Natalee Holloway, Update Sunday June 5

(Friends and family are invited to share or email us with any stories or accounts that you wish us to post. Our thoughts and prayers go out for Natalee Holloway and her family. )
1:00 am EDT According to CNN case being handled as a criminal investigation.

ORANJESTAD, Aruba (CNN) — Aruba police are treating the case of a missing Alabama high school graduate as a criminal investigation but still hope she will be found unharmed, a police spokesman said Saturday night. Natalee Holloway, 18, was on a senior trip with classmates when she went missing nearly a week ago. Rudie Soemers, night watch commander, said the effort to find her became a criminal case two days after her disappearance. The woman from the affluent Birmingham suburb of Mountain Brook was last seen leaving a nightclub called Carlos ‘n’ Charlie’s in the town of Oranjestad.

8:30 EDT The AP is reporting that 2 New People have Been Detained

SAN NICOLAS, Aruba (AP) – Authorities detained two men Sunday in connection with the disappearance of an Alabama teenager, who went missing nearly a week ago in Aruba while on a high school senior trip, the attorney general said.

Attorney General Caren Janssen called the men “suspects,” but declined to provide further details. They were not part of the group of three men who said they dropped off 18-year-old Natalee Holloway at the Holiday Inn in the early morning hours of May 30.

Police officers and three FBI agents, who are playing a supportive role in the investigation, took the two men into custody at two different houses in the southeastern town of San Nicolas, according to an AP photographer at the scene.

Police knocked on the door of one house, put the suspect on the floor and handcuffed him. Officers later detained a second man. They were both led to an unmarked police car and taken away.

Neighbors described the men as security guards who worked at a hotel closed down for renovation near where the blonde honors student was staying. Police and FBI agents searched the renovated hotel on Saturday.

An official close to the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity, has said the three other men who are not suspects – legal Aruban residents between the ages of 18 and 25 – told police they had taken Holloway to Arashi beach on the northwestern tip of Aruba before dropping her off at the hotel.

10:00AM EDT

Video from MSNBC on the arrest of two suspects. (MSNBC hinting at recovery effort but unconfirmed.)

CNN Two men arrested not apart of original 3 men questioned.

ORANJESTAD, Aruba (CNN) — Police have detained two men in connection with the disappearance of missing Alabama high school graduate, the Oranjestad police chief said Sunday morning.

Chief Jan van Strantan said the two men are security guards at the Hotel Allegro near the Holiday Inn where Natalee Holloway was staying.

“They have been arrested as a result of investigations against them,” he said, although he would not say if they have been accused of a crime.
Aruba is a Dutch protectorate, and under Dutch law, police are not required to charge suspects immediately on arrest.
Oranjestad police and FBI agents detained the two men in separate operations at their homes about 7 a.m., police said.

The men, ages 28 and 30, were not among the three men in whose company Holloway was last seen.

Police also took three cars for “further technical investigation,” chief prosecutor Karen Janssen told CNN.

Police still are interrogating the men, she added. Janssen said could not give details about the questioning because the investigation was ongoing and other people might be arrested.

The men were seen leaving their respective houses calmly and without resistance. Police were seen later carrying bags out of the house.

10:15 AM EDT AP: Investigators seized three cars to conducting forensic tests on them.

SAN NICOLAS, Aruba – Authorities in Aruba detained two men Sunday in connection with the disappearance of an Alabama teenager, who went missing nearly a week ago while on a high school graduation trip, the attorney general said.

Caren Janssen called the men “suspects” in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, 18, but declined to provide further details. The men, who were not among the three described Saturday by police as “persons of interest,” were being interrogated Sunday morning.

Investigators also seized three cars and were conducting forensic tests on them, Janssen said.

“We are at this moment right in the middle of the investigation,” Janssen later told CNN. “There may be others involved. I can’t tell you the details why they are suspects. That would be damaging” to the investigation.
She would not say whether the suspects had provided information about Holloway’s whereabouts. A reward of about $50,000 is being offered for her safe return.

“We are continuing the search for the missing girl,” Janssen said.

11:30 AM EDT Clarion Ledger, “Teenager missing in Aruba careful, dependable, according to family”

It just goes to show you that one needs to be careful all the time. Especially when you are in foreign countries. There are bad things and bad people everywhere; please teenager (all for that matter) be careful and think. Just because nothing has ever happened to you in the past when you take chances does not make it safe.

Already a world traveler at 18, Natalee Holloway is nothing if not careful and dependable, relatives say. That’s why friends knew something was wrong when she failed to show up for the flight home to Alabama after a senior trip to Aruba.

“Natalee being late is a tipoff,” aunt Marcia Twitty said Saturday.

Now Holloway — with sparkling eyes, long blond hair, a dancer’s legs and a heart for service — is the focus of an all-out search in an island paradise just off the coast of Venezuela.

Back home, dozens of Holloway’s friends and classmates attended an afternoon prayer vigil Saturday. Stores are selling out of yellow ribbon as residents put bows on trees, mailboxes and doors all over Mountain Brook.

“The entire community is very concerned and very much in prayer,” said longtime city manager Sam Gaston.

Holloway, a Mississippi native, was known as a top student and tireless worker at Mountain Brook High School, where she graduated last month before leaving for Aruba with 124 other seniors. Twitty said seven adults went along as chaperone’s.

Holloway was in the National Honor Society, studied Spanish and was a member of American Field Service, which works with foreign exchange students. Her participation may have been a reflection of her travels, which Twitty said included trips to Europe, Canada and some cruises.

I have many personal accounts with the island of Aruba as I first went there 33 years ago. I dated an Aruban girl when I was in high school/college when I was the same age as Natalee. The difference being that the girl I dated had protective parents and her relatives on the island were a who’s who in Aruban government. It was also a more tranquil time back then as Aruba had not gotten to the glut of hotel expansion. The expansion of hotels and tourism meant that Aruba had to import help from many different countries and not just rely on Arubans. This is the biggest difference in the Aruba I used to know to the one that exits today.

Please kids, just be safe. I cannot reiterate using the buddy system when you are on vacation. Think first and pray for her safe return.