Posted on 03/05/2002 8:04:09 PM PST by FresnoDA
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. |
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.
To: Mrs.Liberty
Pssstt..come closer. Here's a secret. Tell Luis you see the Virgin Mary in your bedroom dresser mirror, and he will believe you. No joke.
sw
102 posted on 3/6/02 3:40 PM Pacific by spectre
"Never mind" </emily latella off>
Pot...kettle...black.
"You fail to see that a person is "culpable" when his car gets stolen under the circumstances you describe? That is WHY the insurance company doesn't pay. Because you were dumb and dumber leaving your keys in the ignition."
I'm not the one failing to see the obvious here. You are confusing criminal law (murder, car theft) with civil law. We're not talking about Danielle's insurance policy here sw...do try to keep up.
The fact that you may have left your keys in your car may excuse the insurance company from paying you, primarily because it's spelled out in the agreement that you signed, but it has zero bearing on the criminal law aspect of the case. Your keys in the ignition does not equal to an open invitation to steal it, anymore than the fact that your front door is unlocked an invitation to rob your house.
If you don't believe me, next time that you see a car running unattended someplace, take it.
During your trial, plead not guilty and explain to the Judge and Jury that the car's keys were in the ignition, so it's not really your fault that the car was stolen.
Send me an e-mail with an address and your inmate number so that I can send you some smokes after the trial.
"The van Dams could possibly be culpable if they contributed to the negligence of their home and the safety of their children that evening."
I know that you and the rest of the gang here really wish this to be the case, but I don't think that this will hold water in a court of law.
Sure, the van Dams may have been "entertaining" in their garage with the door closed, whether the door was locked or not is quite irrelevant to the case, a locked door does not impede someone from hearing a noise, a close door does.
Still, all in all, regardless of they may have been doing in the garage, they were home, and from all accounts that I've read, there was at least one parent home all night.
Now, if the rumors of "swinging" turn out to be true, and even if they had been doing that on that particular night, it doesn't matter in the scheme of things; while swinging is immoral, it isn't illegal and in the eyes of the law, it is no different than if they had been playing cards in the garage.
"We seem to have different standards. I take care of my property and family and would never leave the keys in the ignition of my car or front door. Why not just post a sign "STEAL ME"."
You seem to think yourself infallible, and by extension your whole family, even if you did, and someone did steal your property, they are still guilty of a crime.
"They have told so many different versions of what happened that evening that it all goes to their credibility, and you can bet the farm, the defense will bring it up. "
They're not on trial here, the only thing that matters here is what happened to Danielle...that's the case...murder. And unless the defense sets out to somehow suggest that Damon or Brenda killed Danielle (BTW, you can't just throw that out there w/out any sort of evidence to obliterate the fact that Danielle's blood was found on Westerfield's clothes, and his vehicle) there's no way that simply saying "these people were negligent that night, so the defendant is somehow less culpable of killing the child", will save Westerfield's ass.
Matthew 24:12
John 12:36
Something similar happened here in Oklahoma. Two children died in a fire in the family's trailer while the mother was grocery shopping--leaving the tots alone. She was charged with negligence, too. Another case involved a woman who left a tot in the car (doors were unlocked and keys left in ignition) while she picked up a couple of grocery items, and the car was stolen with the wee one inside--she, too, was charged with negligence. (Note: the car and the unharmed child were found later, not far from where they were taken.) This latter case especially seems comparable to the van Dam case.
It's not that the perp should not be charged, it's just that in these cases the parents shared part of the blame. No one would suggest the parents get the same penalty, but they should not get a walk, either, if what we're reading is true.
OR, we could continue to call 'em as we see 'em. It's hard to cover the "aromatherapy" of bull feces essence with a pink cloud. It could be that while I might support the same political candidates as some members on Free Republic, I would not sit down at the same table with many of them. Nor should I be required to.
"For all the time you spend being snotty with one and other, you are spending less time educating, sharing and learning. What better way to stifle the truth, than to conquer and divide from within.."
Here's what you can do to avoid articles like these. It's really easy.
You go to the top of the main page where you'll find "Topics/Post." Click on that. You'll receive a menu of various topics. For the kind of news you seem to prefer, you are offered several good choices--maybe you'd like Activism/Chapters, Constitution/Conservatism, Foreign Affairs, Government, or Politics/Elections. I'd avoid Crime/Corruption, Miscellaneous, News/Current Events and/or Your Opinions/Questions, as these are often catch-all categories and might have more of those articles that you find so disturbing. Once John Robinson gets done with the software, you can actually adjust your "preferences" so you only see the topics you want to see. Or, you can be inventive, and fix your browser's bookmarks, and achieve the same goal.
But the question that keeps coming to my mind is, if you find these articles and this one in particular so offensive, WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE? Are you one of those people who just likes to make themselves miserable, or what? Personally, I don't click on articles I know won't interest me.
Spoken like a true liberal. And probably in the same spirit--every time the liberals talk about "bipartisan cooperation" they mean, vote the way I do. In your case, your notion of "coming together" is for us to quit asking all those pesky questions about the discrepancies in the van Dam stories. (Plural on purpose--there have been so many...)
On a serious note, my post was focused on one issue. You've brought into it a lot more than I intended. not fair, but when is life fair when there are no rules. Gotta go...
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