Neighbor Arrested in Van Dam Case:(Police Have No Motive Linking Him To Danielle)

Newsweek ^ | February 24, 2002 | Ana Figueroa

[FresnoDA]

Feb. 24

[FresnoDA]

The elder van Dams say they stayed up with their friends for about an hour, and then went to bed.

Really, must be an energy drink or something?

Damon and Brenda van Dam were active “swingers” who regularly participated in spouse-swapping.

The van Dams have not denied the allegations, and insist that stories of their alternative lifestyle “have nothing to do” with the disappearance of their daughter.

Nothing to do with the dissaperance?  I don't think so....

[FresnoDA]

Despite arrest, search continues for missing girl

SAN DIEGO, Feb. 23 –    Hundreds of volunteers joined the search Saturday for a missing 7-year-old girl even as an arrest and the discovery of bloodstained evidence lent an increasingly grim sense to the task.

---

The volunteers, carrying bright red tags to mark potential evidence, set out early in the morning for the foothills and deserts east of San Diego for a sign of Danielle van Dam, whose gap-toothed smile adorns thousands of missing person fliers around the nation.

Danielle's parents, David and Brenda van Dam, said in an interview that they are encouraged by the arrest Friday of David Westerfield, a 49-year-old neighbor, on suspicion of kidnapping their daughter, but they urged volunteers to continue helping with the search.

"We've got to focus. We've got a job to do and that's to find Danielle," Damon van Dam said at the real estate office that serves as search headquarters.

A sign at the headquarters marked Saturday as the 22nd day of the search effort and urged volunteers to "be positive."

"There's still a little bit of hope that we will get her back," Damon van Dam said.

Danielle's parents discovered her missing the morning of Feb. 2. She was last seen the night before when her father put her to bed. Police believe she was abducted from her second-floor bedroom of the family's north San Diego home.

Westerfield, a divorced father of two grown children who lives two doors down from the van Dams, has a 1996 drunk driving conviction but no violent criminal history, police said.

Investigators began focusing on Westerfield, a self-employed engineer, shortly after the girl's disappearance. He was at the same bar where Danielle's mother, Brenda, went with friends while Damon van Dam stayed home with their daughter and two sons.

By the next morning, Westerfield had set off in his motor home to the beach and desert and was the only one of the van Dams' immediate neighbors who was gone when the search began.

Authorities said they found traces of Danielle's blood in the motor home and on an article of Westerfield's clothing. They also confiscated child pornography from his home, according to San Diego Police Chief David Bejarano.

Westerfield, whose lawyer said he plans to mount a "vigorous defense," is in custody at the county jail and is expected to be arraigned Tuesday.

"I'm confident that they got the right guy," said Damon van Dam, 37, an engineer for the San Diego wireless technology firm Qualcomm.

But the arrest is only a step toward resolution of the case, the parents said.

"We haven't crossed the finish line. We have to find Danielle," Brenda van Dam said.

With that in mind, volunteers donned bright orange and green safety vests to continue the search. Before setting out they listened to a safety briefing that included warnings to watch out for rattlesnakes and to drink plenty of water to avoid dehydrating in desert temperatures that were expected to reach 80 degrees.

Many volunteers said they have children and felt compelled to join the effort.

"It just hit home," said Steve Cassarino, a father of two who got a bad case of poison oak while searching a rugged area last week. "It could happen to anybody, any time."

Another volunteer, Gary Lowe, said he decided to give up his Saturday because he can't bear the thought of the van Dams not knowing what happened to their daughter.

"My main motivation is the fear that she will never be found and they will have to live with that uncertainty for the rest of their lives," Lowe said.

[Amore]

Neighbor Arrested in Van Dam Case: (Police Have No Motive Linking Him To Danielle)

How about sex?

[Real Cynic No More]

As California goes, so goes the rest of the country, with Florida to be next in line.

[FresnoDA]

Fienstien weighs in!!! (Gag!)

The VD PR machine keeps churning???

• Senator Diane Feinstein has issued a letter to the community to be shared at the 2/22 evening event due to the fact that she is unable to attend in person. For a copy of Feinstein’s letter, call (858) 705-3239.

• "America’s Most Wanted" is returning this weekend to the van Dam home to tape a police-sanctioned follow-up story.

• Due to media interest, the van Dams provided the names and roles of their core support team: Diane Halfman, volunteer director of the Danielle Recovery Center; Susan Wintersteen, volunteer community coordinator; Bill Libby, volunteer fund and foundation coordinator; Paula Call, volunteer communications coordinator; and Sara Muller Fraunces, volunteer communications consultant. There are a number of others who are also playing key roles, in addition to the hundreds and hundreds of volunteers. Interviews will be arranged (as schedules allow) through Paula Call.

 

[Endeavor]

No motive? Try a propensity for child porn and the likelihood of a desire to participate in it, based on the finding of Danielle's blood on his clothes and in his motorhome. This isn't really rocket science.

[Endeavor]

No motive? Try a propensity for child porn and the likelihood of a desire to participate in it, based on the finding of Danielle's blood on his clothes and in his motorhome. This isn't really rocket science.

[Amore]

volunteer fund and foundation coordinator

Oh, yeah, rush me an address so I can contribute to THAT fund.

While I'm very sorry for that poor little girl, she's been dead for quite some time now.
And my initial sympathy for the parents has waned considerably

[quimby]

A local tow-truck operator told police that he had towed Westerfield’s mobile home out the sand in a remote area..

Out the sand ? Is this newsweaks entry into multicultural reporting ?

Or does the sand have a lifestyle that warrants "outing" ?

[FresnoDA]

Agreed, and what about, "Care to dance Brenda, care to "let me joing in the fun" Brenda? No! Fine, then I will see what else is at your house.....the SDPD and LE are totally sweeping the SWING SET under the rug on this one. Amazing....and the Van Damned PR machine scores another victory. Still, how do the VD's afford their lifestyle on one moderate income??? Why not a close look at the finances, from these press power houses?? /sarcasm off

[FresnoDA]

LOL, high priced college education, foils Newsweek editors, again....

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

My first thought...but rephrased slightly. "How about he is a perverted pedophile?"

[Rodney King]

I'll give you a motive. Mrs. Van Dam is a complete and total whore. Wacko neighbor becomes obsessive over it, wanting in on the action. Dances with her at bar and just can't take it any more. If he can't have her, he'll have her daughter. Goes in to house, hubby thinks its just his slut wife and her slut friends coming in to do drugs and have an orgy, so doesn't check to see who it is.

Wife comes home with friends to do drugs and have orgy, notices the alarm has been tripped, but just figures its part of the constant cycle of people coming in to do drugs and have orgies, so doesn't check on her daughter till morning.

Her lifestyle had nothing to do with it. Right.

[spectre]

Yes, they are totally ignoring the Van Dam's swinging lifestyle. Westerfield is a Bachelor. He was where a bachelor might be on a Friday night to pick up chicks, and one of those was Brenda, a married woman who is coming out of this smelling like a rose.

sw

[Neenah]

All I can think of is the bizarre DIARY NOTE in Daniel's little diary, that the Mother showed on the News, where she said (paraphrased) " Please forgive me, Daddy " and " Please love me, Daddy "

To me, that is a VERY HUGE CLUE.

[FresnoDA]

Bump!! Why can't we all just get along!! VD's mantra!

[MistrX]

Blood on his clothes. Blood in his motor home. "Hello? I'd like to speak to Johnnie Cochran right away!"

[scholar]

I am praying that the police are investigating the van Dams and are just keeping it quiet until such a time that they have some substantive evidence.

[thathamiltonwoman]

All I can think of is the bizarre DIARY NOTE in Daniel's little diary, that the Mother showed on the News, where she said (paraphrased) " Please forgive me, Daddy " and " Please love me, Daddy "

Very strange. The truth may never come out but suspect that there was something very rotten going on in the Van Dam house and I don't mean the alleged swinging in the garage. By the way, are there any available photos of the garage? Does it look like a normal garage or is it done up like a party room? .

[rolling_stone]

Interesting that the neighbor had claimed to have danced with Mrs Van Dam and she denied it...if he had never been inside the Van Dam house but a hair with his DNA was found inside their house, it could have gotten there (or at least be OJ explained) by falling from him to the Mrs while dancing...then from her to inside the house....now about that blood...