www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0203/04/lkl.00.html
THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight, we'll get an update on the tragic case of Danielle van Dam. What do we know about the neighbor accused of her murder? It always a great pleasure to welcome him to this program. We go back a long way before "America's Most Wanted" started, I'll never forget the night John Walsh appeared on our radio show back in those days in Washington to tell us about this program he had based on -- stemming from the loss of his own son. We were Fox's original hit and the first reality show, believe it or not, and we've been on for 15 years. And these are tough times since 9/11, but the American public has supported this show, Canadian public. So for me, it's -- there's great satisfaction, but the public has been wonderful. But surprisingly, the FBI was supportive right out of the gate. They said, you know, this may be the electronic poster, you know, the old posters in the post office. And the reason I did the show, I had turned down Fox for six months, and the first guy was an escaped child killer. He had raped 17 women, murdered four people, two of them small children, escaped from an Indiana prison. And I said, you know, wouldn't it be something, the father of a murdered child, if I did the show. They caught David James Roberts four days later, from tips from the show. A psychopath serial killer, he was running shelter for the homeless on Staten Island in New York. KING: I remember one guy you caught was on a quiz show, right? KING: Let's discuss, first things first, the Danielle van Dam case. Why did you jump right in on that case, jumped out to befriend them, even at a time when there was some people thinking maybe they were involved? And parents are always the first ones thought of involved, aren't they? I had worked with Woody Clark (ph), who is a DNA specialist. These parents have cooperated with the police, no matter what innuendo, speculation goes around them. It's almost every case of a parents of missing children that I've dealt with over the 20 years since Adam was murdered, there's always something, somebody would like to find something to blame it on. KING: When you were on this program that night with them, you were very encouraging about the chances for Danielle. WALSH: Well, in my heart of hearts, I know what the justice department said last year. They came out with a survey and they said that the vast majority, almost 99 percent, of stranger-abducted children are dead within the first four hours. And at that point, we knew as each hour went by, and now when we came on the show and you were so gracious to keep this story live. My gut feeling that something horrible had happened to Danielle. But, we've gotten kids back that have been missing for as long as five and six years. But one thing true in surveys and studies, pedophiles aren't murderers. I mean, they have the same murder as the other -- the rest of the population. They have this perverted interest in children, but they don't kill children. And I've seen lots of letters between pedophiles in prison who say, give each other the tip. If you don't want to get caught the next time and you don't want a witness, kill the child. WALSH: I've never seen in 15 years of doing "America's Most Wanted", hunting down guys all over the world in 30 countries, drug dealers, serial rapists, all kinds of things, the child killer is the toughest to catch, the most cold and calculating, no conscience, no remorse, the worst. KING: Before we talk about this specific case again, do we know why a pedophile is a pedophile? You can study them, you can cut parts of their brains out, you can look at their genetic background, you can look at their childhood or whatever. But we know one thing, and psychiatrists are starting to say this: This is their sexual preference. You know, some people are gay from birth, et cetera, et cetera. It drives them and they are not curable and the psychiatric community says they're dangerous. And even though there's some DNA and there's obviously, he's been arrested, evidence, we can't assume that he is the person. KING: So he is the alleged person, although you have your own beliefs? WALSH: No, I couldn't be on that jury because right from the beginning, I worked with the San Diego police. He had a couple chance meetings with the mom and the family. And once they found child pornography on his computer, once the FBI got in there, and there was terrific police work. This was the San Diego police working closely with the FBI, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Once they found the child pornography on there and we got the tip that he -- his Winnebago had been pulled out in the desert the day she was missing, the Saturday morning, he had taken off. We got a tip from a truck driver that his Winnebago had been pulled out of the desert and the San Diego police did something very, very smart. They went and got a search warrant and a subpoena and he had taken the bed sheets and linen and his jacket to a dry cleaner. They got the DNA off of his jacket and he became the prime suspect. And, you know what the best thing, Larry, is -- the worst thing for this family and this family was very courageous and really held up throughout this and did the best job they could for their daughter, they always stayed the focus that she was the victim, was that he and his defense attorney, when I saw them at the arraignment before the body was found, I couldn't believe at how cold-blooded he was in the cage. And his defense attorney was arrogant like defense attorneys can be. But you know what -- and it was killing the parents, the not knowing. But the DA's office were so brave that they were -- charged him with kidnapping and murder even though they didn't have a body. And you know what, thank God, the next day they found the body. KING: The cop in New York told me last week, a homicide cop, you can get a lot of things going, but if you don't have a body, there's always a sea of doubt. But this DA's office has successfully prosecuted four cases without a body and got capital murder convictions. The parents of murdered children aren't ready for these trials. WALSH: Oh, sick in their sexual preference, mentally ill, most of them are not. I've been studying these guys for 20 years since my son was murdered. They caught a group of pedophiles that belonged to NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association, who slogan is sex before eight or it's too late. When they caught them, one was a Stanford University professor, one guy had graduated from Harvard, one guy ran a boy's camp, one was a city councilman for Marietta, Ohio. WALSH: Well, there actually has been a study at Emory University. A doctor, Gene Abele (ph), did a study of pedophiles that he tracked over a 10-year period and they had confessed to or been convicted of about 60,000 molestations, these five other pedophiles. He learned that they -- when they told them this is our sexual preference, this is our predilection. But I haven't come up with the answer other than, in my idea and my opinion is keep them in jail as long as you can. And we need as a society, to start taking it very, very serious how bad they are. You and I have talked about this, that when you are a convicted sex offender and you are paroled, now -- you've got two little boys. In the van Dam neighborhood, there was 13 convicted sex offenders in that neighborhood. But we just caught a guy in El Paso, Texas, out on parole for molesting an 8-year-old girl, only did one year. And how they caught him was he was a registered sex offender. And he was a registered sex offender that lived two miles from her. KING: So the way you described it earlier, it's impossible to spot one. You know, and -- but I think once they've crossed that line and hurt a child, you need to know. You'd like to know if one guy lived next door to you, wouldn't you? She and Danielle had met Westerfield when they sold Girl Scout cookies. But I say that when they get into the prosecution has to talk about the details of the murder, what went on, t...
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