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.
Now, if the crowd were all locked up in the "garage party", then the perp could have just walked in and up the stairs and out the front door. All kinds of theories in this case :~)
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SABRE SPRINGS ---- Nearly 2,500 people attended an emotionally charged candlelight vigil for Danielle van Dam on Monday night.
The vigil followed an interview earlier in the day during which Danielle's parents, Brenda and Damon van Dam, spoke candidly about their sadness and concern for their other two children for the first time since the 7-year-old girl's body was found by searchers on Feb. 27.
 Jamie Scott Lytle Staff Photographer |
| Ten-year-old Nicole Wittak of Rancho Penasquitos looks to the sky during a candlelight vigil held for Danielle van Dam on Monday evening at the Carmel Mountain Ranch/Sabre Springs Recreation Center. About 1,000 mourners showed up at the vigil that Clearstation radio stations sponsored. |
"This whole community and all of San Diego has come together," said Brenda van Dam, 39, during an interview with a local television station. "Love has conquered evil."
That evil has turned the van Dam's lives upside down since Danielle was last seen by her father, Damon van Dam, 36, when he tucked her into bed on the night of Feb. 1.
The body of the Creekside Elementary School second-grader was found after an exhausting monthlong search by law enforcement authorities and thousands of volunteer searchers in a roadside dumpsite in Dehesa.
A cause of death has yet to be determined. Danielle's neighbor, David Westerfield, 50, has been charged with kidnapping and killing her. Westerfield, who lives two houses away from the van Dams, has pleaded not guilty. He will appear in a San Diego superior court again on March 11 for a preliminary hearing.
"It was not easy," Brenda van Dam said Monday. "I couldn't look at (Westerfield's) house when I drove by."
Danielle's mother said she was too dignified to go over to Westerfield's two-story house to express her anger while he was under 24-hour surveillance by police and the media.
"Out of dignity, I wasn't going to stoop to that level," she said. "(But) we want our boys to know we are not going to sit by and watch someone walk away with one of our children. We are going to fight for that."
The van Dams said their sons, Derek, 9, and Dylan, 5, have been sleeping with them since Danielle disappeared. Derek has asked his parents to make sure the security alarm is turned on at night, they said.
The van Dams said they have told the boys that the person believed responsible for Danielle's death is locked away behind bars. "That made them feel a little better," Brenda van Dam said. "As far as reassuring them for a lifetime, I don't know."
Brenda and Damon van Dam said they talk to their boys daily to offer them security and comfort.
The parents refused to directly address rumors about their lifestyle, saying the focus should remain on Danielle.
"I think anyone who knows us, knows us," Brenda van Dam said. "(The rumors) did hurt me as a mother."
Brenda van Dam also refused to comment about her evening out at Dad's Cafe and Steak House on the night Danielle disappeared. A bartender at the popular Poway establishment said Brenda van Dam and Westerfield had socialized that evening. Westerfield, the bartender said, left at 10 p.m., while Brenda van Dam stayed with friends until the bar closed at 2:30 a.m.
The couple on Monday offered their sincere gratitude to thousands of searchers who spent nearly a month scouring desert moonscapes, gullies, canyons, valleys and mountains looking for the little girl.
"For anyone who has helped, thank you 1,000 times," Damon van Dam said.
Damon van Dam also gave advice to other parents.
"This can happen to you," he said. "Hopefully one person watching this thinks twice about the security of their children. And if that saves a child's life, then that would be a great thing."
Later Monday evening, thousands of tiny purple candles flickered against the early evening darkness at Carmel Mountain Ranch Community Park during a candlelight vigil held in Danielle's honor. The event was organized by 11 local radio stations.
About 1,000 people trampled across the thick grass to spell Danielle's name in candlelight. Hundreds more signed a huge billboard banner that read: "Keep Our Kids Safe."
"God bless you Danielle. Your life was taken but you are in heaven," wrote Erica Lohrenz.
"Foot steps of Angels watch over our children," another person wrote.
Fingerprint and photo identification kits were available to families, while event organizers showed profiles of nearly 20 other missing children in San Diego County.
"We are here to make sure our kids stay safe," said Scott Hanks of Rancho Bernardo. "This wasn't a normal abduction. In this case, the boogeyman came in the room and took (Danielle)."
Hanks said the van Dam case has made him more vigilant and protective of his 6-month-old son Joshua.
The parents refused to directly address rumors about their lifestyle, saying the focus should remain on Danielle.
"I think anyone who knows us, knows us," Brenda van Dam said. "(The rumors) did hurt me as a mother."
Westerfield, the bartender said, left at 10 p.m., while Brenda van Dam stayed with friends until the bar closed at 2:30 a.m.
Another time line emerges, now BVD does not leave the bar until 2:30 A.M.
Uhm, you mean like yours (someone reading an Internet thread at 2:53 A.M.????)
LOL
Oh, you know it's just those pesky news people again, it can't be that the saintly van Dams are being untruthful. Why, they're just poor, innocent, mourning parents, just like Mr & Mrs Cleaver. (Sarcasm mode: off.)
This may be about HAVING to take the chance, and not about "wanting" to take the chance.
"Unless he is skirting the buildings and keeping in the shadows away from the street light."
There's a shot of the streets where the van Dam's live on post #3, I don't see any street lights there.
One needs a PR person, when ones
actions
activities
and accomplices cast doubt on the veracity of ones "alibi". IMHO
It appears to me he's showing a bit of regret over the security issue. What say you?
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