Interesting article, just 2 days after the disappearance......
No clues in disappearance
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Posted on 03/22/2002 9:04:21 AM PST by FresnoDA
I can understand that maybe Damon wanted to feel like he was actively doing something to aid in the search of his daughter - I'd probably go sort of stir crazy in that situation - I'd want to phisically participate in searches, I'm sure - but why go all the way out toward Glamis when there was a much more meaningful search going on nearer Poway at the time? I'd probably join the one the police were hopeful about - not the one they advised me against. Unless...It was really an excuse to get away for a while - away from it all, so to speak - maybe smoke a doobie with my buddy on the way? I can't imagine I'd want to do that though - if I had any hope left that my kid was alive somewhere out there...Hmmmn...just thinking out loud.
No clues in disappearance
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Can you direct me to the news article where it says they are members of that club? Or do they have a published memebre list? I aplogize for not paying attention to that little detail earlier..I thought the original source was RR..
Anxiety, worries grip missing girl's parents
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 LENNY IGNELZI / Associated Press Danielle van Dam's bedroom, from which police believe she was abducted. |
Two San Diego police detectives talked again with David Westerfield, a 49-year-old engineer who lives down the street from the van Dams and whom police consider a suspect in the girl's disappearance. Detectives have searched Westerfield's house twice. On Tuesday, they removed 13 bags of property, seized two vehicles and took Westerfield on a tour of the desert where he said he spent the weekend. The detectives spent about 40 minutes in Westerfield's house last night.
Earlier in the day, Westerfield declined an interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune. "I have been up 60 to 70 hours and really don't want to comment right now," he said.
San Diego police and officers with the Bureau of Land Management in El Centro began searching areas in Imperial County, a bureau spokesman said. He would not say what officers are searching for or where precisely they are searching.
Detectives today plan to retrace Westerfield's movements to reconcile conflicting statements regarding his whereabouts following Danielle's disappearance, an investigator said.
Police continue to investigate more than 100 tips from the public. "We've got a number of very good leads and we're pursuing those aggressively," said San Diego Assistant Chief Steve Creighton.
For the first time, the van Dams commented on Westerfield. They said Westerfield is an acquaintance.
"We didn't know him very well," Damon van Dam said. "Just to wave and say hello."
Westerfield had earlier told the Union-Tribune that he encountered Brenda van Dam and two of her girlfriends at a popular Poway bar and restaurant Friday night. He said he danced with Brenda van Dam and had a few drinks before leaving alone before midnight.
A neighbor of the van Dams said that in the frantic moments after discovering Danielle missing, Damon van Dam suggested she may have wandered away while sleepwalking.
Dave McNally, who moved in next door to the van Dams last Thursday, said he met the van Dams when they came over to introduce themselves Friday night.
"Danielle was with them; she was selling Girl Scout cookies," McNally said.
On Saturday morning, Damon van Dam returned to his neighbor's house in a frantic state. "He wanted to see if Danielle was in our house because he feared she may have opened a door and walked out while sleepwalking," McNally said.
Police would not comment on the possibility Danielle had sleep-walked from her house. A search of more than 200 homes and the canyons surrounding them has been unsuccessful.
The nonprofit Millennium Children's Fund has offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to Danielle's safe return. The child-advocacy group is based in Beverly Hills.
Douglas Pierce, who works with the fund, spent an hour in the house with the family yesterday.
"I visited Danielle's room and it was very emotional, very overwhelming," Pierce said. "There were all her favorite things waiting for her."
The room is painted in Danielle's favorite colors, pink with purple trim. Alongside Danielle's bed was her favorite toy, a giant green frog that she hugged at night. A Barbie doll sat near a collection of stuffed toys. A journal was open to the last entry, penned last week about good will, Pierce said.
On a wall in the house is a map of the United States bristling with pins in cities where volunteers have agreed to distribute fliers with Danielle's photo. Coordinating the search, the van Dams said, has helped them cope with the stress and horror of their daughter's disappearance.
"We're calling everybody we know and asking them to call everybody they know," Damon van Dam said. "We need to get fliers at every highway rest stop in the nation."
Two representatives from the Laura Recovery Center Foundation, based in Texas, arrived yesterday to coordinate a volunteer search for Danielle.
"We will set up a command post for neighborhood volunteers to do grid searches," coordinator Dawn Davis said.
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About the PR people - If one were to hire them and pay for thier services - about how much would that cost? Pretty much I reckon - and a civil attorny as well? What a huge waste of money if you don't have something to hide - IMO.
"Bumped in a big way, media manipulation"
Posted by ITK on Mar-06-02 at 12:27 PM (EST)
I work in the media and this is what I know.
I know on the night of the taping of America's Most Wanted that John Walsh and
Sarah of The Van Dam's PR firm got into such a screaming cursing match that it
could be heard from inside the Van Dams house all the way to the street. Sarah
(PR) was yelling curse words at Walsh and wagging her finger in his face. She was
saying things like "WALSH...YOU BETTER NOT F'n SHARE THIS WITH ANY OTHER
MEDIA."
I know through a personal phone conversation that John Walsh has had it with the
Van Dam family, and admits it might not be the best place for the other 2 kids.
I know Mark Klass knew of the allegations of swinging and wifeswapping through
several sources including The Rick Roberts Show and continued to help the family.
I know on the end of the NBC 739 tape DVD leans in to tell the interviewer, after
he thinks the camera is off..."hey, we just want you to know you guys are the
best. You (the interviewer) stayed right with what we wanted to talk about, just
the volunteer stuff...you stayed right on topic, and thank you." Then he looks up
and sees the camera guy still rolling and says angrily "HEY...YOU'RE STILL
RECORDING!" and the camera guy lies and says "no I'm just getting wide shots."
(IT WAS A TIGHT CLOSE UP ON DAMON'S FACE) Then Damon's whole entire
demeanor changes back to nice. REALLY Weird to watch the manipulation of the
press and the mood swing from manipulative, to mad, back to nice within 10
SECONDS.
I know that one station had everyone from the news desk to upper management
get yelled at by Sarah (VD PR) because they thought that station wasn't covering
the story as soft as they wanted. Then Sarah yelled "Well, We HAVE 2 FAVORITE
STATIONS IN TOWN. WE WILL JUST WORK WITH THEM."
I know that the day after Danielles body was found NOT ONE STATION LOCALLY
GOT AN INTERVIEW. The PR firm only gave interviews out to the big national
media.
I know the Van Dams picked the site for the NBC 739 interview, and arranged to
have all of the stuff from Dehesa and in front of their house moved there.
THIS IS WHAT I KNOW. ON THE INSIDE.
SABRE SPRINGS ---- As the two-week mark of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam's disappearance approached, police said Thursday that they were not any closer to making an arrest in the case.
Meanwhile, a friend of neighbor David Westerfield, who has been interviewed by police but never named as a suspect, told reporters outside Westerfield's home that he believes the negative attention on his friend is unfair.
 Don Boomer/Staff Photographer |
| Damon and Brenda van Dam hold a recent photograph of their daughter, Danielle, during a press conference in front of their Sabre Springs home on Thursday. |
Wes Hill, a 35-year-old Utah resident who said he has known Westerfield for decades, said his visit Thursday to Westerfield's house was his first since Danielle's disappearance. He said he believes his friend had nothing to do with the girl's disappearance.
"There's no doubt in my mind," Hill said. "He's just a sweetheart."
Danielle's parents, Damon and Brenda van Dam, conducted a media conference Thursday to announce that the volunteer search effort, located at what is now called the Danielle Recovery Center at the Doubletree Golf Resort at 14455 Penasquitos Drive, would move Monday to the ReMax Building at Pomerado and Poway roads and would be under new leadership.
The center was originally led by the Texas-based Laura Recovery Center Foundation, but its leaders have trained local volunteers so they can take over, officials said. Retired policewoman Diane Halfman, a friend of the van Dams, will direct the center.
The current center will remain open through the weekend at the Doubletree Golf Resort, and leaders hope to get more volunteers for a massive search effort this weekend.
As they spoke Thursday morning, the van Dams displayed a portrait of Danielle taken before Christmas. Danielle was last seen when her father put her to bed about 10 p.m. Feb. 1. She was discovered missing from the Mountain Pass home the next morning, and police have said that she was abducted.
The van Dams were joined Thursday morning by Marc Klaas, whose 12-year-old daughter, Polly Hannah Klaas, was kidnapped from her Petaluma home in 1993 and later found murdered.
Damon van Dam thanked the police for their efforts to find out what happened to Danielle. He said the family has not heard more from the police other than that fingerprints were taken in their home Wednesday.
Brenda van Dam said it has become more difficult for her to cope with her daughter's disappearance especially because the focus of suspicion remains so close to their home.
"I don't think any of you know what we're going through, and you wouldn't want to walk a day in my shoes ... and I wouldn't wish it on anyone," she said.
"Brenda's getting a little angrier every day," her husband said.
"Somebody knows where my baby is, and it's not me. I just want to go and say, 'Tell me where my baby is,' " Brenda van Dam said.
She added that she will not do so because she does not want to do anything to compromise or interfere with the case.
Klaas told reporters that while he had come to provide support to the van Dams, they have been giving him hope.
"If Danielle made it through that first night ... she's out there," Klaas said.
Brenda van Dam then turned her head and buried her face in her husband's shoulder.
On Wednesday night, detectives went to Westerfield's home ---- two doors down from the van Dams' home ---- and served their second search warrant on the property and took away several boxes of material.
Westerfield, 49, a self-employed engineer, has been questioned several times by detectives. Detectives also have impounded his vehicle, which was later returned, and a motor home.
Westerfield told reporters in the first days that he was cooperating with police. Several days later, he stopped talking with reporters, retained a lawyer, and has mostly remained at home.
The Danielle Recovery Center can be reached at (858) 485-4185.
Contact staff writer Yvette Urrea at (760) 901-4076 or yurrea@nctimes.com.
2/15/02
Walsh sure doesn't act in disgust towards the parents..and klaas apparently had a great debate with ol RR..talking about Character assasination, per rolling stone on another thread.
Situational Child Molesters do not have a true sexual preference for children, but engage in sex with children for varied and complex reasons. This type of molester may engage in sex with a child, ranging from a once-in-a-lifetime act to a long-term pattern of behavior. The more long-term the behavior is, the more difficult it is to distinguish from a preferential molester. Members of lower socioeconomic groups tend to be over represented among situational child molesters.
Would these "situational" molesters mostly be drug addicts?
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Friends described the family as close and involved with their children. Damon van Dam works at Qualcomm and travels frequently overseas. Brenda van Dam volunteers at the school, works part time selling textbooks and was in charge of cookie sales for Danielle's Brownie troop. 
