Natalee Holloway (born October 21, 1986) is a U.S. teenager from Mountain Brook, Alabama, a suburb of Birmingham, whose disappearance on May 30, 2005 during a post-graduation trip in Aruba caused citizen concern in Aruba along with a media sensation in the United States.

Disappearance

Holloway and 124 fellow graduates of Mountain Brook High School were visiting Aruba on an unofficial senior class graduation trip, accompanied by seven chaperones. Natalee was last seen leaving Carlos'n Charlie’s[1], a popular tourist-oriented bar and grill, early in the morning with Dutch-born Joran van der Sloot, the then seventeen year-old son of an ex-judicial official trainee, and two companions, Satish and Deepak Kalpoe, Surinamese-born brothers of East Indian origin, in Deepak's car. According to some, Natalee had spent part of the evening drinking and dancing on the bar in a miniskirt.

Natalee did not arrive for her return flight the next morning, nor did she appear in any security camera footage of the hotel lobby in the course of the night. Her passport, packed luggage, and cellular phone were found in her hotel room. Searches of the island began immediately, but have been fruitless as of 2005.

According to her parents, Natalee was to have started her undergraduate pre-med studies on a full scholarship at the University of Alabama in August 2005.

Investigation

On May 30, immediately following her missed flight, Natalee's stepfather and mother, Jug and Beth Twitty, traveled to Aruba with friends by private jet. Within four hours of landing in Aruba the Twittys went to the Aruban police with the van der Sloot's name and address, as the person last known to be seen with their daughter. Accompanied by two Aruban policemen, they went to the Van der Sloot home looking for Natalee. During this encounter, Joran and Deepak related their first story.

This initial story was that they drove Natalee to the "California Lighthouse" area of Arashi Beach where she and Joran "made out" for a short time before they dropped her off at her hotel around 2:00 A.M. They said she fell down and hit her head as she got out of the car, but refused help, and that she was approached by a black security guard as the boys drove away. On June 5, Aruban Police, led by superintendent Jan van der Straaten, detained Antonius "Mickey" John (30) and Abraham Jones (28) former security guards for the nearby Allegro Hotel. On June 9 Joran and the Kalpoe brothers were arrested as suspects involved in a crime against Natalee with "reasonable suspicion of murder, manslaughter or intentional containment with the dead as consequence." John and Jones were released on June 13.

On Friday June 17 a fourth person, later identified as disc jockey Steve Gregory Croes (26) was also arrested. On June 22 Aruban police detained Joran's father, Paulus van der Sloot, for questioning, and arrested him the same day. He was released on June 26 after agreeing to waive his right not to testify against his son. Croes was released on June 27. On Monday, July 4, a Judge Commissioner released Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, but they were re-arrested on August 26 along with another new suspect, Freddy Arambatzis, Joran's friend and neighbour. [2]

On Saturday, September 3 2005, all four suspects were released from pre-trial confinement on the condition that they remain available to police, however on September 14 all restrictions on the remaining suspects were removed by an Aruban Court of Appeals. Though all arrestees technically remain suspects, they are no longer in custody. Joran now resides in Holland, where he is attending college. On November 10, 2005, Paulus won an unjust detention action against the Aruban government and, by virtue of that victory, is no longer legally a suspect.

The search for physical evidence has been unsuccessful. A small lake near the Aruba Racquet Club was partly drained between July 27 and 30 after a witness claimed to have seen Joran, Deepak, and Satish sitting parked on a dirt road nearby between 2:30 AM and 3:00 AM on the morning Natalee disappeared. [3] Another witness claims to have seen Joran, Paulus, and Deepak burying a nude, blonde-haired woman in a landfill during the first week after Natalee disappeared. The police searched the landfill by hand for two hours, finding nothing of interest. Later, when a volunteer search team learned about the witness, the landfill was extensively searched with heavy garbage-moving/digging equipment. On August 15 it was reported that when the search team members arrived at the landfill, the excavated area had been filled in with new garbage. On July 4, the Netherlands deployed three F-16 warplanes, equipped with infrared sensors, to aid in the search, also without result.

Beth Twitty has alleged in televised interviews that Joran, Deepak and Satish Kalpoe raped her daughter. She bases her allegations on parts of an interview with Deepak Kalpoe in which he seems to answer "She did" to a suggestion that Natalee had sex with all of them. These clips were first aired on the popular television talk show Dr. Phil. According to Satish Kalpoe's attorneys, David Koch and Elgin Zeppenfeldt, the audio has been cut and pasted. The Dutch forensic institute has investigated the credibility of the tapes, and concluded that they were indeed manipulated. As of November 2005, the FBI is trying to corroborate this claim. Beth Twitty claims to have received papers stating that Joran admitted having sex with Natalee at his home and described private details of her. Deputy chief of police Gerald Dompig has denied that any such statements were made and has stated that all three suspects have consistently denied having sexual intercourse with Natalee. [4] As of December 2005 the complete two and a half hour video of the interview which aired on the Dr Phil Show was added to the case file of the suspects. Zeppenfeldt commented that Deepak clearly answered "no we didn't" on the question if they all had sex with Natalee.

The reward for information leading to Natalee's safe return, contributed by her family, private donors, the Aruban government, and Carlos'n'Charlie's Restaurant, has grown to $1,000,000. A $250,000 reward is also offered for information about her whereabouts, alive or dead. [5].

Criticism of the investigation

The Twittys and their supporters have criticized the lack of progress by Aruban police [6]. Aruban officials blame a lack of understanding of Dutch judicial procedures employed on the island for much of the tension. Various uncorroborated theories alleging a cover-up have so far not resulted in any official response. The Twitty's own actions in Aruba have also been criticized. Some allege that they are actively stifling any evidence that would impugn their daughter's character by asking her fellow students to remain silent about the case and using their access to the media to push their own version of events.

Alabama Governor Bob Riley and U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) asked Aruban authorities to accept more assistance from the FBI. On July 22, Aruban Prime Minister Nelson Oduber wrote to Attorney General Karin Janssen asking island police to give the FBI complete access to their dossiers on the investigation. On the same day, during a special session for state budgets, the Alabama House of Representatives passed a resolution asking Alabama residents not to visit Aruba until the case is resolved. The Alabama State Senate never took up the issue.

Jug Twitty wrote Governor Bob Riley on August 4 discouraging an official boycott. [7]. As tensions heightened between Natalee's family and Aruban investigators in September, renewed calls for a boycott of the island have been aired by supporters on American television. Beth Twitty again asked Americans not to travel to Aruba: "I've never called for a boycott, but I am... I am... I am pleading with people to please consider not traveling to Aruba and Dutch.. other Dutch territories until Natalee is returned to me" [8]. Governor Riley, joined by the Twittys, renewed his call for an unofficial boycott on November 8, 2005 in a news conference [9]. He also wrote to other United States governors seeking their support. The Philadelphia, Pennsylvania city council voted to ask the governor of the Pennsylvania to call for a boycott. [10]. The National Coalition of Victims in Action called for their own boycott of Aruba on November 10. [11] The deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in The Hague, Mr. Chat Blakeman, stated that the call for a travel boycott for Aruba by the Governor of Alabama is not supported by the government of the United States. [12]

Members of the Aruba Hotel and Tourism Association, the Aruba Tourism Authority, the Aruba Hospitality & Security Foundation, the Aruban Chamber of Commerce and government figures, including Public Relations Representative Ruben Trappenberg, formed a "Strategic Communications Task Force" to respond collectively to unfounded portrayals of the island. The group publishes the weblog Aruba Truth, issues press releases, and sends representatives to appear in news media. They have joined the Aruban government in opposing the calls for a boycott of the island.

Media coverage

U.S. television networks have devoted much air time to the search for Natalee the investigation of her disappearance, and rumors surrounding the case; Greta Van Susteren, host of On The Record on Fox News, perhaps most prominently. As the case has worn on, much of the attention has been given to Beth Twitty's efforts [13]. The saturation of coverage has triggered a backlash among some media critics who have labeled it a symptom of "missing white woman syndrome". CNN ran a segment criticizing the amount of coverage their competitors have been giving to the story [14]. Locally, the Aruban Press has published extensive news on the story both in Dutch [15] and in the local Papiamento language [16]. The story also has generated mild interest in the Netherlands.

Immediately following the announcement that the Netherlands was sending F-16s to join the search, the popular website Kuro5hin published a scathing editorial comparing the coverage of Natalee's disappearance with that of Reyna Alvarado-Carrera, a thirteen year old Hispanic girl who disappeared from her home in Norcross, Georgia, in May [17]. Since its publication, the article has consistently been one of Google's top results when searching for "Natalee Holloway" [18].

The saturation coverage of Natalee's disappearance by the American media was largely eclipsed in late August 2005 by Hurricane Katrina, much in the same way news of the September 11, 2001 attacks displaced extensive media coverage of another then-missing Caucasian woman, Chandra Levy. Beth Twitty has alleged that Aruba took advantage of the media lull to release the suspects and discourage continued U.S. media presence on the island. [19]

Police procedurals on American television have aired episodes based to some extent on the Natalee Holloway case:

• CSI Miami. "Prey" (October 3, 2005)
• Law & Order: Criminal Intent. "In the Wee Small Hours". (November 6, 2005)

See also

• Joran van der Sloot
• Missing white woman syndrome

References

• The Birmingham News (Archived coverage)
• Caribbean Net News (Local coverage)
• Scared Monkeys (Reporting from all sources)
• Aruba Getagrip (Translated Aruban media articles)
• Blogs for Natalee (Archived news video and other sources)
• Scrux.com "Facts in Evidence" (Summary of verifiable evidence)

External links

• Aruba.com Summary of Aruban Judicial System
• Aruba Truth, Aruba's "Strategic Communications Task Force"
• Aruban Boycott Information on Boycott of Aruba

nl:Natalee Holloway