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Would the truth made a difference?

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  • sheeee

    Thank you for your reply and Christmas wishes. I hope you had a Happy Hanukkah.

    You raise many points, and it is time-consuming to reply to all of them. So as not to keep you waiting any longer, I’m going to reply to the first part of your post now, and to the rest of your post later.

    The burden of proof is on the Prosecution. They failed to produce scientific proof such as you describe, that a girl of Danielle’s age, temperament and situation, would have repeatedly, over a long period of time, remained outside his RV, resisting any temptation, dare or other encouragement to explore it. They apparently didn’t even determine how many houses would have been able to see her doing that - probably very few, given the bends in the roads and the trees and high walls, and probably none of them from their downstairs living quarters. There was no evidence that they interviewed Danielle’s brothers or the neighborhood children to determine if Danielle or any other children had ever sneaked into his RV. Because of the high standard of proof required in a criminal trial, especially a death penalty case, the jury therefore should have rejected the evidence in that vehicle.

    Dr Michael Baden, who performed the second (private) autopsy on George Floyd, failed to take into account that the diseased portion of Floyd’s heart had been removed in the first autopsy. Dr Blackbourne, in his autopsy report, stated that Danielle’s body was moderately decomposed. But during testimony, he repeatedly said decomposition was severe. I believe both of them were influenced by public opinion. May not be acceptable practice but MEs are only human.

    Danielle's toxicology tests. The test for methamphetamine was presumptive positive, which I find disturbing, especially as the van Dams and their friends are known to have used one illegal drug, but I have seen no evidence that this was followed up on. It apparently wasn’t even mentioned during the trial.

    I would like to make a general comment in this context. It’s not unusual for a criminal to stage a crime scene, to make it look like something else, to fool the police, to hide their own involvement, and send the police in the wrong direction. And I consider that danger a real possibility in a case like this, where the police apparently suffered from tunnel vision - they decided very quickly that it was Westerfield, and that the motive was sex, so they never seriously considered any other possibility.

    The toxicology tests they do would depend on what they think might have happened. If their theory of the crime is wrong, then they wouldn’t do the correct tests.

    Because of the absence of any definitive evidence - not surprising in view of the time which had elapsed and the condition of the body - Danielle is believed to have been suffocated, presumably smothered.

    There is evidence supporting my claim that swinging is abnormal:

    “According to the 2012 National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior, 4% of respondents reported being in an open relationship. It was also found that males and LGB individuals are more likely to report being in an open relationship, with 33% of gay men, 23% of bisexual men, 5% of lesbian females, and 22% of bisexual females reporting an open relationship.”
    “Many couples within open relationships are dual-career, meaning that both primary partners have a stable job and/or a career. Both men and women in these, especially in closed groups, are also more likely to be in managerial jobs. Most also are either childfree, or post child-rearing.”

    I don’t think Damon was either gay or bisexual, but Brenda and their two girlfriends might have been bisexual. As far as I know, Damon wasn’t in a managerial job and neither were any of the others. I don’t know of either Barbara or Denise having children, but Damon and Brenda had three! Brenda didn’t really have a career. Barbara may have considered her job a career, but I don’t know about Denise.

    Taking all the above evidence into account, I don’t believe that swinging is sufficiently common and widespread for it to be described as normal behavior, not even for the van Dams and their friends.

    They were eventually honest about their behavior, but only after they had lied about it - to the police! With a child missing! Their own child in the case of Damon and Brenda, and a close friend’s child in the case of Denise and Barbara. And I’ve seen no evidence that their behavior was common knowledge.

    To be continued.


    • Part 2 of my response

      You described my suggestion that Danielle had hiked to Dehesa as an “outlier” possibility. Here is another possibility which I consider even more of an “outlier” (a possibility which you should recognize):

      Someone, a neighbor, who was already middle aged and with no record of anything remotely approaching kidnapping and murder, in fact no history of any violence at all;
      a man who doesn’t fit the profile of either a death row inmate or a pedophile,
      who had lived in that neighborhood for years without arousing any suspicion,
      who had invited her parents to an adult BBQ (so no children),
      even though Danielle and her brother had shown an interest in his swimming pool;

      some time shortly before 2 a.m. Saturday this person decides to commit this crime,
      so he goes to the van Dam house,
      he sees that Damon’s van is there so he knows Damon is at home,
      he also sees that Brenda’s car isn’t there so, having seen her at the bar earlier that night, he knows that she is still at the bar with her friends, and that the bar closes at 2 a.m. so she and her friends will be home soon;
      but none of that deters him;

      he knew Danielle had a younger brother, and surely knew she had an older brother as well;
      he may also have known that the family had a dog - a large dog;

      as there was the danger of him being seen and recognized, he would have worn a disguise such as a face mask (this was pre-Covid, so maybe a ski mask), but I’ve seen no report of such a disguise having been found;
      he would have expected the house to be locked, but I’ve seen no report of burglar tools being found;
      there was also the danger that Danielle would scream during the abduction, so he might have brought chloroform to keep her quiet, but I’ve seen no report of that being found either;

      he’s now at the front of the van Dam house, but it’s unlikely he would try to gain entry through the front due to the risk of being seen from the street - and in any case, those big garage doors would not have been appropriate - so he would have wanted to go round the side, and this is where he would meet the first obstacle - the side gate;
      this was a high gate, it was probably six foot high, and it couldn’t be opened from the front, so he would have had to climb over it, and although tall, he’s overweight and doesn’t look very athletic;

      the next obstacle was the side door to the garage, but unexpectedly - and fortunately for any intruder - it wasn’t locked (it usually was locked, as one would expect);
      so he opened it and immediately the burglar alarm went off,
      which he would have heard in the silence of the night,
      and he probably didn’t expect that;
      one might have expected him to rapidly abort his intended kidnapping, or at least quickly close the door behind him to turn off the alarm, but he did neither.

      This detailed step-by-step description was taking too long, so I decided not to continue with it. Suffice to say that this scenario is so implausible that nobody could figure out how he could have done it. That, in and of itself, should be sufficient reason to doubt that this is what happened and so reject this possibility.

      Summarizing the rest of that weekend according to this scenario (which again you should recognize):

      he kidnaps a little girl from a house with a burglar alarm having both an audible and a visible warning,
      a house with up to six adults in it, and with two other children,
      and with a dog - a large and active dog;
      without any of them realizing what was happening;

      and because he came at the worst possible time (which he should have known), instead of a quick kidnapping, he was trapped inside the house for maybe an hour, maybe much longer;
      and because he had been drinking that night, he would likely have needed to use the bathroom while trapped, increasing the danger of him being detected;

      but despite his prolonged stay, the police could find no evidence of him having been there -
      no fingerprints, no hairs, no clothing fibers, nothing,
      even the police dogs couldn’t detect his scent - and he sweats profusely, which would have made it really easy for the dogs;
      and they didn’t track her scent to his house, even though he supposedly took her there on foot;

      he then travels around for the weekend in his RV,
      bringing her back home twice (highly dangerous, with the police there),
      going to several places where he interacted with other people -
      at the new RV storage location (where he exchanged waves with an 11-year-old girl in her pajamas), where Danielle would have been out in the open as he transferred her from his SUV to his RV,
      the Strand, where he was in close proximity to other people including a party of police,
      his neighborhood where he chatted to his neighbors,
      the gas station (twice),
      the desert where again people were nearby and someone even looked into his RV,
      and none of these people saw or heard Danielle, or even suspected he had a kidnapped child with him;

      he then dumped her body in a hidden illegal dump site (even though there’s no evidence he knew it existed);
      again leaving no evidence he had been there;

      with cell-phone evidence, credit card records, gas receipts and eyewitness testimony that he went where he said he went and when he said he went there;
      which was nowhere near the body recovery site;

      four forensic entomologists calculated that her body was only dumped there many days after he was placed under round-the-clock police surveillance;
      one of them was the local entomologist, who usually worked for law enforcement but in this case testified for the defense,
      coincidentally, he had been working in the general area of the body while the body was there;
      even the entomologist who testified for the prosecution believed that her body was most likely only placed there after he was being surveilled;

      and the prosecutor virtually admitted in court that he didn’t know how it happened, where it happened, why it happened, or when it happened - he knew NONE of that - which in and of itself casts considerable doubt on the defendant’s guilt.

      By now you will have realized who this unnamed neighbor is. I would argue that this scenario is far more of an outlier possibility than that a girl who liked hiking in canyons, would hike a few miles away from home. It is far more convoluted than a simple hike. Yet it is the possibility that many, many people not only think actually happened, they are so sure of it that they are willing to put someone to death based on it.

      (By suggesting the possibility that Danielle hiked to Dehesa, I’m not claiming that this is what actually happened. I even think a kidnapping by a stranger IS a possibility, but a stranger with some experience in similar crimes, such as James Selby, and definitely NOT David Westerfield. But I also think that a non-stranger is MORE likely.)

      To be concluded ...


      • sheeee - concluding my reply:

        “commonly scientists look for confirmative evidence that gives three factors affirming or being non-affirming”
        It’s easy to give three factors non-affirming Westerfield’s guilt: the failure to find any evidence he’d been in the van Dam home; the failure to find any evidence he’d been at the body recovery site, and the entomology evidence that the body was only dumped there while he was being surveilled by the police. (I know I’ve mentioned those factors many times, but each one by itself casts considerable doubt on his guilt, and taken together it’s virtually impossible for him to be guilty.) It’s also easy to give three factors affirming it was someone else: the unknown DNA in blood on her blanket, the unknown DNA in blood on the bean bag chair she kept on her bed, and the unknown fingerprints on the staircase in her home. (While there could be innocent explanations for all of that evidence, the failure of the police to investigate that evidence - and for the jury to also ignore it - is inexcusable.)

        “the large and steamy pointers still are Westerfield based-to me.”
        I presume you are referring to the two blood stains and the fingerprints. I have also addressed these issues many times in the past. The drop of blood on the RV carpet wasn’t measured or photographed, which is not good enough in a capital case. And the small blood stain on his jacket wasn’t seen or recorded by anyone until the jacket had been in police custody for almost a week, which is suspicious. And no scientific evidence was produced that fingerprints from rehydrated skin are sufficiently reliable, nor was any scientific evidence produced that fingerprints from this specific portion of the fingers are sufficiently unique. Or maybe you are referring to the presumed pedophile motive. Again, he doesn’t fit the profile of a pedophile, and none of his images met the standard for child porn, which is why he wasn’t charged under a child porn statute.

        Or maybe you are referring to the lack of strong evidence against anyone else. I have seen NO evidence that anyone other than Westerfield was closely examined. The parents and their friends were very quickly eliminated - which is extraordinary in view of their initial lying and the sheer implausibility of the kidnapping scenario. I think you can make out a strong circumstantial case against Damon in particular. (And the case against Westerfield was purely circumstantial.) Similarly, there were many registered sex offenders in the area, and they were also very quickly eliminated. (As also was James Selby subsequently.) I have seen no evidence that anyone who was at the bar that night (or the previous Friday), and so observed the sexual behavior of Brenda and her friends, was seriously questioned. There is very little information regarding searches of other houses in the neighborhood, but from what little information there is, I would conclude that there was at most just a dog search and a cursory visual search. (The only exception I know of is Crum’s house, which was searched FOUR times.) So I simply don’t believe that they did even a semi-thorough forensic examination of any of them. They didn’t even testify that none of the neighbors had the same carpeting as the van Dams. If you don’t look for evidence, of course you won’t find any.

        “I have no evidence there was no investigation or examination of the baby sitter.”
        The first and only mention I have found of the regular babysitter being a teenage boy is a statement by Brenda on December 3 on Larry King Live. There was no mention of this in any of the media reports I’ve seen, nor any mention of it during the trial. The jury - and everyone else - was likely left with the impression that it would have been a teenage girl - so fitting in with the alleged pedophile motive. I have seen no evidence that the police even knew the regular sitter was a teenage boy. And if they didn’t know that, then they wouldn’t - couldn’t - have investigated him. Pedophiles usually begin at a young age - which is one of the reasons I don’t believe it’s Westerfield - so this boy should have been investigated. As I’ve said before, the burden of proof is on the prosecution, and this is one big hole in their case.

        “The deductive reasoning trail lead to him. Not the alcohol, but the combined repressed resentment and rage, his own unsatisfactory relationships, his fury at the scorning by Brenda and her friend at the bar.”
        There is a sharp contrast between the start of your post and this. You began by insisting on a high scientific standard, but this is just speculation unsupported by any science. The focus of the case, almost from Day 1, was on the presumed sexual motive. So I was surprised when, halfway through his closing arguments during the trial, the prosecutor briefly raised this possibility - the only evidence he produced was that, on one occasion, Westefield had become “forceful” - as the judge himself pointed out, that does not imply violence. Westerfield did not have a history of violence. He did do a bit of dancing with the three women. He said he didn’t want to play pool. His friends were there and he was chatting to them, so he didn’t need the company of Brenda and her friends.

        “Westerfield himself was incriminating in his posture and activity during the interrogation.”
        You’ll have to explain that. I have read the transcript of his interrogation - the extracts which the jury heard - and to me he seemed to be open, honest, truthful, trying to be helpful.

        “Westerfield seems resigned and not the protesting innocent; not suggesting scenario or possibilities for anyone to examine.”
        I disagree. The media published three letters he had written to a friend or friends in 2003, in which he strongly criticizes the police, points out flaws in the prosecution case, and maintains his innocence. And in 2005 he wrote to Channel 8 - there was even a thread on this forum about that. (There are a lot of posts in that thread, so I haven’t read it to refresh my memory.) I don’t know what he has done since. But he was thoroughly disillusioned with the media, and distrusts law enforcement, and I doubt any of that has changed - nor would I blame him.

        “I think he was quoted as saying you [whomever] would be labeled for your single crime rather than any foregoing goodness.”
        I haven’t seen that quote , and I’m skeptical. I did a google search and the only hit I got was your post!


        • Wow Steve, this has been the quarter within which I have pursued an Endowed Chair and I have been absent from places of such curiosity as this one. First, let me say I am sorry--then please give me time to read and consider this massive and respectfully vast amount of information you have amassed for me. Then I will try to respond.