Police Identify Body as Missing Calif. Girl

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - The badly decomposed body of a young girl found in a rural area outside San Diego was identified on Thursday as that of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam, who was snatched from her bed in a quiet suburb nearly a month ago and became the subject of a massive search.

"(The coroner) has confirmed that the body of a little girl found yesterday is in fact the body of Danielle van Dam," San Diego District Attorney Paul Pfingst said.

Pfingst said the girl's badly decomposed body was identified after a four-hour autopsy largely through dental records. He said the condition of the body made it impossible to determine the cause of death. He refused comment on whether the girl was sexually assaulted.

"I know there is an enormous amount of interest as to whether or not this little girl was sexually assaulted before her death but ... I am not going to speculate about that in the absence of evidence. It wouldn't be fair to her family and it would just be ... guess work, and I don't want to do that. This is a sad day for a lot of people and I don't want to engender speculation that would make it even sadder."

San Diego Police Chief David Bejarano met with grieving parents Damon and Brenda van Dam to tell them the news, which had been expected since Wednesday when the body was discovered on a roadside by volunteer searchers.

The body was quickly suspected to be Danielle's because the child was wearing a distinctive black plastic necklace favored by the blond, blue-eyed girl and had a Mickey Mouse earring that Danielle had been wearing before disappearing from her bedroom in the middle of the night.

Susan Wintersteen, a family friend, said van Dams were "going through unspeakable pain and loss right now".

But Wintersteen, interviewed on Thursday morning television news shows, said the discovery of the body "has provided them with the closure that they so desired. Not knowing would probably be worse."

The body was found one day after David Westerfield, a 50-year-old neighbor of the van Dam's, pleaded innocent to the girl's kidnapping and murder and to possession of child pornography.

Westerfield was arrested after DNA tests showed traces of Danielle's blood on his clothing and in his motor home. He was charged with her murder despite the fact that her body had not been found at the time.

Danielle's parents discovered her missing on the morning of Feb. 2. Police believe she was abducted from her bedroom sometime after her father put her to bed the previous night.

The van Dams, who also have two young sons, had clung for weeks to the hope that their daughter might be found alive, despite the fact that no sightings of her had been reported, and had set up a Web site urging the public to search for her.

The Web site on Thursday bore a photo of Danielle and a poignant message in her memory. "You're in the arms of the Angel, May you find some comfort there," said the inscription, quoting singer Sarah McLachlan.

Investigators had hoped the autopsy would establish the cause of death, but said the decomposition had so far prevented that, although further tests were still expected.

The possible motive for the crime remained unclear along with the means by which Danielle's kidnapper could have entered her home, found her second floor bedroom and abducted her without anyone noticing.

Westerfield, who lives two doors away from the van Dams, was a prime suspect in the case from early on, in part because he took a trip to the desert the day after she vanished and cleaned his motorhome thoroughly upon returning.

The self-employed design engineer told reporters he saw Brenda van Dam at a bar and said he danced with her the night her daughter disappeared.

What is Occam's Razor?

Occam's (or Ockham's) razor is a principle attributed to the 14th century logician and Franciscan friar; William of Occam. Ockham was the village in the English county of Surrey where he was born.

The principle states that "Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily." Sometimes it is quoted in one of its original Latin forms to give it an air of authenticity.

"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate" "Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora" "Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem"

In fact, only the first two of these forms appear in his surviving works and the third was written by a later scholar. William used the principle to justify many conclusions including the statement that "God's existence can not be deduced by reason alone." That one didn't make him very popular with the Pope.

Many scientists have adopted or reinvented Occam's Razor as in Leibniz' "identity of observables" and Isaac Newton stated the rule: "We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances."

The most useful statement of the principle for scientists is,

"when you have two competing theories which make exactly the same predictions, the one that is simpler is the better."

In physics we use the razor to cut away metaphysical concepts. The canonical example is Einstein's theory of special relativity compared with Lorentz's theory that ruler's contract and clocks slow down when in motion through the Ether. Einstein's equations for transforming space-time are the same as Lorentz's equations for transforming rulers and clocks, but Einstein and Poincaré recognised that the Ether could not be detected according to the equations of Lorentz and Maxwell. By Occam's razor it had to be eliminated.

The principle has also been used to justify uncertainty in quantum mechanics. Heisenberg deduced his uncertainty principle from the quantum nature of light and the effect of measurement.

Stephen Hawking explains in A Brief History of Time: "We could still imagine that there is a set of laws that determines events completely for some supernatural being, who could observe the present state of the universe without disturbing it. However, such models of the universe are not of much interest to us mortals. It seems better to employ the principle known as Occam's razor and cut out all the features of the theory which cannot be observed."

But uncertainty and the non-existence of the ether can not be deduced from Occam's Razor alone. It can separate two theories which make the same predictions but does not rule out other theories which might make a different prediction. Empirical evidence is also required and Occam himself argued for empiricism, not against it.

Ernst Mach advocated a version of Occam's razor which he called the Principle of Economy, stating that "Scientists must use the simplest means of arriving at their results and exclude everything not perceived by the senses." Taken to its logical conclusion this philosophy becomes positivism; the belief that there is no difference between something that exists but is not observable and something that doesn't exist at all. Mach influenced Einstein when he argued that space and time are not absolute but he also applied positivism to molecules. Mach and his followers claimed that molecules were metaphysical because they were too small to detect directly. This was despite the success the molecular theory had in explaining chemical reactions and thermodynamics. It is ironic that while applying the principle of economy to throw out the concept of the ether and an absolute rest frame, Einstein published almost simultaneously a paper on Brownian motion which confirmed the reality of molecules and thus dealt a blow against the use of positivism. The moral of this story is that Occam's razor should not be wielded blindly. As Einstein put it in his Autobiographical notes

"This is an interesting example of the fact that even scholars of audacious spirit and fine instinct can be obstructed in the interpretation of facts by philosophical prejudices."

Occam's razor is often cited in stronger forms than Occam intended, as in the following statements...

"If you have two theories which both explain the observed facts then you should use the simplest until more evidence comes along"

"The simplest explanation for some phenomenon is more likely to be accurate than more complicated explanations."

"If you have two equally likely solutions to a problem, pick the simplest."

"The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct."

... or in the only form which takes its own advice... "Keep things simple!"

Notice how the principle has strengthened in these forms which should be more correctly called the law of parsimony, or the rule of simplicity. To begin with we used Occam's razor to separate theories which would predict the same result for all experiments. Now we are trying to choose between theories which make different predictions. This is not what Occam intended. Should we not test those predictions instead? Obviously we should eventually, but suppose we are at an early stage and are not yet ready to do the experiments. We are just looking for guidance in developing a theory.

This principle goes back at least as far as Aristotle who wrote "Nature operates in the shortest way possible." Aristotle went too far in believing that experiment and observation were unnecessary. The principle of simplicity works as a heuristic rule-of-thumb but some people quote it as if it is an axiom of physics. It is not. It can work well in philosophy or particle physics, but less often so in cosmology or psychology, where things usually turn out to be more complicated than you ever expected. Perhaps a quote from Shakespeare would be more appropriate than Occam's razor: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.".

Simplicity is subjective and the universe does not always have the same ideas about simplicity as we do. Successful theorists often speak of symmetry and beauty as well as simplicity. in 1939 Paul Dirac wrote,

"The research worker, in his effort to express the fundamental laws of Nature in mathematical form should strive mainly for mathematical beauty. It often happens that the requirements of simplicity and beauty are the same, but where they clash the latter must take precedence"

The law of parsimony is no substitute for insight, logic and the scientific method. It should never be relied upon to make or defend a conclusion. As arbiters of correctness only logical consistency and empirical evidence are absolute. Dirac was very successful with his method. He constructed the relativistic field equation for the electron and used it to predict the positron. But he was not suggesting that physics should be based on mathematical beauty alone. He fully appreciated the need for experimental verification.

The final word falls to Einstein, himself a master of the quotable one liner. He warned,

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."

References:

W. M. Thorburn, "Occam's razor," Mind, 24, pp. 287-288, 1915.

W. M. Thorburn, "The Myth of Occam's razor," Mind, 27, pp. 345-353, 1918.

Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time.

Albert Einstein, Autobiographical notes

Isaac Newton, Principia: The system of the world

Hey Pappy, I am assuming that you have kids, probably grown with kids of their own by now. I have two, both boys, a seven year-old and a two year-old.

I know how I would feel if I thought that anything I had done had caused this to happen to one of my boys. But then again, things like this happen to even the most careful parents.

Think back over your life, raising your kids, and tell me that you do not find a situation where you did something that would have made you see yourself as less than a responsible parent, if anything of this sort had happened to one of your kids as a result.

Maybe that time when you HAD to run out of the house for a few minutes to get something at the store and had to leave the kids alone sleeping, or when one or the other wandered off in a mall.

Of course, I have no idea that you did either one of those things, just put them up there for their illustrative value.

I had my little one open the door to the garage once, and go looking for mommy (who had run to the store for a minute to get milk and diapers and left the garage door up to make her return easier) when he was barely able to walk, and walk out to the street. It was a few minutes before I realized that I didn't hear him playing in the family room, then I hit the panic button. It only took me a minute to find him, I was near tears when I looked out the window and saw him by the mailbox in his PJ's, but it felt like an eternity. And I felt like the world's worst father.

Now, outside of an alleged anonymous phone call to a radio station, there has been zero reports of the sort of activity that you described come over the wire, zero, nothing. Not one single, solitary person has come up to the dozens of reporters following the story to comment about "those damned van Dams". Not one neighbor, not one co-worker, no one.

That includes the host of "perverts" that the van Dams allegedly had all this sex with.

That bothers me. You would have thought that by now, and with all the publicity generated by this story, at least ONE sick f#%k would have wanted to cash in on his "I screwed Brenda van Dam" story, and sold it to some real upstanding publication like the National Enquirer or something.

It's been over three weeks now and nothing.

The next thing that bothers me is the phone call to the DJ.

I know police officers, I know police detectives. I have discussed this with them.

There's no way that a "highly placed law enforcement official", as Rick Roberts markets his source, would have called a radio station and released information on a sensitive, ongoing investigation like this, not since JonBennett. It makes no sense to do that.

If I wanted to play the kind of guessing games that I have seen played in FR about this story, I would guess that the discjockey's "informant" is none other than Westerfield himself.

Having said all that, even if they had in fact been in the garage "entertaining", it doesn't make them in any way guilty of anything, including negligence.

One hundred percent of the guilt here rests squarely on the shoulders of the perpetrator.

Luis

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