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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."