Even before the grim discovery, police had charged van Dam neighbor David Westerfield with Danielle’s murder and kidnapping, after DNA evidence linked him to the crime. Westerfield pleaded not guilty in an arraignment last Tuesday. But the discovery of a body will certainly make the case against the 50-year-old divorce easier to prosecute. The body’s location is consistent with earlier reports of Westerfield’s wanderings in his 35-foot Southwind motor home on the weekend of Danielle’s disappearance. On the morning she went missing, Westerfield was spotted in his RV by a park ranger at a state beach in Coronado; the following day, Westerfield sought out a towing company to help pull the same vehicle out of a remote desert area some 150 miles to the east. Adam Day, spokesman for the nearby Sycuan Casino, told NEWSWEEK that casino employees had spotted a motor home similar to Westerfield’s in their parking lot that weekend, and that Westerfield is listed in the casino’s records as having been a member of its “gaming club.”
Why Westerfield might have murdered a 7-year-old girl is still a key missing piece of the puzzle. Search-warrant affidavits to be unsealed this week may provide some clues. The prosecutors’ working theory is that Westerfield, who is also charged with possession of child pornography that police discovered during a search of his home, abducted Danielle with the intent to sexually assault her. Neither police nor the volunteers who discovered the body will say whether it was clothed. They say the exact cause of death may never be known because the body was so badly decomposed. Prosecutors say the DNA evidence gathered so far against Westerfield includes drops of Danielle’s blood found in his motor home and on a jacket he took to the dry cleaners on the Monday after the disappearance. Still, investigators say Westerfield has no known history of violent crime.
Both Westerfield and Brenda van Dam, 39, were at the same local bar the night of Danielle’s disappearance, though they have given different accounts of what transpired; Westerfield has said he danced with van Dam, though she insists she didn’t. Whatever the case, Westerfield left the bar some time before van Dam returned to her house in Sabre Springs at around 2 a.m. with two girlfriends and two men in tow. Damon van Dam, 36, who says he spent the evening at home with Danielle and her two brothers, woke up and spent the next hour socializing with the group. The van Dams then went to sleep without checking on the children, and Brenda didn’t discover that her daughter was missing until 9 the next morning.
A preliminary hearing in the case is set for next week. Meantime, a makeshift shrine has sprung up at the site along Dehesa Road where Danielle’s body was found. The van Dams plan a private funeral, with a public memorial on March 16 at the beach in La Jolla. Karsten Heimburger the milkman, no longer a stranger to the family, says he plans to be there to pay his last respects.
