Talk:Murder of Danielle van Dam

message: This article should be unprotected ASAP.  The latest edit is not neutral.  Since when do articles have to be anti-prosecution?  Furthermore, the user who wants the edit in has a long history of inserting original research, spinning, lying, and a huge bias against Westerfield's conviction.  This user has frequently blamed the victim, the victim's family, media, and community for Westerfield's conviction.  To them it is EVERYONE'S fault except David Westerfield. He is right and everyone else is wrong.  For them, he is the victim and thus their edit should not be allowed to stand. This user has NEVER made an edit in favor of the prosecution, although he "claims" to care about neutrality and balance. I believe the man is guilty as sin but I have still inserted information favoring his defense.  I have contributed lots to wikipedia, while this user's only concern is David Westerfield.  I believe he did not come to wikipedia with good faith on his mind.  Fighting for Justice 22:52, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  removed. This request belongs on WP:RPP, but will likely fail if it is not clear what the original reason for protection was, and why a consensus solution to it has now been found. Sandstein 08:28, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: All right. Fighting for Justice 08:45, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unprotection 

message: This article needs to do more to explain what it is about this murder case that makes it significant or notable. It does pass Wikipedia's notability guideline, by having been the subject of a considerable amount of news coverage, so I'm not saying it should be nominated for deletion; but the article should make clear why this case was of particular interest to the media, and not 'just another murder'. Robofish (talk) 20:36, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Ignore the above, I was misunderstanding Wikipedia's guidelines when I wrote the above. This article easily satisfies the requirements for inclusion. Robofish (talk) 20:33, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Significance of this case? 

message: what happened to the Selby Confession part? Fighting for Justice (talk) 04:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Selby Confession 

message: I've removed the following from the article, as it is poorly written and uncited.
"It was recently revealed in an animal forensic show from US TV network, Animal Planet, that the girl's dog played a huge witness to the crime. The dog, a weimaraner, was said to have rubbed and played a lot with the young girl and the fur was transferred from her pajamas to the interior of Mr. Westerfield's automobile. Also, clothing and other areas of location including above said bed sheets and comforters contained dog fur. Hinted in the show too, was the evidence of blood and a hand print matching that of Danielle were located within Mr. Westerfield's automobile."
The lack of citation is bad enough, but what is a "huge witness"? There is also no citation to the information on animal hair transfer or mention of it in the article on the trial. "Hinted in the show too" is lousy prose, is also non-encyclopedic and uncited. If anyone can provide citations and improved prose on the involvement of the dog, feel free to replace the removed section.Wzrd1 (talk) 13:29, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed uncited content about dog 

message: “At the trial, Brenda said she could not remember if she danced with him or not.[citation needed].”
I couldn’t find any source supporting that statement, so I quoted the closest I found.TheTruth-2009 (talk) 07:42, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Brenda-Westerfield dance

message: There is a media report that he looked haggard (Alex Roth, San Diego Union-Tribune, June 18, 2002), but this doesn’t accurately reflect the dry cleaners clerk’s testimony, so I have corrected that with the appropriate citation.  Also, the wording “Upon returning home” implies that he first arrived home and then went to the dry cleaners, which is not correct, so I have changed that as well.TheTruth-2009 (talk) 13:47, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Westerfield haggard?

message: Why is Westerfield included in this category?  He wasn’t convicted of rape.  It is generally believed that Danielle was kidnapped for sexual purposes, and that Westerfield is a pedophile, but there’s no evidence she was sexually assaulted (see Category_talk:American_rapists), and the evidence he’s a pedophile is weak: just 1% of his porn may have been child porn (those images were merely described by the prosecution expert as “questionable”), they had seldom been viewed (from one to five times), and they were mostly old (1999).  Perhaps because of this, other theories have been proposed.  The prosecution suggested he wanted revenge because Brenda and her friends had ignored him at the bar that night.  Even if sex was the motive, Brenda thought he may instead have been after her (an adult) or their babysitter (a teenage boy).TheTruth-2009 (talk) 05:33, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Category:American rapists

message: Should this page (or the other) be modified for consistency:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_pornography#Controversy
comp.arch (talk) 00:13, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inconsistency between aricles? 

message: I will be updating and wikifying this article, which needs a lot of work - it's been on my to-do list for quite a while. But first I am going to propose a move from "David Westerfield" to "Murder of Danielle van Dam" per usual Wikipedia standard for such articles. If the move request is successful I will recast the article to be about the crime rather than the perpetrator. Are there others who want to help with improving the article? Please do - but let's wait until the move decision since that will necessitate a major change of emphasis and organization. --MelanieN (talk) 15:06, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article needs major work 

message: The article quoted two statements made by the defense attorney, both of which are correct. Witness Judy Ray testified that at least 600,000 of one of Westerfield’s devices were sold. So if one were to fault the statement MelanieN has removed, then it would be on the grounds that the attorney understated the facts: Westerfield’s patents improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.TheTruth-2009 (talk) 06:53, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  MelanieN’s removal of content on 12/25/2014 

message: The bit added yesterday by TheTruth2009 appears in the middle of the section about the trial. However, there is no record of the prosecutor making such an admission during the trial. The closest thing I could find to such an admission was the statement, "Only one person knows where she was killed and when she was killed and it is not the police department," and that was made in a post-trial hearing.
If the sense of the community is that this addition is noteworthy enough for inclusion, then I propose moving the sentence to its correct chronological section and placing it in proper context (Judge at the same hearing: "All of the uncontested physical evidence establishes that this little girl was alive in the motor home"). If the sense is that it is not noteworthy -- and let's face it, murders in which the precise time and location of death are unremarkable, and the prosecution of such cases wholly routine -- then I propose deletion. Chichiri47 (talk) 00:03, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point. I was already bothered by the use of the POV word "admitted". Now you point out that the sentence is 1) in the wrong place chronologically and 2) a severe paraphrase, almost a twisting, of what the prosecutor actually said per the source. I'm going to delete it. If TheTruth2009 wants it reinserted, they can come here and convince us it belongs. --MelanieN (talk) 00:13, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  "The prosecutor admitted..." 

message: You (MelanieN) have removed the warning message that their entomologist doesn’t say February 2.  Have you seen my explanation above?  If you have, then please explain why you disagree. The Court TV article cited in the paragraph correctly gives his dates as February 9-14.TheTruth-2009 (talk) 18:26, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prosecution’s entomology date 

message: I find a paragraph detailing the results of his conviction that claims:
   "The trial lasted sixty-nine months and concluded on August 8. On August 21, the jury found Westerfield guilty of illegal dumping in the first degree, first degree murder, kidnapping, and possession of child pornography. Westerfield was fined 500 dollars for murder of Danielle, sentenced to death for the first degree illegal dumping."
I think this "first degree dumping" is highly questionable; although that is an actual charge in some states, I can't find a single reference to it being applied the the Westerfield case, or murder cases in general. Being "fined $500 for murder" and "death for illegal dumping" is just ridiculous. I'm going to remove the "illegal dumping" references and change it to only say death for the murder charge. It's obviously wrong the way it is, and I don't know enough about this to do things like flag for vandalism. At least this way I can draw attention to it; if someone else wants to fix it better, be my guest..45Colt 19:23, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I reverted to a previous version. Apparently the vandalism was inserted last week. JOJ Hutton 19:48, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism? 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on Murder of Danielle van Dam. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070216070046/http://www.courttv.com:80/trials/westerfield/060602_ctv.html to http://www.courttv.com/trials/westerfield/060602_ctv.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080516061408/http://www.courttv.com/news/2002/0228/girl_ap.html to http://www.courttv.com/news/2002/0228/girl_ap.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070408170525/http://www.courttv.com:80/trials/westerfield/background_ctv.html to http://www.courttv.com/trials/westerfield/background_ctv.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070901110856/http://www.courttv.com:80/trials/westerfield/082802-pm_ctv.html to http://www.courttv.com/trials/westerfield/082802-pm_ctv.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 06:46, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on Murder of Danielle van Dam. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060515232833/http://www.courttv.com/trials/westerfield/072402_ctv.html to http://www.courttv.com/trials/westerfield/072402_ctv.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20021003214736/http://www.courttv.com/trials/westerfield/timeline/time_of_death.html to http://www.courttv.com/trials/westerfield/timeline/time_of_death.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070822184654/http://www.courttv.com/trials/westerfield/051403_ctv.html to http://www.courttv.com/trials/westerfield/051403_ctv.html
*Added  tag to http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/print/local/041905a5_selby
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 14:26, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Murder of Danielle van Dam. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140810201857/http://www.locatetv.com/tv/animal-witness/6186368 to http://www.locatetv.com/tv/animal-witness/6186368
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 13:09, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified