Murder charge likely in missing-girl investigation
Posted on 02/25/2002 7:35:42 AM PST by FresnoDA
Murder charge likely in missing-girl investigation
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Apologize and tolerate, that is the mantra of Luis. You can try all you want, but the facts are that from the get-go, these folks (the VD's) alternative lifestyle has been in play. You guys may not like it, but as far as their Swinger Lifestyle.......
If they took half the energy that Luis G. has spent on FR in the past few weeks, no one would question the VD's dalliances.
As for Rick Roberts, again, I repeat LG. If he is slandering or libeling the VD's, then he should be easy "Johnny Cochran" (sp) fodder, as ya' luv' ta' sa!!!!
Save yourself the time and energy, I'm a lousy speller, and type even worse than that.
Now, tell me how you know that the van Dams do not fit the definition that you put up.
PROOF now mind you boy, not some whisper campaign by some guy hiding in the dark.
The question was also raised about the absolute lack of corraborating evidence to back up Rick's little "I heard that..." crap. Not a single person stepping forward for his minute in the limelight.
I mean, come on now! Not one?
NOT A SINGLE OTHER HUMAN BEING SUFFICIENTLY OUTRAGED TO SPEAK UP AND SAY SOMETHING ABOUT WHAT WENT ON IN THE VAN DAMS ON A REGULAR BASIS?
What's it been now? Two weeks since Rick started trying to boost his Arbitron numbers with this story?
Not one caller?
Nope, that's the beauty of it. He's held harmless by the fact that he is simply repeating what he was told.
Just like you are.
BTW, non denial isn't proof of guilt.
Not here, not anywhere.
I wouldn't have answered such an insulting question either while I was trying to find my kid either, it's irrelevant.
PLUS! In the putrid minds of some (many.....you) a vigorous denial would be the same as a non-denial.
Then your argument would simply be that they were defending themselves a little too strongly, in light of their daughter being gone and all...they must have something to hide!
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| Feb. 18 issue — It’s been 10 days since 7-year-old Danielle van Dam went missing. The blonde, blue-eyed Girl Scout was last seen on the night of Feb. 1, comfy in her blue-flowered pj’s as her father tucked her into bed on the second floor of the family’s loft-style house, snug in a California suburb. When her mother went to wake her the next morning, little Danielle was nowhere to be found. | |||
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| AS IF AMERICA NEEDED yet another reminder that home isn’t as safe as it once seemed, it awoke Tuesday morning to the sight of a tearful Brenda van Dam on the “Today” show, telling of how her daughter had been kidnapped. “We just want our baby back,” the soccer mom cried. Overnight the van Dam’s upscale bedroom community in the semiarid canyons northeast of San Diego became a hive of media activity, the sort previously reserved for the likes of the Lindbergh baby and Chandra Levy. TV satellite trucks jockeyed for position in front of the family home, poised to broadcast the van Dams’ pleas for help and document the vigils of neighbors who’ve brought banners and flowers, teddy bears and prayers. As many as 300 children are abducted each year in this country from their homes, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Most don’t cause such a frenzy—absent a whiff of celebrity or controversy. It is the latter that seems to have set the van Dam case apart. The first hint that this saga might have an even darker side came when San Diego police last week carted out 13 bags from the home of a neighbor, David Westerfield. Westerfield hasn’t been charged with any crime, but police are keeping a close eye on the 49-year-old engineer. On Thursday and Friday investigators were combing through a desert area in Imperial County, where Westerfield is said to have taken his recreational vehicle on the morning Danielle was reported missing. He got stuck in the sand near the U.S.-Mexico border, according to Marc Shepard, who works for a tow-truck company that helped pull the vehicle out. “It was weird... He just wanted to get going, to get the heck out of there.” Westerfield, who has hired an attorney, has declined to comment on the investigation. A San Diego Police Department spokesman would say only, “There is a lot of information that has come to light that has led us to explore this man and this house.” |
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| Brenda and Damon van Dam suspect their daughter was kidnapped from her bedroom |
 By Friday night the story had taken another seamy turn. Word that Brenda and Damon van Dam may have been “swingers” fond of spouse-swapping had been percolating around Internet chat rooms and spilling into the local press throughout the week. But by Friday public discussion of the rumors started drowning out the parents’ pleas for help when San Diego talk-radio host Rick Roberts devoted the entire four hours of his broadcast to the family’s personal life. Said Sara Fraunces, a family spokeswoman: “They do not lead a perfect lifestyle. But they did not kill their daughter.”All the buzz about the parents’ alleged peccadilloes would seem to have little direct bearing on the case, were it not for the sense some have that their “lifestyle” may have played a role in Danielle’s disappearance. On the night Danielle was abducted, Brenda van Dam, 39, had been partying with friends until the wee hours of the morning at a local bar, Dad’s Cafe and Steak House in Poway. Mrs. van Dam says she ran into Westerfield at the bar that night; Westerfield has told the local press that he danced with her while she insists he did not. In any case, sometime after Westerfield had left the bar, Mrs. van Dam returned with some friends to her house, where her husband, Damon, a 36-year-old engineer for cell-phone maker Qualcomm, had been taking care of Danielle and her two brothers, 5 and 9 years of age. The couple visited with the friends briefly and then went to sleep, without checking on the children. By last weekend the case was becoming a major PR nightmare for the family. On Saturday morning the radio station’s Web site was conducting an Internet poll, asking: “Now that you know about Danielle van Dam’s parents’ swinging lifestyle, should their other two children remain in the home?” Fraunces, the family’s spokeswoman, stepped down, citing the need to spend more time with her own family; she was quickly replaced by Fleishman Hillard, one of the largest public-relations firms in the country. “I’m saddened that the focus of this story has moved away from finding Danielle,” Brenda van Dam told NEWSWEEK Saturday afternoon. “We’re not watching television, reading the newspapers or listening to the radio. We’re just trying to remain strong, and trying to give our kids [the two boys] a sense of normalcy and a safe and secure environment in the middle of all this.” Added her husband: “I don’t care about what people are saying about us. I just care about finding our daughter.” On Monday the family plans to announce a $25,000 reward for any information leading to Danielle’s discovery—funds, according to their new publicist, drawn largely from the van Dams’ own reserves. As the van Dams were left to ponder how their family tragedy had turned into a mudslide, local families were trying to sort out for themselves what all the chatter might mean. “I don’t believe that the van Dams are practicing Christians, but I don’t believe they’re evil, either. I think they’re maybe a little worldly,” said Jerry Miller, one of 50 volunteers manning the phones last weekend in a hotel conference room not far from the family’s home in Sabre Springs that has become the “Danielle van Dam Recovery Center.” She added, “You have to understand, this is a bedroom community here in Sabre Springs. People feel it’s safe to raise your children. We’ve never had anything like this happen before, and we hardly know what to do about it.” An Internet posting on one San Diego news site devoted to the disappearance seemed to provide at least some explanation: “In reality what we are doing is trying to reassure ourselves that ‘nothing this horrible could ever happen to me, because I never would have behaved that way.’ It protects us from having to face the dreadful truth that the most heinous of things sometimes happen to good and innocent people. People like us.” And people like Danielle van Dam. |
You can't even get that right!
In keeping true to what you have been doing, you will be posting a thread about how America was to blame for the destruction caused by OBL. Now THAT holds true to form with what you have been doing, trying to shift blame to the victim.
BTW, I have given you three opportunities to deny that you are being paid by Rick Roberts to spread his crap in FR.
No denials from you, must mean that's what's going on.
Just using your logic here.
I am not surprised John Walsh said that. When their son Adam was kidnapped, it came out that Walsh's wife was having an affair. The police thought that the boyfriend might have had something to do with the child's disappearance. It turns out he was innocent, but the police spent a lot of time pursuing that lead.
Rick Roberts is on from 3PM to 7PM.
Airshift, record a few promos, get some dinner, and home in time to spread some rumours.
Can you?
This FresnoDA FReeper keeps SPAMMING FR with the unsubstantiated rumours being aired by a local DJ, one that LIKES the media spotlight, insisting on calling them facts.
Now, the van Dams may or may not be swingers, but the kind of smear campaign being leveled at them by this Rick Roberts fellow, aided by FReepers such as FresnoDA is repugnant. I mean, look at the "artwork" so proudly posted. That was a picture of Danielle that Mrs. van Dam was holding in her hands, pleading for her daughter to be returned, replaced by a swinger's magazine cover?
Even if the swingers thing is true, the picture says a lot more about the artist, than the parents.
I can almost bet that Westerfield's defense will be one based on attacking the parents, Rick Roberts and FresnoDA may not be working for the defense directly, but they are sure working for them indirectly.
I have no idea why there is a 'choosing of sides' going on here. There are no 'winners' here; only one little girl who is the big loser.
Having said that, we were all taken aback, I am sure, when we first heard that Mrs was 'out' dancing (w/o Mr) in the middle of the night. While it is certainly true that the 'evidence' of Mr and Mrs 'unorthodox' (and if true seriously evil) lifestyle is fragmentary and double hearsay, it is the nature of these things that the results of police investigations often leak out in dabs and dollops. This, it seems to me, is the symptom of our time. 'Parents' -- using the term loosely -- who do not place the welfare of their children above all other concerns -- including their own 'satisfaction'.
One final point. I am sure we have all been struck by what the pychobabblers would call the "inappropriate affect" of the parents here. That is, they just don't seem to have the right reaction to this catastrophe. In law enforcement, that is often the first clue of involvement, so it is only reasonable that many here have speculated in that direction.
While it is true that we are engaging here in mass speculation based on early news reports, it is foolhardy (and Clintonian) to say that no one can be 'guilty' of anything until charged and found guilty in court. That is just not true. Someone is guilty right now -- and was so from the moment of the dastardly act. Eventually, the prosecutors and judges and juries will get around to formalizing that determination within the rarified realm of our courts, but that is not what makes a person 'guilty'. It is the act, not the process, that determines guilt.
Bump to your comments. Winston, there are no "side choosers". The vast majority of posters are in agreement. The actions of the "parents" are deplorable. Putting aside the gritty details of their alternative lifestyle, your statement cuts directly to the core matter here. The VD's did not place their children's welfare above their own. In their world, immediate satisfaction was the primary goal, above all other things.
When a small number of counter post-testors aggressively take the "opposing" side, as LG and L have, the best thing is to step aside, and let them rant.
Unless the press pulls a Gary Condit, and simply walks away from "the rest of the story" there will be more that comes out on this matter......
Should I expect to have my kids taken from me now?
I don't know. Were you out late partying and fail to check on the kids when you came home?
What's really laughable is that you post an article talking about how Internet forums have been buzzing with the rumours...that's you they're talking about you fool!
You are using the fact that the media is talking about the fact that you are talking about the rumours that you yourself are spreading as proof that these rumours are fact.
I do not condone anything, nor do I condemn anything, because I have seen no proof, no reports from a reliable media source, telling me that anything may, or may not, have gone on.
But in your desperate need for attention, you hang on to what most thinking people have tried to take the time to point out to you are baseless accusations, and you call them facts.
Is whatever Rick Roberts paying you enough to debase yourself so completely?
Ocassionally, when I have been out with friends, and my wife stayed home with the kids, I come home and ask her if they were OK, and then I go to bed rather than risking the chance that I may wake them up.
The van Dam's made an error in judgement, most likely based on the fact that a person should be able to reasonably assume that no one has entered your house, while you were home, and stole one of your kids.
Let me ask you, have you NEVER made errors in judgement when it came to your kids?
Oh good grief Loois, it is a nice day up here in Fresno, and I am in a good mood......So.....at the risk of forfeiting my FR privileges, I will respond to your psychobabble.........
So Loois, what about these "rumors" as you call them.........
Danielle's parents told investigators that the last time either of them saw their daughter was when her father, Damon van Dam, put her to bed about 10 p.m. Friday, according to 10News.
His wife told police that when she returned from a night out with friends around 2:30 a.m. Saturday, she noticed a side door open to the residence, but did not think to check on Danielle or the girl's two young brothers.
Westerfield told authorities that he had run across Brenda van Dam and her companions at a Poway bar Friday night.
"They were having a good time, just playing pool with people and joking around," Westerfield said earlier this week, adding that he'd danced with his neighbor before leaving around 10:30 p.m.
Police do not consider the parents suspects in Danielle's disappearance, though no one has been completely ruled out, Collins said earlier.
Danielle's mother, Brenda van Dam, told 10News that she and her husband had taken lie detector tests regarding their version of the weekend's events. She did not say if she knew the results of the testsWhat about this guy who spent the day with the VD crew????
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)
DATE: October 31 NAME: *SAMHAIN; ALL HALLOWS' EVE; HALLOWEEN; NOVEMBER EVE WITCHCRAFT: Rituals to contact the dead SATANISTS: Sexual and blood rituals with animal or humans & animal or human sacrificeDATE: December 21/22 NAME: YULE; WINTER SOLSTICE; WITCHCRAFT: Rituals celebrating the rebirth of the sun SATANISTS: Sexual rituals, animal or human
DATE: February 2** NAME: IMBOLIC; IMBOK; CANDLEMAS; OIMELE; LADY DAY; BRIGID DAY WITCHCRAFT: Sexual rituals; Celtic triple goddess Brigid honored. SATANISM: Sexual rituals, human
DATE: MARCH 20/21 NAME: Spring Equinox; Vernal Equinox WITCHCRAFT: This is a fertility sabbat. Pagans celebrate the coming of fertility of the earth; Sexual rituals celebrated by various groups. SATANISM: Orgies held; Animal or human sacrifices
DATE: April 30 NAME: *BELTANE; MAY EVE; ROODMAS DAY; WALPURGISNACHT WITCHCRAFT: Rituals focusing on the love between male & female. In fact, many pagan hand castings (weddings) take place at this sabbat. Rituals celebrating the fertility of the Mother Goddess (Earth) are carried out. SATANISTS: Blood rituals; Animal or human sacrifices
DATE: JUNE 21 NAME: SUMMER SOLSTICE; MIDSUMMER'S EVE; WITCHES: Bonfire rituals SATANISTS: Orgies; Animal or human sacrifices
DATE: AUGUST 1 NAME: LUGNASADH (Named for Celtic Solar god Lugh);LAMMAS DAY WITCHES: Harvest rituals SATANISTS: Animal or Human sacrifice
DATE: SEPTEMBER 21 to 23 (Date varies annually) NAME: AUTUMN EQUINOX WITCHES: Some covens have rituals reenacting Pluto or Hades (grim god of death) forcefully carrying of Persephone (young goddess of life) to the underworld. SATANISTS: Sexual orgies and or animal and human sacrifice.
**February 2, 2002 Danielle van Dam, Age 7, reported missing by parents to San Diego Police Department
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