show host Rick Roberts made headlines with his KFMB-AM radio show about Damon and Brenda van Dam’s allegedly swinging lifestyle. But he wasn’t the only radio personality—or media outlet—to cast a critical eye on the backstory of the Danielle van Dam kidnapping case.
John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou, whose John and Ken Show airs weekdays from 3 to 7 p.m. on Los Angeles station KFI-AM, devoted three shows to the case, even traveling to San Diego to broadcast from the van Dams’ Sabre Springs neighborhood. The week before that, they were the first to cast aspersions on the van Dams, a full day before the Roberts broadcast.
The Millennium Children’s Fund had just announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to the safe return of Danielle. Fund administrator Douglas Pierce had visited with the van Dams, and the next day he called a press conference in Los Angeles at which he voiced suspicions about the couple’s behavior. For an hour, Pierce blasted the van Dams for their apparent lack of emotion and general rudeness to him.
“I don’t know how much was true and how much was hysterical, but that’s what made it fascinating. We tried to unravel it on the air,” Kobylt says. “In retrospect, I think he did peg their personalities very well—the lack of emotion, the detachment, the obsession with the media message—and perhaps he got the vibe that they live a different life than most people.”
As soon as Pierce finished on-air, John and Ken introduced their next guests: an angry Damon and Brenda van Dam, who lambasted Pierce as a nut case. “We had scheduled them in advance, but when they heard Doug was on the show, they canceled, only to change their minds right before show time,” Kobylt says.
After the interview, John and Ken picked apart the conversation and spoke critically about the van Dams’ lack of emotion and their defensiveness about questions pertaining to their own behavior and actions the last night Danielle was seen. The next day, the swinger story broke in The San Diego Union-Tribune—furthered that evening on San Diego radio by Rick Roberts.
“It’s a very dramatic story,” says Kobylt. “Everybody got obsessed with it pretty quickly... We have a pretty fair audience in San Diego—we’ve even made it into the top 10 on occasion—and we started getting calls from people who live in the neighborhood and know the van Dams. As a result, it might as well have been in L.A. I tend to look at the whole [Southern California] area as the same, anyway.”
(By press deadline, the van Dams could not be reached for comment by San Diego Magazine.)
Quoting the proverbial unnamed sources “close to the probe,” the Star reported that later-arrested suspect David Westerfield “was aware of the van Dams’ sexual activities and had approached Brenda about hosting a sex-swap party in his house.” The Star said Brenda had admitted to police “that the couple belonged to a swingers’ club called Club CB” and that sources say she “flirted outrageously and danced with Westerfield” the Friday night Danielle disappeared. “He [Westerfield] knew that Brenda and her friends were sexually involved, and he wanted to be part of the action, but for whatever reason, he was not invited by Brenda to accompany her and her four friends back to her home that night for more partying and sex,” the Star says it was told by a source.
Well, there is one point on which I agree. But we are talking apples and oranges about faith and the van Dams. They either had total faith in their alarm system, safe neighborhood, non-barking dog, Barbara or they just never gave it a thought. I think that the consumption of booze, drugs, sex, etc. so completely perverted their lives that they just didn't think enough about their children. And, if they had been thinking of their children at all they would not have had shady characters in their house at all hours of the night and living such a shallow and seedy lifestyle.
In other words, 73 percent of abducted children suffered that fate due in part to lifestyle choices their parents made: the choice to divorce, or to befriend sleazy characters. When the media, by ignoring these data, give the impression that child kidnapping could happen to any family, the wholesome no less than the unwholesome, we are once again being grievously misled.
Rabbi Lapin has greiviously misunderstood the use of the term "aquaintance" which does not mean friend or frequent associate. It has absolutely nothing to do with closeness or frequency of contact, but simply that the perpetrator in some way (however tenuous) was known to the victim or had some type of prior contact. Traveling salemen and the washer repair guy or the UPS delivery person would all be "acquaintences".
Rabbi Lapin assumes that victims of "acquaintance" kidnapings are victims of their parent's unsavory socializing, but that is not the case, because the category is extremely broad and is made up of all kidnaps that are neither familial or by complete strangers, and so includes all kidnaps by persons with very tenuous "acquaintance" and the level of actual social interaction with the family can be very minor. Of course, statistics on "wholesomeness" of victim's families are not kept, but his assumption that wholesome families are safe from kidnap is misleading. They certainly are no more or less safe from the stranger abductions (24%), and a far larger portion of the "acquaintance" abductions (27%) than he realizes
Acquaintance kidnap is also the one most likley to result in injury or death for one of two reasons; the liklihood of being identified, and (in cases with real social acquaintanceship) the high levels of anger and revenge motivations from broken relationships.
That being said, I think that if DW is indeed the perpetrator, one of his motivations was revenge for being excluded from swing set he seemed (to my perception) to be trying to get into and he does fit the profile of the situational offender.
And I still find it hard to demonize the parents for the acts of a man they were excluding from their circle. If DW is found guilty, what will his defender's say then? That it is still BVD's fault because if she had only "done" DW, then he wouldn't have "done" Dani?
aaack! That's a line we won't forget.
We agree Laura..they are unregenerate hedonists...and they opened the door for the terrible events of that night
You are assuming it was a pedophile....it may "simply" have been a high friend of the parents..no inhibitions because of the ETOH and drugs. A deadly danger INVITED into the house BECAUSE of the parents "lifestyle" not their "faith" Kim!
Good point. If I remember correctly, the ME said it could not be determined. How convenient to therefore assume. Anything to make the pieces fit, huh?
"Posted by ~Kim4VRWC's~ to Lauratealeaf On News/Activism May 3 4:40 PM #282 of 292 snip--"...Like I originally said, it doesn't matter if they were whores or Christian Ministers, the pedophile did not care. (if indeed she was a victim of a pedophile..) ..."
g'nite
The search of the Miramar Landfill continues today. As of 11:30 a.m., there were about 150 active searchers, mostly San Diego Police Department personnel. We do have some Marines from Miramar, with additional Marines expected late this afternoon from Camp Pendleton. We're attempting to line up U.S. Navy volunteers for weekend duty at the landfill. Last night, approximately 40 Navy personnel from two ships (one was the U.S.S. Boxer; don't have info on the other) worked from about 7pm to midnight. Search organizers estimate that they should be halfway through the 5,000 tons of trash to be searched by this afternoon. The effort could be completed as early as Monday. If that changes, we'll advise you. Regarding documents possibly relating to the David Westerfield case being found at the landfill: a detective who was part of a search team late yesterday afternoon spotted an envelop with attorney Steven Feldman's name on it. He is Mr. Westerfield's attorney. The envelop was taken to the command post and was turned over to an evidence technician, who placed it in an evidence bag. The bag has been impounded until we receive instructions from court authorities. Mr. Feldman and the District Attorney's Office are aware of yesterday's discovery.
The department has decided to end the daily 5pm briefings. The questions go over the same issues and have been answered as fully as we're going to answer them. While we will not do regular briefings or one-on-one interviews for the foreseeable future, we will continue to provide e-mail updates when there is information to pass on. If we have a major announcement, we will hold a news conference -- with as much advance notice as possible. There will be no daily updates over the weekend unless there is something significant to report.
We appreciate your interest in this case and your cooperation for the past week. Your coverage keeps the case before the public, increasing the possibility that we ultimately will receive the tip that leads us to Jahi and/or whoever is responsible for his disappearance.
David J. Cohen
Media Services Program Manager
City of San Diego Police Department
That is strange. Why would they go to such lengths to handle mail that does not belong in this case whatsoever. It looks more like a hands across America event. Why don't they just give the mail to Mr. Feldman? His client is in jail and cannot be involved in this case. Brenda van Dam is though.
Brenda and The Damon, Sara Muller Fraunces, Susan Wintersteen, Diane Halfman, Reneé Brown, Sharon Walls, Mark Klaas
By Susan Gembrowski
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 4, 2002
Brenda and Damon van Dam, whose 7-year-old daughter, Danielle, was kidnapped and killed, returned to the media spotlight this week to help in the search for a missing toddler.
But Sara Muller Fraunces, who coordinated media interviews for the van Dams when Danielle disappeared in February, said the couple have left it up to 2-year-old Jahi Turner's parents to contact them about doing anything further.
"Brenda's main purpose in being involved, as is mine, is to do whatever we can to find Jahi," Fraunces said yesterday.
Fraunces arranged national media interviews Tuesday in which Jahi's mother, Tameka Jones, pleaded for her son's return. She said she will do that again if Jones asks for help. Brenda van Dam, who stood next to Jahi's mother at a local media interview Tuesday, also has offered her continued help.
The van Dams were instrumental in converting the daniellemissing.com Web site into the jahimissing.com site, said Susan Wintersteen, a friend who coordinated community activities in the search for Danielle.
The couple are declining all interviews and were unavailable for comment for this story.
Some have criticized the van Dams for their involvement in the Jahi search, but Diane Halfman, former director of the Danielle Search Center, said the couple probably would have been criticized if they hadn't helped.
Initially, Brenda van Dam contacted Jahi's mother to offer advice on getting out fliers and getting more people involved. The couple and 10 other volunteers from the Danielle Search Center came out Sunday to help find Jahi, who has been missing since April 25.
"The van Dams just simply couldn't stand by and not try to help bring more awareness to Jahi's plight, and they realize not only that coming out in front of the public would be difficult for them emotionally, but that they also may be subject to additional criticism," Fraunces said. "But they put that aside because the best interests of a little boy was more important to them."
Fraunces, who has a public-relations firm, said she offered her expertise at no charge to help find Jahi. She did not know the van Dams until Danielle disappeared and a representative of Qualcomm, where Damon van Dam works, contacted her to help the couple. Fraunces also said she worked for the van Dams at no charge.
Reneé Brown, who runs a small nonprofit company in La Mesa, handles public relations for the Jahi search as a volunteer.
"Brenda's job was to get Jahi's name in front of the camera, and she succeeded in helping us do that and we are just going to take it from here," Brown said.
Sharon Walls, Brown's assistant during the search, had nothing but praise for Brenda van Dam.
"She's been wonderful in support, in knowledge, in helping out and in helping Tameka understand how things are working and how they will work," Walls said. "She has been a pillar of help."
A coordinator from the Laura Recovery Center met yesterday with volunteers who have helped on the Jahi search, much as the national organization did with the volunteers assisting the van Dams.
Mark Klaas, whose daughter was taken from her Northern California bedroom nearly a decade ago, said assisting in another search can be therapeutic.
"What you do when you help somebody in a situation like this is you give meaning to your own child's death," Klaas said. "You take what you've learned in your situation and apply it in another situation, so that what happened to your child doesn't continue to happen."
Members of what the van Dams called the core support team included: center director Diane Halfman, a San Diego police officer who retired from the force after 11 years; community coordinator Susan Wintersteen, a neighbor; fund coordinator Bill Libby, a family friend; communications coordinator Paula Call, whose daughter was in Danielle's second-grade class at Creekside Elementary; and Sara Muller Fraunces, a communications consultant.
Many contribute toward finding missing girl
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You know Fresco that is a "give me" line..it is like taking candy from a baby...so I will let it pass:>))
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