Westerfield On Trial (WEEK 1 Recap): Brenda Van Dam, Dad's Bar

KGTV 10 News-San Diego ^ | June 7, 2002 | KGTV

[Karson]

I remember it very clearly.

Could you direct me to the website of the TV or radio station that had that interview with them? I'd like to listen to it again but can't find it. :-(

[Southflanknorthpawsis]

Oh my goodness.....I haven't a clue where I heard it. Because I live in San Diego County, I heard many interviews, many times.

It might be worth a try to look at SanDiegoChannel.com where they have numerous short video clips that are identified and dated on a menu. Maybe it is on one of those.

[Uni-Poster]

This has probably already been posted on this thread but I thought I'd post it anyway. Here's a clip from a Feb 8th article on Entertainment Tonight's website. Look at the last paragraph

"It's a heartbreaking case, I think every parent's worst nightmare -- your little seven-year-old daughter taken out of your home in the middle of the night," AMW host JOHN WALSH told ET.

"So far we're all at a dead end. A neighbor was a suspect. Police haven't completely eliminated him as a suspect, but they're not holding him right now. And the heartbreaking thing is the not knowing -- it's almost been a week."

Danielle was last seen on Friday night by her father, DAMON VAN DAM. He had put her to bed at approximately 10 p.m. in her bedroom on the second floor of their suburban family home. She was discovered missing Saturday morning when her mother, BRENDA, went to wake her and found her gone. Police are treating Danielle's disappearance as a kidnapping.

"In other cases like the JonBenet Ramsey case," says Walsh, "the parents didn't cooperate with police and didn't go in for polygraphs. That always creates innuendo and speculation. Danielle's parents have gone through hell. They've cooperated with the police from the beginning. They both passed polygraph tests. They're not suspects."

Brenda van Dam said she does not believe her daughter could have run away. And since the family is not wealthy, she does not think that anyone would have taken her daughter for ransom. Walsh believes the police need to look in the van Dams' own backyard.

"Right in [the van Dams'] wonderful middle-class neighborhood, where everybody thinks they're so safe, there are 13 registered sex offenders. The cops've got a lot of work to do -- they've got to check out every one of these sex offenders."

Danielle is described as four-feet tall, weighing 58 pounds with blue eyes and dark blonde hair. She may be wearing blue pajamas with small flowers.

[John Jamieson]

28th probably means less than one in hundred. Two of them is one in Ten thousand, matching his name is one in one million. I think that is hard to ignore.

[John Jamieson]

"They both passed polygraph tests."

Kinda hard to believe with all the lies they have been caught in since.

[sbnsd]

"They both passed polygraph tests." Kinda hard to believe with all the lies they have been caught in since.

Does anyone know if any of the 4 guests that evening took the polygraph tests?

[RnMomof7]

..BVD said there were decals on all three kids doors??

Visible in the dark??

[RnMomof7]

Update on pics. It was the mother's camera and a pool party(not adult) at DW's. The mother e-mailed him the pics to print.

Would you send that info to the pro fornication /adultery commentatior on Court TV ..She mad a BIG deal out of that pic.......with ohhhhhhhsssss and ahhhhhhhhhsssss how discusting it was

[spectre]

"Feldman is going to try to show that Danielle died after the police were already trailing Westerfield. That's going to be hard to do if she died at home".

My take on it, is that Feldman is going to try and prove that Danielle's BODY was deposited after Westerfield was under 24 hour surveillance {right after he got back from his camping trip} and could not have dumped her body where it was found...IF the "Bug expert, Dr. Faulkner" can pinpoint precisely how long the body was in the desert OR that it was kept else-where before it was actually found.

Steven Feldman says he can and will prove this.

sw

[MizSterious]

Preliminary hearing transcripts

I'm sorry, I don't have official transcripts for the trial yet, but often you can find "running transcripts" (someone is typing in what they're hearing) here. Hope this helps?

[MizSterious]

Folks, be sure to check the preliminary hearing transcripts. Lots of info there, including the blood on the stairway (or was it stair well?) and the drag marks. Do a word search on each day, as I don't recall which day these references occurred. If you search on "drag" I think you'll also find a place where the searchers found drag marks near the child's body.

[MizSterious]

You are correct, Jaded, about no one reporting anything strange. This is despite a false claim by John Walsh on one of his shows that he'd molested his own two children. A fellow on Jameson's website is his brother in law, and says he has lived with Westerfield at times, and seen nothing at all. The man seems to have no history of prurient interests in children. He didn't seem to avoid them--he has two of his own--nor did he seem overly interested in them. If he did this horrible thing, it came up all of the sudden out of nowhere.

[RnMomof7]

I only found one reference and that was Brenda being asked if her husband had to drag her,or if he could carry her ...I think that is also a point for DW..he obviously would not need to drag her anymord than her father

[MizSterious]

"...daddy had no problem closing off her room in case they needed evidence...he knew it wasn't there.."

Except, perhaps, a pair of undies stuffed in the dresser drawer, as described by the PH transcripts. From these, they gathered some of her dna from "yellowish stains".

[MizSterious]

And consicer, also, Rheo, that in the trial this week, Feldman brought up the likelihood that the vDs had their own collection of porn--could some of it have been kiddie porn? The question was immediately objected to and sustained, but perhaps we'll learn more when the prosecution's "porn experts" are on the stand.

I bring this up primarily because of your questions about them not dusting the zip disks for fingerprints. Maybe, at that point, they didn't want to know. Maybe the zip disks were "presents" from the nice neighbors from a couple doors down, and the PD wouldn't want to share the fingerprint evidence with Feldman at that point. It could, after all, blow a few holes in their case, which depended heavily on "all that" child porn.

[MizSterious]

"Did we ever hear anything else about a wiretap and phone call on 2-16-02?"

Do you recall who was on the stand? I can try to look it up. I was watching Court TV too. (They're just maddening sometimes, aren't they!)

[MizSterious]

Thank you, Uni-poster--I keep finding the "blue eyes" description in all the posters, etc. that have been archived. Yet Brenda says green in that 911 call??

[MizSterious]

SW directed me to the Larry King Live transcripts, where she had found this little gem from February 6th. It's an interview with both parents. I'll just post this one snippet, but the rest can be found HERE.

D. VAN DAM: Yes, I totally understand. And we've done everything we can. We opened up our home to the police. We asked them to come in. It was frustrating at the beginning for them to start the investigation, however, because of course this started off as a missing person -- she walked away.

Isn't this an odd thing to say, when you're claiming the child was kidnapped?

[RnMomof7]

Indeed...Is someone sending this stuff to DW's attorney?

[MizSterious]

Certainly not me--and I'll betya that Feldman and crew already have covered the same ground we have, probably some time ago. For one thing, they were able to work unimpeded by flame wars. :)