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.
Clearing of memorial in Dehesa angers some mourners
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 By Kristen Green UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER March 5, 2002 DEHESA – Hundreds of people from east San Diego County have visited the Dehesa Road site where Danielle van Dam's body was found a week ago to grieve for the little girl. But Tuesday, instead of mourning, they vented. A carload of flower bouquets, stuffed animals, balloons, wreaths and pictures placed there in Danielle's memory were removed Monday by volunteers. "How dare they?" demanded Cindy Moore, a Spring Valley resident visiting the site Tuesday.
"They had no right to do this," echoed her mother, Rose Cady. Danielle's parents have said they prefer that people memorialize her at a San Diego neighborhood park near the Sabre Springs suburb where the 7-year-old girl lived, rather than the place where her body was found. But they didn't request the Dehesa memorial be cleared, a family spokeswoman said. A sign at the Dehesa site gave directions to the Sabre Springs park but said any memorials were appreciated. The family requested Tuesday in a written statement that flowers and stuffed animals be left where mourners drop them off. People who described themselves as volunteers said Monday they took it upon themselves to move the mementos to the minipark in the van Dams' neighborhood. "They didn't leave anything," said Connie Munzer, Moore's sister. "It's upsetting. It's not right." People have the right to grieve for Danielle where they want, Moore said. Sabre Springs is a long drive from east San Diego County, she said, and people want to memorialize the location in their community where Danielle was found. "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." Paula Griswold of El Cajon said people constructed their own memorials at the site of the Oklahoma City bombing and the McDonald's massacre in San Ysidro. "This is our Danielle van Dam memorial park," Griswold said. "As an East County resident, it's our way to grieve for her. Let us grieve." One woman, Linda Morgan, said she drove to the Dehesa site Monday from her job in El Cajon and saw volunteers loading stuffed animals and flowers into plastic bags. She decided to take home the bouquet she'd brought, stick it in the refrigerator overnight and come back a day later. "I know the parents don't want it left here but this is also part of her life," Morgan said. "This is where I want my stuff to be. To my heart, it just feels good here." As soon as the mementos were hauled away Monday, visitors began building a new memorial. On Tuesday, a dozen stuffed animals had been placed beneath the Dehesa oak where Danielle was found, along with bouquets of roses and a sunshine balloon. "As often as they come take things away," Moore said, "we will still come back and put more out." |
now that sounds a little occult-like...
I don't like that political situation happening while the trial is going forward. ~~groan~~
We'll probably never know what it is, kind of like the Jon Benet Ramsey case.
MKM
John Walsh: "Westerfield finally left the bar and that was the last Brenda saw of him that night. Brenda and her friends came back here to the house and her husband Damon got up and they ate pizza till about 2:30 in the morning and then the friends left. At that time Damon and Brenda went upstairs to bed thinking that they had closed up the house. About an hour later Damon woke up in his bedroom and he noticed a blinking alarm light. Now that meant one thing, a door was open somewhere"...
OK? So now we are at 3:30 am when he noticed the blinking light.
WOAH! Some pretty glaring inconsistancies, by DVD.
sw
Exactly. He is carrying her in view of houses on both sides of the street, then ACROSS the street to his house, where he is then in possible view of other neighbors.
I cannot get this clear in my head....he has allegedly kidnapped her from her room, possibly raped her in her room with no one hearing a sound. He then makes it through the house undetected, and out the door, then through a gate. Is she dead at this time? I would think the walking down the stairs, then outside to the cold air, would have awakened her (unless she is already deceased at this point).
Others have stated that he most likely remained until 0930 before leaving for the desert as he "didn't want to attract attention"...but what about the possible attention he was attracting waltzing through the neighborhood with his victim????
But how could he have known that the girl would not have been discovered missing until 0900? How could he not have thought that maybe the parents would have noticed earlier (3:30, 4, 5, 6, 7), and called the cops then, who would have started searching neighborhood houses earlier while he was still there, his victim in the RV for cops to find? Criminals (not that I know) usually want to get away from a scene, not hang around and risk detection.
Mother's are wise like that.
sw
Most people sre in bed and sleeping by midnight, and I would guess that the abduction took place even later than that. Who would be up to see him?
Not only that, but he didn't have very far to go anyway.
But what gives us the idea the child was killed right away? Going with the Westerfield scenerio....Maybe she was still alive and either in his house or Motor home that morning before he left at 9:30am?
Maybe if the search was started before 9:30 am, the little girl would have been found alive? I just shudder to think about this.
And maybe, just maybe they should have issued an APB to pick Westerfield up, as he was their prime suspect BECAUSE he was the only person around there that was gone when she was reported missing.
But the SDPD says they may NEVER know how she died or when she died, so unless the perp gives a confession, we are stumped.
sw
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