Final word on Natalee Holloway

Beth Holloway seems to have conceded that her daughter Natalee will never be found; and worse still, that those she is convinced are responsible for her disappearance will never be prosecuted. And unless one has lost a child under similar horrific and mysterious circumstances, I suppose it’s impossible to understand what motivated Mrs Holloway to behave as she has since her daughter went missing in Aruba last June. But she elicited praise and condemnation, in almost equal measure, for conducting her own investigation whilst pressuring local authorities to prosecute the prime suspects (Joran Van Der Sloot and brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe).

Alas, over the past few weeks, the force of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita has sucked public sympathy and media attention away from her personal plight. But Mrs Holloway believes that the hurricanes also provided dark cover for the Aruban authorities to set the suspects free. And, as far-fetched as this belief might seem, it is entirely consistent with her accusations that local officials involved in this case were not only incompetent but also corrupt.

But, as I pointed out in a previous article, Mrs Holloway went too far in demanding that the Aruban courts do what would be unconstitutional and inhumane for any American court to do: namely, to keep the suspects locked-up indefinitely without any evidence to show that they’ve actually committed a crime. And it is worth noting that the coordinated efforts of the FBI, Dutch authorities and her own gaggle of private investigators and search teams have produced neither a clue about Natalee’s whereabouts nor one scintilla of evidence linking any of these suspects to her disappearance.

Unfortunately, one of the suspects, Joran Van der Sloot, only exacerbated Mrs Holloway’s grief and frustrations by granting an ambush interview on Monday – from his safe haven in the Netherlands – to a crack reporter from the American TV show “A Current Affair”. Because, during that interview, he not only seemed like a credible cad – admitting to lies that are par for the course amongst players everywhere – but he also insisted that neither he nor any of the Kalpoe brothers had sex with Natalee; though he implied that she was really begging for it.

This in turn prompted Mrs Holloway to make “serious” her call for all Americans to “reconsider any plans they may have had to travel to Aruba, the Netherlands or any of the Dutch territories until they find my Natalee”. She also revealed the “bombshell evidence” from police reports in which Van Der Sloot allegedly incriminates himself in the crime of having sex with Natalee whilst she was in a semi-conscious drunken stupor; i.e., unable to consent (which amounts to a prima facie case for rape!) Enough?

Finally, demonstrating that he not only knows how to get away with rape and, perhaps, murder, but that he also knows how to defend himself in the court of public opinion, Van Der Sloot ended his interview (and this Natalee Holloway saga) with the following query:

Why would Mrs Holloway jeopardize the economic welfare of 100,000 innocent Arubans because her daughter may have “run off with a bum, or been sold into white slavery in Venezuela or met with some other mysterious fate?”

Indeed….

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