Murder of Danielle van Dam
murder of 7-year-old American girl
Danielle Van Dam (September 22, 1994 – February 2002) was an American girl from the Sabre Springs neighborhood of San Diego, California, who disappeared from her bedroom during the night of February 1–2, 2002. Her body was found by searchers on February 27 in a remote area. Police suspected a neighbor, David Alan Westerfield, of the killing. He was arrested, tried, and convicted of kidnapping and first-degree murder. Westerfield was sentenced to death and is currently incarcerated at High Desert State Prison.
The crime
On the evening of Friday, February 1, 2002, Danielle van Dam's mother Brenda and two friends went out to a bar, called Dad's, in Poway. Danielle's father, Damon, stayed at home with Danielle and her two brothers. Damon put Danielle to bed around 10:30 p.m., and she fell asleep. Damon also slept until his wife returned home at around 2:00 a.m. with four of her friends.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5240981. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1994 and 2002.
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This entry incorporates text from “Murder of Danielle van Dam” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.