Posted on 03/31/2002 1:52:12 PM PST by FresnoDA
Account set up for Danielle's search still has about $24,000
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Thanks.
FDA probably has the original posts.
It goes into how the PD investigated a child murder and the things they did right and wrong , conclusion is once they locked on to a theory they looked for facts to back it up instead of finding facts then a theory...by the way their sons were taken away from them immediately...
At the police station, the Crowes were not allowed to see or talk with one another. Each of the five family members was taken into a room and ordered to undress, one piece of clothing at a time, until they were naked. They were photographed at each stage.
This is standard procedure. Detectives were looking for scratches, cuts, marks of any kind that could have been caused by either a knife or a struggling victim. They found none.
Police confiscated the family's clothes for further testing and took blood, hair and fingernail samples.
Steve Crowe resisted but was told he could either allow himself to be photographed then and there or wait, perhaps for days, in a cell while a court order was obtained. He submitted to the camera.
It is a tale of tragedy and loss, of mindsets shattered and decisions made in the quest for justice and their consequences.
Michael and Cheryl Crowe reported hearing pounding in the night, but neither got up to investigate. When police walked the perimeter, they found no broken doors or windows. A couple of window screens were bent, but in place. Dust, cobwebs and other debris indicated the screens had not been moved.
Detectives initially believed all the windows and doors were locked. Family members told them Stephanie's grandmother had a habit of making sure the house was secure before going to bed.
Later, though, there would be confusion about just what was locked. Steve Crowe was in and out of various doors that panic-fueled morning before the police arrived.
Everyone agrees now that at least two entryways were unlocked: Stephanie's bedroom window and a sliding glass door from the parents' bedroom to the back yard. But police considered it unlikely that someone would have entered through either.
The screen on Stephanie's window was one of those that was bent but appeared undisturbed; it had been pulled out in the bottom left corner and the window left unlocked so a phone line could be run into her room.
To get into the parents' bedroom from outside, someone would have had to open a sliding screen door, which police did find partly open; then open the sliding glass door, which was found closed; and then get past plastic vertical blinds, which also were found closed. Steve and Cheryl Crowe, sleeping just feet away, said they heard nothing.
Cheryl Crowe told police she remembered hearing her bedroom door push open a couple of times that night -- not the glass slider, but the door at the other end of the room, leading to the hallway. She thought it was one of the family's two cats.
All this suggested to Claytor that the killing was an inside job.
No one was surprised by that theory. Most domestic murders are committed by someone known to the victim. The FBI, in fact, trains law enforcers that, when a child is killed in the home, the parents are the first suspects.
If the parents can be ruled out, move next to siblings and others living in the house. Then move to those who had frequent access to the child, a baby-sitter, for example, and then to friends and business associates of the parents.
The final option, under the FBI's protocol, is to look at strangers.
Police investigators the world over follow this line of thinking. Detectives looked first at Steve Crowe, wondering whether maybe he was molesting his daughter and killed her to keep her quiet.
But they also wondered about Michael Crowe.
Family members had been ushered into the living room and told not to talk to each other -- standard police procedure to guard against witnesses' sharing information and contaminating the investigation.
Although the first officer at the scene reported that the Crowes "all appeared to be very upset," others found the 14-year-old boy curiously unemotional.
Claytor would testify that while the rest of the Crowes sat close together on the couch Michael played a hand-held video game. The family disputes this.
Claytor also learned that Michael had been overheard saying he got up in the early morning, about 4:30, and went to the kitchen to take a painkiller. He said he had a headache.
Michael's bedroom was directly across the hallway from Stephanie's. How, the detective wondered, could the teen have left his room and not seen his sister's bloody corpse in her doorway?
sw
I apologize if I missed someone posting the specifics on this, but I'd be very interested in the breakdown of exactly how many "child molesters" were really nearby. Here in Florida, we have sexual offenders listed on the computer, and I've checked the records a few times, for the 2 locations where the kids in my family used to live, plus where they live now, plus where their grandmother lives. The vast majority are NOT any sort of child molester. The records encompass pretty much any sort of crime involving sex in some way, including many crimes which have nothing to do with kids.
In tearful testimony, she told of the panic she felt after waking up the next morning, going downstairs to make breakfast and then going back upstairs to wake her daughter and finding her gone from her pink-and-purple bedroom.
Danielle's bedroom door was open, she said, and she was asked what she saw inside.
She became frantic, she said, searching every room, looking under beds, calling her name. Her husband, Damon van Dam, began searching for Danielle outside.
"I went outside and looked in the Jacuzzi and places you never want to look," she said, "and then I called 911."
A uniformed police officer arrived and asked her, Damon and their two boys to leave the house until investigators arrived, Brenda van Dam testified.
"Before I knew it, it was total chaos," she said. "There were lots of people on the street looking for Danielle. One of our neighbors made missing-child posters.
"We weren't allowed back in by the Police Department because they were searching for evidence."
Police believe girl was abducted
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The house-to-house search was mostly concluded by 10 p.m.
San Diego police continued to interview Danielle van Dam's parents, relatives and friends yesterday. They talked to Danielle's teachers and read a journal she kept in class at Creekside Elementary School in Sabre Springs.
Assistant Police Chief Steve Creighton said officers working nonstop on the disappearance have developed a number of leads, but he would not elaborate.
"We have dedicated 24 hours a day on this case, and we are pulling in more officers and detectives," Creighton said.
Lt. Jim Collins said investigators believe Danielle was kidnapped late Friday or early Saturday by a stranger, but officials declined to provide details.
Danielle's parents yesterday tearfully begged for their daughter's return.
As Brenda van Dam held up a pair of flowered blue pajamas identical to those Danielle was wearing when she went to bed Friday night, Damon van Dam said his family's hearts "ached for this very special girl."
Brenda van Dam said she did not think any parent could describe the feeling that comes "when you get up one morning and go into your daughter's room and she's not there."
Police called for the dog-aided search of the neighborhood after consulting the FBI, which has joined the investigation.
"It is a daunting task," said Lt. Bill Nelson, supervisor of the San Diego police canine unit.
Michael Ebert, a lawyer in the appellate division of the San Diego County District Attorney's Office and an expert in search-and-seizure issues, said forcing residents to submit to a search of their homes may cross constitutional boundaries.
Police said they hoped residents would let them in voluntarily. Ebert said officers would need to obtain search warrants for those who balk.
It was unclear last night whether any residents refused to allow the search.
Ebert said that if neighbors did not let police search their homes, that fact cannot be held against them when police seek a warrant. Police can search a home without a warrant if they have probable cause to believe that someone inside the home is in immediate danger.
Officers said the house-to-house searches involved dogs from the sheriff's and police departments.
One officer conceded the dog search may be "grasping at straws," but said everything must be done to find the girl.
David Westerfield, a friend of the van Dam family who lives a few doors down, said his house was one of the first police dogs searched.
Westerfield said he was with Danielle's mother and two of her friends Friday night. Brenda van Dam was with the friends at Dad's, a Poway restaurant, when Westerfield said he happened to see them.
Brenda van Dam and the others left about 2 a.m. Saturday and returned to the van Dam home, where Damon van Dam was watching the children, and the group ordered pizza, police said. (NOT TRUE!! It was left over)
Brenda van Dam said she and her husband noticed lights blinking on their burglar alarm panel and found a sliding glass door and side garage door open. The alarm had not been activated, but the panel indicates when doors and windows are opened and closed.
After the gathering broke up about 3 a.m., the couple went to bed. The family did not realize Danielle was missing until the next morning, police said. (Wait, the VD's said everyone left around 3:30???)
Yesterday, friends streamed into the van Dam home to offer support, as a half-dozen television trucks were parked outside.
Paul Hung, who lives three doors west of the van Dams on Mountain Pass Road, said the mystery has unsettled everyone in Sabre Springs, a San Diego neighborhood east of Interstate 15 near Poway.
"It's a nightmare, and it makes us nervous," said Hung, who has two children ages 15 and 17. "Even though my kids are older, they don't feel safe now that this has happened in our neighborhood."
Late last night a police command-post van and a Red Cross van, whose crew served coffee to the officers, remained parked about a block from the van Dam residence after the canine officers concluded their search effort.
The disappearance has affected neighborhoods beyond Sabre Springs. Tina Assi, who lives in Rancho Peñasquitos, said she double-checked to make sure all her doors and windows were locked after hearing of Danielle's disappearance.
Assi said she had yet to talk to her two children, ages 5 and 8, about the missing girl.
"I don't know if I will, because I don't know if I want to upset them," said Assi, who was shopping with her younger child in a Poway Road shopping center.
At Danielle's elementary school, where a patrol car was parked most of the day, security had been increased. Children were hustled into classrooms upon arrival, instead of being allowed on the playground.
The van Dam family is urging residents to visit a Web site set up to aid the search. The address is http://daniellemissing.tripod.com, and it contains a picture and a description of Danielle.
http://search.about.com/fullsearch.htm?terms=Danielle%20Van%20Dam
If that link doesn't work, try here
http://crime.about.com/library/blfiles/bldaniellevandam.htm?terms=Danielle+Van+Dam..watch out for the pop up ads about.com is famous for.
I thought you might be interested in this. Have you heard if their profile has been released yet?
http://video.uniontrib.com/news/metro/danielle/20020215-9999_7m15girl.html
'We are making progress,' assistant police chief says By Joe Hughes UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER February 15, 2002 In the strongest comments yet about the Danielle van Dam investigation, a high-ranking San Diego police official said yesterday he was confident the case would soon be solved.
"We will solve this case sooner rather than later," Assistant Chief Steve Creighton said. "We have a ton of evidence that we are meticulously going over. We are making progress."
Creighton said the FBI, the state Department of Justice and other agencies are helping police in the investigation. About 60 police employees are working on the case, and a profile of the abductor has been developed.
"We have a very good idea of the psychological makeup of the type of person who would take a child out of its own bedroom under these circumstances," Creighton said.
Creighton said the case has become a priority for Chief David Bejarano, who is being briefed twice daily.
"We are doing this case methodically and by the book," Creighton said.
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After Danielle van Dam was abducted from her Sabre Springs home, neighbors, friends and even strangers volunteered to help out. Some put up fliers in storefronts around the county, and others joined the search party. But many also opened their checkbooks. 