Side Door, Open the night of Feb. 1
Posted on 03/05/2002 8:04:09 PM PST by FresnoDA
Side Door, Open the night of Feb. 1|
The photos below are of the Van Dam backyard and show the sliding glass door reported to have been found open the morning Danielle was reported missing. Detectives say this is likely to be the way a possible kidnapper may have entered the home. |
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| Additional Quirks: Danielle was last seen wearing blue flowered pajamas with flowers Her favorite colors are pink and purple Danielle belongs to her local Brownie troop Family friends have set up a website at: http://daniellemissing.tripod.com San Diego police are scouring the Sabre Springs area for 7-year-old Danielle van Dam. Police say Danielle's parents, Damon and Brenda van Dam, reported her missing when they discovered Danielle was not in her room at about 9 a.m. Saturday, February 2, 2002. Damon told police he put Danielle and her two brothers to bed at around 10:30 Friday night while Brenda was out celebrating with friends until about 2 a.m. Saturday, a send-off for a woman who was leaving the area, detectives said. When Brenda arrived home with four friends at about 2 am, police say they ate pizza with Damon and talked for about an hour. Shortly after the friends left, police say Damon and Brenda told them they noticed lights blinking on their burglar alarm panel and found a sliding glass door and a side garage door open. Police say the alarm was not set, but the panel is a type that indicates when doors and windows are opened and shut at all times. The couple told police they closed the doors and went to bed, and did not check on the children. Saturday morning, police say the couple told them a friend stopped by at about 9 am to see if Danielle could come out and play. Damon and Brenda told police that they thought Danielle was still sleeping and that Brenda went to wake Danielle. That is when police say the couple discovered Danielle was missing from her room and called 9-1-1. Police began investigating immediately, using helicopters, horses and dogs to search the area canyons for Danielle, a second-grader at Creekside Elementary School in Sabre Springs. Officers also conducted door-to-door searches and provided the Border Patrol and Customs Service with photos of Danielle to keep watch for her at the border. Detectives additionally interviewed family members, neighbors, schoolmates and friends about the disappearance, hoping to develop leads, but had no luck. Danielle was last seen wearing blue pajamas with flowers. She is white, 4 feet tall and weighs about 58 pounds. She has blue eyes and blond hair. Police say at this point the parents are not considered suspects and have been extremely cooperative with investigators. Police are considering one of the van Dam's neighbors to be the prime suspect. Police have searched his home and impounded his vehicles. At the time of this writing, an arrest has not been made. |
1. Kids Put To Bed at 10:30 P.M., by Damon VD.
2. Brenda arrives at VD residence at 2:00 A.M. with FOUR FRIENDS
3. Brenda and her friends "The Four Amigos" eat pizza with Damon, and “talk” for about one hour.
4. 3:00 A.M., "The Four Amigos" depart the VD residence.
5. Damon and Brenda notice the alarm lights blinking.
6. Damon and Brenda notice BOTH the sliding glass door AND the side garage door are open.
7. Damon and Brenda note that alarm was not “SET” but was only in the monitoring mode.
8. Damon and Brenda tell police they closed all doors, and went to bed.
9. Damon and Brenda DID NOT CHECK on the condition of the children.
10. Approximate time, 3:15 A.M.
Volunteers Monday removed a carload of flowers, stuffed animals, wreaths and photographs placed at the Dehesa Road site by hundreds of people who visited the location following last week's discovery (news - web sites) of the partially decomposed body.
"How dare they?" Cindy Moore of Spring Valley told the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Although Danielle's parents have requested that people remember their daughter at a Sabre Springs neighborhood park near their home, they did not request that the Dehesa Road memorial be taken down, a family spokesperson told the newspaper.
The van Dams requested Tuesday that any additional flowers and stuffed animals dropped off at the East County location be left in place, according to the Union-Tribune.
The volunteers who removed the memorial on Monday said they were acting on their own and that they had taken the mementos to the park in Sabre Springs, the newspaper reported.
"They didn't leave anything," said Moore's sister, Connie Munzer. "It's upsetting. It's not right."
Moore said that people have the right to grieve for the slain second-grader in a location of their own choosing and that Sabre Springs is a long drive from East County.
"Nothing will ever change that her body was dumped in this spot," Moore said. "There will never be a time that I come up here that I won't think of her."
Meanwhile, the 4th District Court of Appeal is still deciding whether to release search warrant affidavits of the investigation into David Westerfield.
Westerfield's lawyer, Steven Feldman, also filed another request for a gag order to provent investigators and prosecutors from talking to the media. His first request, made during Westerfield's arraignment last week, was put on hold. A hearing on the new request is scheduled for friday.
"Meanwhile, the 4th District Court of Appeal is still deciding whether to release search warrant affidavits of the investigation into David Westerfield.
Westerfield's lawyer, Steven Feldman, also filed another request for a gag order to provent investigators and prosecutors from talking to the media. His first request, made during Westerfield's arraignment last week, was put on hold. A hearing on the new request is scheduled for friday.
Interesting...
I'm a very dignified woman (at least I like to think so) BUT, if my daughter was stolen from me, you better believe dignity would not be my first thought when dealing with the so called perp.
Unless, of course, I knew more to the story...
Now, the police have already checked everyone that had been in the house that night, as well as the van Dams (we don't know everything that the police knows) and at this time , they are not suspects.
One last thing, Westerfield's lawyer wil, also need to explain away why DW didn't simply call the cops when he found Danielle's body. Before the blood got on his shirt, before his fingerprints got on her.
That is what reasonable people do when they find a dead body, they call the police and do not touch anything.
Westerfield acted like a guilty party acts, he dumped the body and tried to clean-up.
He's fried.
Liar
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I am one of the few atheist conservatives on this board (although since I first wrote this I've been pleased to meet many other conservative and libertarian folks who share my views). I enjoy receiving torrents of abuse from all sorts of folks who believe in the supernatural, and want me to live by their sacred scrolls. I like to think I give as good as I get. Reasoned debate doesn't have much of an impact here on FR anymore, so I've also taken to screaming and shouting like other folks and I find it wonderfully cathartic. Despite this increasingly bad signal/noise ratio on FR, this is still the place I come now and then to get my assumptions challenged and to find out the hot issues of the day from the wider conservative viewpoint. It also reminds me how wide the spectrum of views really is in the GOP and the whole conservative movement worldwide. |
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Wow, when I first heard your comments, I was slightly hurt, and offended, but after reading your bio, I am honored to have your like rail against me.
God Bless You, analog!!!........FresnoDA
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Defense experts say the law is clear: once a suspect has a lawyer, police and prosecutors should not attempt to talk with the defendant without getting permission from the lawyer. Some say the incident could harm the case against Westerfield.
"It sends a lot of messages, in addition to laying the groundwork for potentially asking the court to dismiss the charges because of this outrageous governmental conduct," criminal defense specialist Kerry Steigerwalt said.
Wednesday, Police Captain Ron Newman told NBC 7/39 that two detectives did request to speak with Westerfield, but he apparently refused to talk with them and called his lawyer to report the attempted interview.
"I have confirmed that that did happen,” Capt. Newman told NBC 7/39. “I question the appropriateness of it. I'm sure the detectives felt that it was the appropriate thing to do, given the set of circumstances that they were under. But we will be handling that internally. So it's not something that we would normally do. In fact, we should not be doing it, frankly.”
Another legal expert told NBC 7/39 that if police did not actually talk with Westerfield that day, there's little damage to the case against him.
That's a big: "Duh!"
(No offense to you, Fresno, but, gee, NBC it's a nonstory.
I guess the least little thing on this case is big news.)
Irrelevant. Luis was referring to the issue of criminal liability, not ability to recover on an insurance policy.
Here's what Luis actually wrote: "The case being tried is the murder of Danielle van Dam, not any criminal charges against the van Dams. Think about it for a second, even if you leave your car unlocked, with the keys in the ignition, the person who takes it gets arrested for theft.
Even if the van Dams are found to be negligent by not checking on Danielle, or even for inviting Westerfield into the house, the killer is still 100% responsible for the murder."
If you're debating whether the van Dams can recover on their daughter's life insurance policy, then your point is well taken. But if you're discussing criminal liability for car theft in Luis' hypothetical or murder in this case, then Luis' statements are correct. Auto theft and murder are crimes. Contributory negligence is a civil tort law concept and has no applicability to criminal law.
Mary who?
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