Every Town - Terrifying Abduction Of Danielle Nicole Van Dam - Sabre Springs, CA

Episode Date: February 10, 2023

If you’ve ever driven on Interstate 8 in El Cajon, California then chances are you’ve crossed over the Danielle Nicole van Dam Memorial Overpass. This bridge is located near the location where Danielles body was found back on February 27, 2002, twenty-five days after her parents discovered she was missing. The 7-year old was taken from inside her own home and the details of this case are terrifying on many different levels.  💥 Watch On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/scarymysteries🎧 Our Other Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1235579💀 Follow Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries 💀 Follow Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrew.fitzg👁 Follow Our TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewfitzgerald💥 Follow Our Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scarymysteriesofficial🗣 Business Inquiries: [e-mail] Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you love true crime, grab your favorite mug and pour yourself a dose of creepy true crime every single morning with a morning cup of murder. This short daily show is the perfect podcast to incorporate into your morning routine, because in less than 15 minutes, you'll hear about a true crime that took place on a day's date in history. Each day's dark history lesson will kickstart your morning with intriguing tales of murder, abduction, serial killers, cults, and everything in between. With over 20 million downloads, Morning Cup of Murder has something for every true crime lover. One listener describes the show as a small package with a powerful punch of crime.

Another writes that the show is an absolute delight in the morning. Support yourself a piping hot cup of murder every single morning with Morning Cup of Murder. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every town has a dark side. If you've ever driven on Interstate 8 in El Cajon, California, then chances are you've crossed over the Daniel Nicole Van Dam Memorial Overpass. This bridge is located in a location where Daniel's body was found back on February 27, 2002. 25 days after her parents discovered she was missing. A seven-year-old was taken from inside her own home.

and the details of this case are terrifying on many different levels. I'm Andrew Fitzgerald, welcoming you guys to another episode of Everytown. But today we learn about this story of child abduction and murder in a small community of Sabre Springs, which sits just outside of San Diego, California. So, let's head on over there now and get right into it. In everyone's life, the tides can turn quickly, whether it's for one's advantage or downfall.

In 2002, Damon and Brenda Van Dam and their three children were neighbors with David, Westerfield, in the upscale Sabre Springs neighborhood in Sunny, California. The Van Damns lived in a four-bedroom, stucco house, and a couple doors down, was the two-story home, turned office of 49-year-old David, a self-employed design engineer who held several patents for medical devices, But in reality, these neighbors barely knew one another, that is, until Brenda and Danielle went to David's house on January 30, 2002, to see if he'd be interested in some tasty Girl Scout cookies.

He cordially invited them in, and during their conversation, David mentioned seeing Brenda and her friends at a local watering hole called Dad's Bar the previous weekend. Brenda went on to mention that it was one of her favorite spots, and that she and her pals would be spending another girl's night out over there just a couple days later on Friday, February 1st for a going away party. But she could only go if a babysitter would be available to look after Danielle, since her husband, together with her two sons, 10-year-old Derek, and 6-year-old Dylan, would be on an out-of-town trip.

From the outside, the Van Damns were a picture-perfect family. They achieved happiness and success. as they fulfilled the American dream. Damon worked as an engineer for Qualcomm, which is a San Diego-based multinational corporation that creates intellectual property, semiconductors, software, as well as services related to wireless technology.

His stable job enabled Brenda to be a stay-at-home mom and spend most of her time taking care of their three children, Derek, Danielle, and Dylan. The only girl in the brood, Danielle, was born on September, 22nd, 1994 in Plano, Texas, but lived most of her life in the San Diego area. She and her siblings were sheltered in a comfortable home located near Creekside Elementary School. Danielle belonged to a combined first and second grade class and was a brownie who sold Girl Scout Cookies. She loved coloring, playing with dolls, writing, and drawing in a journal she had been keeping.

and inside she would write profound thoughts about how she could change the world someday. She also took up piano lessons and her parents were described their only girl as strong-headed but obedient. Her classmates and friends liked her for being a sweet, quiet girl who laughed a lot. Paula Call, the mother of Danielle's good friend Sarah said, It's a joy to have her come to your home. She's really a well-rounded little girl. February 1st, 2002 came, and for Brenda that Friday night was her me time with her two gal pals. She headed over to Dad's bar, and sure enough, she saw her neighbor, David, there, remembering that she had mentioned she'd be there.

Although witnesses said they saw Brenda dancing with David, she denies this and clarified she just spoke to him in passing. Over at the Van Dam home that evening, Danielle and her two brothers were left. in the care of their dad Damon. While the family's only daughter was writing in her diary on the kitchen table, her dad and brothers in the living room were playing video games nearby. At 10.30 p.m., Damon put his daughter to sleep in her all-white canopy bed inside her lilac and pink bedroom. His two boys also went to sleep in their bedroom, and Damon retired for the day.

Back at the bar, David left around midnight. while Brenda and her friends stayed out for a couple more drinks before heading home. Damon woke up when Brenda came in together with her two female friends and a couple of male friends as well. That's when Brandon noticed a light on the home security alarm system flashing. It signaled that the side door to the garage was open and they closed it thinking nothing of it. The Van Dam couple, together with their four guests, spent half an hour chatting, eating leftover pizza, drinking, and smoking some weed. When the guests had finally left, Damon and Brenda went to bed without checking on their two sons and daughter, thinking they were fast to sleep.

Shortly before dawn, Damon got up to check on the family dog, a cute Weimariner named Leila. He noticed that an alarm light was flashing again, found the sliding glass door leading to the backyard slightly ajar. He assumed one of his guests had opened it earlier, so he closed it and then returned to bed, and once again didn't bother to see how his kids were doing. After all, in a safe neighborhood, what is there really to worry about? Morning of February 2nd started out normally with Damon and their two sons eating breakfast downstairs. Brenda then went to Danielle's bedroom upstairs to wake her up to join them. But to her horror, her young daughter,

wasn't there. Danielle had never left the house without informing her parents, so they immediately called the police at 9.39 a.m. authorities rushed over and combed Danielle's bedroom for any signs of a struggle or evidence of an assault, but they found nothing. As police and the media began to descend on the home, and the reality that their daughter was actually missing, said in, Damon and Brenda made tearful appeals for her return. Danielle became a subject of a massive search effort, with the assistance of the Laura Recovery Center, a nonprofit organization that aims to prevent kidnappings and to help recover victims of abductions.

Initial sweep of the neighborhood and nearby canyons didn't locate Daniel, and so the situation quickly escalated from a case of a missing juvenile to a suspected kidnapping. When police searched roughly 200 houses in the Sabre Springs area, the only empty residents belonged to that of David West. Westerfield. Neighbors told police that David had headed out in his luxury motor home earlier on the morning of the girl's disappearance. Thus, his name surfaced to the top of the list as a possible suspect. A few days later on February 4th, detectives Moe Parga and Johnny Keen were able to interview

David at his home. Suspects seemed fairly normal. It was a divorced father to a daughter and his son who were both in college and he didn't have any criminal record. But what grabbed the detective's attention was David's rambling explanation of his weekend adventure on February 2nd. On that Saturday morning, he said he fetched his motorhome from another part of town, stalked it with supplies. He then left his house at around 9.50 a.m., just 11 minutes after Brenda reported 9-1-1, the disappearance of Danielle.

As to the details of his weekend adventure, David said that he drove around the desert, and Silver Strand State Beach. His statement was then confirmed by witnesses, cell phone, and credit card records, and gas receipts. But it was the way he told his story, just going on and on into the details, telling detectives that he originally planned to go to the desert, but he didn't have his wallet with him.

So then he drove to the beach campground for a two-night stay, which he had paid in advance. But Lecolle Weather prompted him to head home. and get his wallet, after which he went back to the desert. On February 3rd, a Sunday morning, David got stuck in the sand about a quarter mile off the road and needed help from a tow truck to get released. Although David gave the detective details of his weekend getaways every stop, he didn't mention the detail of Monday morning.

We're on his way back home, he made a pit stop for the dry cleaners and dropped off two comforters with matching pillowcases, and his jacket. When he got home to Sabre Springs that morning, David watched his Toyota forerunner inside and out, which didn't escape the detective's keen eyes. They were thinking it was possible that David used this car to transport Daniel to his motorhome in another part of town.

So he was then placed on a 24-hour surveillance. The following day, February 5th, David's motorhome, SUV, and other properties were impounded for testing. Two days later, search warrant was issued for his belonging, such as his jacket, that David had dropped off the dry cleaners. And sensing that something was brewing, David hired a lawyer Steve Feldman that very same day. It can perhaps be said that the breakthrough in Danielle's case was the retrieval of David's jacket because on it, police found two small stains of blood which matched Danielle's DNA. He must have really liked that jacket because rather than throwing it out of

burning it. He opted to do a very stupid thing and attempting to have it cleaned. The police chief told Danielle's parents it was just a small amount of blood and that it could have been from a nosebleed, but the Van Dam's knew it was a bad sign. Brenda said, he was just trying to make us feel better. The girl's blub is also found on the carpet of David's motorhome, giving credence to the investigator's hunch that David was the man they wanted. After that, child pornogar, was found on David's computer, and then finally on February 22nd, 2002, authorities arrested David as the prime suspect and the girl's mysterious vanishing. But still, there was no sign of the girl at all, and it was agony for her family to go through. Rhonda couldn't stop thinking about what David

might have done to her daughter and said, all I could see sometimes was him raping her and he's hurting her. It would just pop in my head. Nevertheless, as the search, he's the search. stretched into its fourth week, but to manage to keep her hopes up that her girl was still alive. Damon, on the other hand, had uncertainties. As he drove around the desert using GPS to map where the volunteers should search, and his heart he knew it didn't look good. He said, during that time out there in the desert, it kind of really hit me what we were really looking for.

When of truth came on February 27, 25 days, after Danielle's disappearance. A search, organized by the Law Recovery Center and composed of private volunteers, found a small, badly decomposed body in a stand of trees off a two-lane highway in De Hesse, a city southwest of San Diego, and Danielle was identified through the Mickey Mouse earrings she had worn. But it was difficult for the authorities to determine how she died or whether she had been sexually assaulted due to the severe decomposition of her remains. The Van Damme couple said they weren't sure they ever wanted to know what really happened in their only daughter, but they hoped that whatever it was happened quickly.

Brennan said, I realized he was with her for two days. I just hoped it happened within a couple hours, but I really don't believe it in my heart. I believe that she suffered. It was later revealed that, and as before Danielle's remains were discovered, David's lawyers wanted to negotiate a plea bar. bargain deal in which David would take the police to the site where the seven-year-old girl's body was dumped. In exchange, David would be sentenced to life without parole instead of the possibility of facing the death penalty, but unfortunately for him, he never got that chance. Westerfield's trial began on June 4th of 2002. However, his lawyers, during a pretrial motion,

moved to exclude their client's statements to the police. They cited that David was unfairly interrogated for more than nine hours by detectives who ignored his repeated request to call a lawyer, take a shower, eat, and sleep. As a result, the two officers against whom the defense directed their complaint did not testify. But the forensic evidence the prosecutors presented during the trial was truly incriminating. Aside from Danielle's bloodstains found on David's jacket and on the carpet of his motorhome, also presented in court where Danielle's fingerprints in the motor home. Hairs from a Van Dam family dog on David's bed comforter. Hair is consistent with Danielle's on the sheet of his bed and matching acrylic fibers found

on Daniel's body and in David's home. One of Brenda's friends testified that she left the garage door at the Van Dam's open on the night of February 1st, 2002 by mistake, before heading to the bar. Prosecutors theorized that before Brenda and her friends returned home, David had a entered the house through that door and hid somewhere until the friends of the Van Damns went home. Then when Damon and Brenda went to sleep, that's when David took Danielle from her bedroom and they exited through the back door. The defense team suggested that the police just wanted a swift resolution in the case and focused only on David while they declined to consider other possible culprits. As for the child pornography files hidden in David's computer,

His lawyers claimed they were downloaded by his 18-year-old son Neil, but the young man denied doing it. The defense team's strategy also focused on the lifestyle of Damon and Brenda, arguing that they were in an open marriage, were swingers, and regularly smoked marijuana in their garage. This led to the defense team's speculation that other people, perhaps strangers, were in the Van Damme House that February 1st night, and they might be responsible for Danielle's kidnapping and, murder. The Van Damme couple admitted that they've engaged in spouse swapping in the past and said that they once visited a swingers club, but it wasn't for them. Moreover, they emphasized that they never

brought strangers into their home and denied their lifestyle, made them irresponsible parents. Brenda added, that angers me because I would never put my children in harm's way. I think the whole lifestyle thing has been blown way out of proportion. The trial ran on for two. months and concluded on August 8th. The jury found David Westerfield guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping, and possession of child pornography on August 21st. And the penalty phase of David's trial began on August 28th. And there, a damning testimony was given by his 19-year-old niece. She recounted that when she was seven years old, she and her parents spent a night at David's home. She stayed in the bedroom of David's daughter and was awakened in the middle of the night when her uncle was

rubbing her teeth. She bit his finger as hard as she could and went downstairs to tell her mother. When the mom asked David about the incident, he said that he just checked on the two girls and comforted his niece. The penalty phase concluded on September 16th with a recommendation from the jury that David deserved to die. And on January 3rd, 2003, Judge William Mudd formerly sentenced David to death. Presently, the 66-year-old kidnapper killer is incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison, located north of San Francisco. In February of 2019, the Supreme Court of California affirmed David's conviction and death sentence.

However, it isn't known when or if Mr. Westerfield will face execution due to the continuing 2006 moratorium on executions in California. and the July 2014 ruling on the unconstitutionality of the death penalty in the state as well. The Van Damns believe that the death sentence was an appropriate penalty, but the more important thing for Dana and Brendan is just that David never gets to hurt another child. As they added, they have no intention to witness his execution when the day comes. The friends and neighbors of the Van Dam family believe that Damon and Brenda are good and responsible parents, but they still couldn't help thinking of the what-ifs.

Damon said, If only I had, you know, check those doors. If only I had, you know, check the kids again. There are things you overlook. We wrestle with that sometimes, Brenda, more than I. I think I've written it off that the bad guy did it. The Van Dam's decided to remain in their Sabre Springs home. They've put Danielle's ashes in an earth.

earned next to her grandfather's ashes to keep her clothes to the family. Danielle was a very special, beautiful, loving little girl, Damon said. We miss her desperately, but find comfort and knowing that she is now safe again and at peace. So that's going to do it for this week's episode of Everytown. Please tune in next week for another episode filled with scary, strange, and mysterious stories. Because who knows? Maybe your town will be next.