Posted on 02/15/2002 8:12:54 AM PST by MizSterious
"We will solve this case sooner rather than later," Assistant Chief Steve Creighton told The San Diego Union-Tribune. "We have a ton of evidence that we are meticulously going over. We are making progress."
Creighton's remarks were published only two days after police, for a third time, searched the home of David A. Westerfield, who lives just two doors from the van Dam home.
Police refused to say what they may have found in the home of the 50-year-old, who has been the focus of the investigation into what police say was an apparent kidnapping.
Twice before, detectives took service dogs through Westerfield's house, and he has been under 24-hour police surveillance in the days since Danielle's disappearance.
In addition, Westerfield has submitted a sample of his DNA to authorities for analysis.
During the initial searches, officers carted off boxes and bags full of household items. Police also impounded his sport utility vehicle and the motor home he took to the Imperial County desert over the weekend the girl vanished.
Still, authorities have referred to the neighbor only as a "potential suspect" and have not taken him into custody.
Danielle's father, meanwhile, said he plans to join concerned citizens in scouring arid wilderness areas around Glamis, Borrego Springs and Ocotillo over the Presidents' Day weekend.
The search for the girl has included those vast open areas because Westerfield took a trip there around the time Danielle vanished.
Brenda van Dam said her husband's plan to help comb those wastelands was helping him cope with the ordeal of his child's disappearance.
"You know, it's harder for me to have to stay here in the house. But I know that's what I have to do, just in case I'm needed by the investigators," she said. Rewards offered in connection with Danielle's disappearance now total $185,000. Some are offered for her safe return. Others are payable in the event of an arrest and conviction.
It's clear other issues besides a kidnapping are at stake here. Mr. and Mrs. van Dam do not have the luxury of being just grieving parents... they must also become damage control specialists... think of all their "friends" who don't want the spotlight to shift in their direction.
I have no doubt that there are a number of "friends" who are laying low right now.
Have any of those who came home with Brenda van Dam that fateful night come out in public support of the search effort?
Sauté with a touch of canola oil and garlic and serve with chopped yellow tomatoes and avacado over a bed of wild rice.
I have not heard a single word about or from the others present at the house that night.
If they have spoken it hasn't been widely broadcast.
Really ???????/ I guess I'm not surprised.
I just get the feeling that these people see opportunity whether or not they're guilty. Maybe they are innocent (I doubt it) but at the same time not as devastated as most of us would expect.
Very well may be true.
I don't know if this is an unsubstantiated rumor, but curious if true.
My dad died while I was in the service, and one of his best friends was our sheriff, who at the funeral, offered me a job with his department after I got out, even to the extent of siging off on a 90-day *early out* for me if I wanted. [I didn't]
I didn't take him up on that offer, but went on to take a journalism major in college instead, but wound up as a motorcycle cop on another city's department largely on his recommendation. I liked working outdoors after too many pretty days in stuffy classrooms and darkrooms, had little to prove to myself with the job after three tours in SEA, and saw no need to be a real *traffic monster* when the state cops did a much better job of bullying motorists than a local ever could. I found though, that the reflexes of a light weapons infantryman are not those a cop needs when dealing with his public, and I didn't care for working the messier highway accidents, which the EMTs and firemen generally cleaned up.
A few years down the road, I ended up as a coroner's photographer and crime scene investigator and worked several child deaths and homicides and one suicide. Four years of that was quite enough, but it really is a nasty job that calls for somebody who does not care for it, but cares enough to do it well.
And as a newsman, I've worked several stories regarding child kidnappings and disappearances. I'll never give up on those unfinished stories, though I realisticly realize that the odds of any of them ever offering anything resembling a happy ending are between slim and none. And I've too-often seen such charges used to set up frame jobs around an opponent or adversary someone needed eliminated, so I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of quick and extrajudicial solutions to such cases, though the temptation is real and understandable.
-archy-/-
I do hope the guilty ARE brought to justice, but I am by no means sure the Van Dams ought to get these children back. This rank of negligence and carelessness--it is a wonder they hadn't all been taken sometime ago, and just maybe by someone who would have cared more about them, and protecting them from harm, and giving them a decent home.
I also think that this mother either knows where the girl is, or knows who DOES know where the girl is.
By Bruce Lieberman and Preston Turegano
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS
February 9, 2002
All week, media across the nation buzzed about the abduction of a child from her bedroom in northern San Diego.
Danielle van Dam is still missing, but by yesterday the public's attention was shifting to the girl's parents, as accusations and talk-radio diatribes threatened to drown out news of the investigation.
The founder of a group that posted a $10,000 reward for Danielle's safe return suggested the police investigate her family. Radio talk-show conversations questioned the lifestyle of Brenda and Damon van Dam; television and newspaper reporters began asking them about it.
The Internet has been teeming with messages about Danielle and her parents. While some come to the van Dams' defense, the bulk are angry with the parents, and many of the messages are mean-spirited. They address everything from rumors of the parents' lifestyle to their statements that they didn't check on their children after a door was found open at night.
The van Dams, who discovered their 7-year-old daughter missing from her bed a week ago today, became household names almost overnight as they made the rounds of national television shows, pleading for Danielle's return.
They have used the reach of the Internet to ask for help in finding her. A Web site set up by neighbors provides a downloadable poster of the child and asks viewers to distribute it as widely as possible. The shift in the response to the van Dams – from sympathetic to nasty – was swift as the couple tried in vain to keep the focus on the search for their daughter.
A family spokeswoman said the van Dams would not comment yesterday about the flurry of allegations.
One of the most outspoken critics was Douglas Pierce, who only days before posted a $10,000 reward for Danielle's return. Pierce, who describes his group, the Millennium Children's Fund, as a nonprofit advocacy group for abused children, said he was disturbed by what he saw during his eight hours in the van Dam home Wednesday.
He felt the parents lacked emotion, and said he was put off by what he described as their repeated rehearsals before facing the media.
The van Dams and several advisers plan what the parents say and how they look on television and in newspapers, Pierce said. "They were talking about their makeup and how they look in the camera," he added.
Pierce said the van Dams' two sons, 5 and 10, should be taken from the home while police search for Danielle.
Although he found no evidence to believe the van Dams are tied directly to their daughter's disappearance, Pierce said he decided to ask for outside protection for the children after observing the family, its public-relations team and a journal entry by Danielle that he said suggested conflict with her father.
Pierce said he was shocked when Brenda van Dam showed him Danielle's journal. " 'Daddy, please forgive me,' " Pierce said one entry read. " 'Daddy please love me. Danielle.' "
"After my personal observation, I'm asking for a wake-up call from the San Diego Police Department to investigate the family," Pierce said.
Pierce's comments enraged the van Dams.
"Douglas Pierce is some kind of freak who came into our house," Damon van Dam told a Los Angeles radio station Thursday. He called Pierce "evil."
"He is trying to start trouble for us," Brenda van Dam said. "We did not invite him into our house."
A few days ago, the van Dams began to get questions on television about their private life. Delicate questions became pointed yesterday when San Diego radio talk-show host Rick Roberts criticized the van Dams on the air for "not being honest" about "what really occurred" the night their daughter disappeared.
Roberts told his listeners that a "reliable" source "high in law enforcement" said the van Dams have engaged in "lots of wife-swapping." Saying he believes the source, Roberts reported activity by the van Dams on the night of Feb. 1 dramatically different from their description to the news media.
Roberts repeated his source's allegations for four hours, interrupted mainly by callers angry at the van Dams.
During a break in his 3-to-7 p.m. show on KFMB-AM 760 titled "The Court of Public Opinion," Roberts told The San Diego Union-Tribune he decided to go public with what his source told him because the van Dams' two young sons remain at home and "may be exposed to the couple's lifestyle."
When asked if he thought his comments were slanderous or unethical, Roberts said: "No, not at all. This is not a court of law. It's a court of public opinion. If anyone thinks they're slanderous, they can subpoena me."
Roberts said he told his program director he intended to disclose the source's information and that the director did not object.
Ed Trimble, president and chief operating officer of KFMB-TV and radio, could not be reached for comment after the show.
Roberts' comments prompted a flurry of new messages on the Internet.
A woman who runs a Danielle van Dam message board from North Carolina said, "It is the kind of situation that will show every wart they have – and it will horrify us to think how little privacy anyone really has."
In the meantime, Pierce continued to post the reward offer on the Web.
His Millennium Children's Fund is listed with the state of California as an active corporation first registered Feb. 26, 2000. In April 2001, Pierce filed a 990-EZ form with the Internal Revenue Service, listing the fund as a "children's public benefit charity."
Accomplishments listed on the form included creating Web sites for adults and for children, and "implementing" public-service announcements. Pierce reported no income and no expenses for the 2000 tax year on the form.
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