Hildy...the van Damned (!) side of the aisle have observed behavior by both Brenda and The Demon which do not correlate with the actions observed by typical parent/victims of such a horrendous event.
The wishy-washy public statements, hiring of media consultants and Public Relations teams, before the "SEARCH TEAMS" we even assembled is another subtle hint to SOME that the VD's alibis, statements and actions just don't add up....
Now...I for one have kept an open mind about this case, from day one....
I don't know David Westerfield....and if he is in fact the murder, and if he acted ALONE, then HURRAY...the correct perpetrator is in jail, and the evidence will create a cascade of proof to convict him. I also support the Death Penalty, and again, if the river of proof is clear and deep, then Westerfield's next semi-permanent address should be San Quentin.....it will then be liberal appointed and liberal ruling judges who control his true death penalty phase however..
On the other hand.....
If David Westerfield is a "dufus"...(which I suspect!)...and was a patsy for an organized group of "swinging smooth operators"...then that needs to come to light...
Like many on this forum....I am troubled (yes Amore, troubled) by the rush to judgment which "eliminated" the VD's AND their late night house guest from the suspect list.....
Otherwise, there would not have been a GAG order issued.....since the GAG order has done nothing to prevent information about Westerfield to come out....but it has in fact DRIED UP any details or information about Brenda and The Demon.....
So....that is why I for one, (as well as others) continue to keep a eye on the case, and especially on the VD's......
I am a RR capitalist.....don't care how much money someone earns, inherits, wins...whatever.....so if the VD's are flush, and it was simply time to buy another family beater to run out for groceries....what ever.....BBBBUUUUUTTTTTT.....
If the used the proceeds from the Murder of their daughter's search fund to line their own pockets, then again, that is a sign of LOW CHARACTER...and such lack of scruples again makes me highly suspicious of their ultimate motives.....
Big insurance payout on Danielle??? I can not say for sure...without compromising sources....so I will retract that it is known publicly that the VD's had a Life Insurance policy for $100K on each kid, as is only rumored on the San Diego forums.......
Take one more read of this article Hildy.....it really hits close to my opinion, and I believe others on the FR......
Not a DW apologists.....just not ready to swallow the WHOLE hook-line-and sinker....
FresnoDA
Danielle’s Death - Child abductions do not, for the most part, occur at random.By Rabbi Daniel Lapin, president of Toward Tradition, a Seattle-based national pro-family coalition of Jews and Christians. March 12, 2002 8:50 a.m. |
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On March 1, a day after the body of Danielle Van Dam was identified, the San Diego Union-Tribune published a heart-rending account of parents and school counselors trying to explain to children how it could happen that seven-year-old Danielle was kidnapped and killed. "Mommy," a boy was quoted as saying, "I don't want anyone to steal me." Counselors advised parents "to listen to their children's fears and acknowledge them." The unstated assumption of much of the press coverage of the tragedy has been just this: Children are afraid, counselors and parents are stumbling to find something comforting to say, for what happened to Danielle could as easily happen to any of our children. Since the grim discovery was made, the nation has absorbed the message that Danielle's death was an event without explanation or reason. Or was it? On the morning of February 2, Danielle was found to be missing from her bed. The man who has been arrested for her murder is 50-year-old David Westerfield. Reportedly a child-porn enthusiast, he is a neighbor of Danielle's parents, Damon and Brenda van Dam. That night, says the accused kidnapper, he and Mrs. Van Dam had been dancing at a local bar. Mrs. Van Dam denies dancing with Westerfield, but she does admit being out till 2 A.M. without her husband. Nor do the Van Dams deny the stories reported in Newsweek, stories that say they are active "swingers" with a taste for wife swapping. The Van Dams say their lifestyle has "nothing to do" with Danielle's abduction. Let us be clear. This horrible death can be blamed only on the man who kidnapped Danielle. But if the Van Dams are indeed "swingers," if Mrs. Van Dam was carousing without her husband until rather late, then these parents — who deserve our sympathy no matter what their follies and vices may be — will have something in common with the parents of many other abducted children, beyond the bare fact that they have lost a child. For these terrible events do not, for the most part, occur at random. The National Institute for Missing and Exploited Children supplies the figures. In 1997, 24 percent of abducted children were abducted by strangers. About half, 49 percent, were kidnapped by family members, typically a divorced parent. Another 27 percent were kidnapped by an acquaintance. This same notion — that a certain kind of misfortune, in choosing victims, makes no distinction between wholesome and unwholesome — animated the AIDS scare of the late 1980s. Back then, the media and AIDS activists asserted that the disease was about to erupt among the population of heterosexuals who are not abusers of intravenous drugs. It never did. AIDS, it's now acknowledged, is a killer with a marked preference for people who engage in particular activities: anal sex and needle sharing. It does occasionally happen that an unknown drifter will invade the life of an upstanding family and steal and murder their child. That is what happened to 12-year-old Polly Klaas, abducted from a slumber party in Petaluma, California, in 1993. It is what happened in 1981 to six-year-old Adam Walsh, whose father, TV host John Walsh of America's Most Wanted, initiated a campaign to place photos of missing children on milk cartons and junk mail. That well-intended campaign has supported the misconception that children go missing by chance. The brief biographical sketch of the missing child never indicates the family dysfunction that likely contributed to making the abduction possible. Random kidnapping is not what happened to Danielle van Dam, and the fact is worth considering. For our actions have consequences — often unintended, often for future generations, often tragic — and parents would do well to remember this. |
little girl is dead, left under a clump of oak trees in the backcountry east of San Diego. Many have seen her murder as a warning, applicable equally to all mothers and fathers, that child abduction occurs by random chance.