Texas EquuSearch and Florida State University Divers plan to return to Aruba to Search for Natalee Holloway

According to the Birmingham News, Tim Miller and Texas EquuSearch plan to return later this month or next to search for Natalee Holloway. Joining them will be the Florida State University’s Underwater Crime Scene Investigation Program’s forensic dive team.

Two search teams that helped hunt for missing Mountain Brook teen Natalee Holloway hope to return to Aruba soon for another look.

Texas EquuSearch plans to return to the island later this month or next. Director Tim Miller intends to visit Aruba next week to set up the logistics for that trip, said George Adlerz, EquuSearch’s manager of training of operations.

The FSU Underwater Crime Scene Investigation Program are asking the Aruban authorities if they can return and search for Natalee Holloway.

In addition, Florida State University’s Underwater Crime Scene Investigation Program has asked Aruban officials if members can return to the island. Forensic divers from that program have been to Aruba twice and on the last visit were searching the waters around the island with sonar. Director Tom Kelley said the team needs stronger sonar equipment to search two miles offshore, where depths plummet to nearly 600 feet.

“We consider the business down there unfinished, and we’d like to go back to finish it up,” he said. “We’d love to bring some kind of closure to this. She’s an American citizen, she’s our neighbor, and we want to make sure that if she was a victim of a crime, we do everything we can to solve it.”

Some of the actions and comments of Aruban officials regarding the return of Texas EquuSearch are beyond comprehension. One would think at this point, saving face and actually presenting to the world a picture that Aruba is doing absolutely everything to help search for Natalee and make up for their own self admitted errors in this investigation. First, they do not question the three suspects when they implied they would. Now these comments …

Aruban Deputy Police Chief Gerold Dompig said he had heard from Miller about EquuSearch’s plans and wished them well, but that the government was unlikely to provide official support since the nonprofit group joined in an American call for a boycott of the island. The boycott was led in part by Gov. Bob Riley, who encouraged Alabamians not to travel to the island in support for Holloway’s family. The governors of Arkansas and Georgia have joined in the call for a boycott.

“The government wants to work with every organization, but it seems strange to work with someone who calls for a boycott,” said Dompig, who also refused to comment on the specifics of the case.

Why would anyone hinder an investigation or search if they wanted a boycott to end? A boycott that was called for because of the family’s perceived feeling that there was a lack of cooperation and communication with the ALE and prosecution? So what seems to be the answer from Dompig? More of the same.

It is beyond imagination how Aruban officials are acting in the face of a boycott where their tourism numbers are actually declining. If we remember correctly, this is about a teen that went missing on Aruba named Natalee Holloway.

(Full Birmingham News article)