In 2005 the world witnessed on National television the shocking news of the
disappearance of Natalee Holloway, a young woman who had just graduated High School
and was supposed to be coming home from a Graduation trip to Aruba with her classmates.
Natalee was a bright, and engaging young woman who had her whole life ahead of her.
She was a top student at her school and loved by both her parents despite their
divorce back in 1993. She was loved by all her friends and a role model for others.
She was already accepted into the University of Alabama,
where she planned to pursue a pre-med degree.
What was supposed to be a happy milestone in their daughter’s life
turned into a disaster for the Hollway family as their daughter failed to show
up at the airport to return home with the rest of her classmates.
On May 26th, 2005, 145 students accompanied by 7 chaperones
landed in Aruba for a 5-day unofficial graduation trip.
The chaperons checked in on the students daily but did not escort them around the area or to venues.
Honestly, this was not their best decision,
even if most of the graduates were 18. With so many students,
there should have been more chaperones to help keep them reeled in when they got too wild.
The group was told by the Holiday Inn management that they were not welcome to
come back the next year- so they got pretty wild with their shenanigans.
It was revealed that they regularly changed rooms among each other at night,
and were partying and drinking a lot during their stay.
On May 30th, 2005 Natalee and her classmates were scheduled to fly home from the Caribbean,
but she never showed up at the airport to board the plane. Her luggage was packed in her hotel
room, left with her passport. Her classmates and chaperones never saw her Monday morning.
This is a nightmare situation for any parent- their child missing in a foreign country while
they’re thousands of miles away helpless to rescue their child. They flew in a private jet to Aruba
to search for her. They were given Joran Van der Sloot’s name from a receptionist at the holiday
inn, who recognized him from the surveillance feed, which they reported to the police station.
Classmates told investigators that they’d last seen her Monday night at around 1:30
in the morning, at a local nightclub and restaurant called “Carlos'n Charlie's” and
getting into a car with residents Joran Van der Sloot and brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe.
Classmates revealed that Natalee had been on a drinking spree the entire time, from the moment
she got up in the morning, and right before going to bed. Her friends commented that the
drinking was overly excessive for Ms. Holloway and that she even missed breakfast two times.
When local police questioned the men, they claimed to have dropped her off at her hotel
and denied having any further knowledge of what happened to her.
The first visit from the police and the Twittys/Holloway family was to
the address given by the receptionist at the hotel. At first, Sloot claimed not to
know Natalee’s name or who she was, but then with Deepak Kalpoe, they changed their story.
The young men stated that they’d taken Natalee to a local spot to see sharks,
and then took her to the hotel at 2 AM. Van der Sloot told officers she had stumbled and refused
help, and as they drove away, he noticed a man in a dark uniform approached her-
he said the uniform was similar to the security guards’ apparel at the hotels.
Then the widespread search began. Mrs.Twitty, Natalee’s mother,
was provided housing while search teams canvassed the area.
The Aruba police, along with hundreds of volunteers, special FBI agents,
and Dutch soldiers, equipped with 3 specially-equipped Dutch Airforce
F-16 aircraft, conducted a thorough and extensive search and rescue mission to locate Natalee.
Divers searched the ocean, while hundreds of people searched on land for any trace of Ms.
Holloway. But there were no signs reported of her or any leads of what happened to her.
On June 5th, 2005, Aruba police arrested and questioned two men
who had been security guards for the Allegro Hotel at that time, under suspicion
of abduction and murder, but reasons for their arrests were never stated by the police.
It is suspected that statements from Sloot and Kalpoe led the police to these men,
as well as reports of the two men roaming around hotels for women to hook up with frequently.
The Allegro Hotel was closed for remodeling during the group's trip to the tropical paradise-
making it an ideal place for criminal activities to take place unnoticed.
June 10th, 2005, Police arrested Van der Sloot and the two Kalpoe brothers again under serious
suspicion of kidnapping and murder. Dompig, the Aruban Investigator in charge of the case,
stated that the three young men were under surveillance since Natalee's disappearance.
Unsurprisingly, the three men's stories changed again when they were arrested and
questioned, pointing blame at each other. Their stories were deemed inconclusive
and they were released again due to lack of evidence.
On December 18th, 2007, the Aruba prosecutors stated that the case
would be closed without placing any charges- due to lack of evidence.
It was also alleged that his father paid off two police officers who had learned that Holloway was
taken to Venezuela. His father was arrested on June 20th, but lack of evidence had him released.
There were several suspects in Holloway’s case, but supporting evidence was never found to lead
to any convictions. Leads and evidence from numerous sources were investigated,
but any searches were fruitless, and test results also came up negative-
leading only to more frustration for the investigators and the family.
In 2006, Dutch Investigators took over the case and went over everything in the case files again.
But in 2007 there was a joint investigation team made between Aruba and Dutch investigators.
More suspects were found and investigated but released as evidence was never found.
Joran Van der Sloot was a Dutch honors student who was attending the University
of Aruba and living there at the time of Natalee’s disappearance.
He wrote a book on the events with Natalee’s disappearance, giving his
side of the story and revealing information- all while still saying he was innocent.
In 2007 Van der Sloot and the Kaploe brothers were arrested
again and investigated for Natalee’s murder and kidnapping, but still,
no evidence was found tieing them directly to her case, meaning they walked free yet again.
2008 a Dutch news reporter named Peter R. de Vries claimed to have solved Ms.
Holloway’s case, and said he’d reveal it all on Dutch television on February 3rd.
On February 1st, Dutch media reported that Van der Sloot confessed to the crime,
but he predictably retracted the statement saying he only
told the person what they wanted to hear and denied any involvement.
The broadcast still aired on February 3, 2008, and included excerpts from footage recorded from
hidden cameras and microphones in the vehicle of Patrick van der Eem,
a Dutch businessman and ex-convict who got Van der Sloot’s trust.
Van der Sloot was seen smoking marijuana and stating that he was with Holloway
when she began convulsively shaking, then became unresponsive.
Van der Sloot stated that he attempted to revive her, but failed.
He said that he called a friend, who told Van der Sloot to go home and he would dispose of the body.
The “friend” denied Van der Sloot's account,
indicating that he was in Rotterdam at school at that time.
So it’s no surprise that investigators bought him in again for questioning and reopened the
case after the footage was seen. This of course led to his arrest again, only to be released. The
young man seems to be taunting the investigators and leading them in circles over Natalee’s case.
Despite attempts for arrest warrants for Van der Sloot with the videos as a plausible cause,
they were denied by the judge. An appeal was made but failed as it was declared
that the statements in the footage did not coincide with current evidence on the case.
In an interview on Aruban TV, Van der Erm gave the impression he had recently befriended Joran,
but hidden video footage behind the scenes was leaked in June 2008, where he revealed
he’d known him for years, contradicting what he’d said in the interview previously.
In the secret footage, he also stated he knew who disposed of Holloway’s body,
and was bought off for his silence. He discovered the secret footage
after signing a book deal and threatened the interviewer- who then had to seek legal advice.
His book aired June 25th, 2008, but was arrested in December for assaulting his
girlfriend with a crowbar, and for dangerous driving while fleeing from the police. He
was criticized for releasing the information on the air, as it took away any edge investigators
could have had against Van der Sloot in the case if he had turned it into them instead.
Van der Erm literally undermined the investigation and case in one fell swoop with his interview
on Dutch TV, making it nearly impossible for investigators to get to Van der Sloot again.
In November Van der Sloot was interviewed on FOX News where he stated that he had
alleged that he sold Natalee Holloway into sexual slavery,
claiming he was paid when she was sold, and for his silence.
Fox News also aired part of an audio recording supplied by Van der Sloot,
which he alleged is a phone conversation with his father,
in which his father displays knowledge of Joran’s purported involvement in human trafficking- but
an audio specialist rebutted that it was just Joran lowering his voice to mimic his father.
Joran Van der Sloot then took things a step further in 2010.
He attempted to extort Natalee’s family.
In March 2010, Van der Sloot contacted Betty Twitty’s legal representative- in
exchange for a total of $250,000 he would disclose the location of Natalee’s body,
and reveal what happened to her. The FBI was brought in, and a plan was set in place.
Of course, the information Van der Sloot provided was false, as the house he told them
hadn’t even been built yet when Natalee disappeared. He was charged on June 3rd
with extortion and wire fraud and was indicted on June 30th for those charges.
June 4th, a raid was conducted on two homes in the Netherlands,
one of which belonged to reporter Jaap Amesz,
who had previously interviewed Van der Sloot and claimed to know of his criminal activities.
In January 2012 Van der Sloot was convicted for the murder of Stephany Flores Ramírez in Lima,
Peru in 2010, after confessing to the crime. He was sentenced to 28 years in prison.
She disappeared and was found dead three days later in a hotel room under Van der Sloot’s name.
Flores had accessed his computer and discovered information linking him to
Holloway’s abduction and death- which angered him and resulted in her murder.
Unfortunately, Peruvian Police could not question him about Holloway’s case,
even after he told them he knew where her body was. It was a matter of not being
in their jurisdiction according to the chief of police in Peru.
Aruban police were allowed to question Van der Sloot in prison,
but only admitted to the extortion attempt, saying
“He wanted to get back at the Holloway family for what they put him through for the past 5 years”
A selfish act, especially considering he did have something to do with her case.
Natalee's father requested that he then be charged
and trialed in the states for his daughter’s murder,
but Peru was not willing to release Van der Sloot until after he served his sentence there.
So at least the Holloway family knows he's not going to disappear anytime soon,
and they can press charges against him for their daughter’s kidnapping and murder in the future.
In 2011, Natalee’s father filed a petition for a Certificate of death of his daughter,
declaring her legally dead- six years after her disappearance.
The mystery of what happened to Natalee Holloway is still unsolved,
as investigators continue to be misled and come across dead ends. The family
continues to suffer hardships from her sudden disappearance, and fighting against any who
try to tarnish their daughters’ memory, or make a profit from her tragic story.