Natalee Holloway; June 16 2005

(Fox): Today in Aruba a court will rule as to whether or not to allow the father, Paul van der Sloot, and lawyers for three suspects in the Natalee Holloway case to see their clients and the evidence against them. Yesterday Paul van der Sloot filed a motion allowing him to see his son.

An Aruban court on Thursday will rule on whether to allow the father and lawyers for three suspects in the Natalee Holloway case to see their clients and the evidence compiled against them.

Aruban authorities had denied visitation because of the father’s status. The father is a wealthy judge-in-training on the island, serving a three-year term on the bench that allows him to hear a limited number of cases.

“When you’re a minor you have a right to visitation from your parents. But because of legal concerns, because the father is part of the legal system, that right was not granted in the first instance,” said Aruba government spokesman Rueben Trappenberg. Another judge will decide if the boy’s father can visit him after the motion is filed.

(ABC): Meanwhile the home of the 17-year-old Dutch teen, Joran van der Sloot, was searched and investgators later emerging from the home carrying several full plastic bags and towing two cars.

Aruban police searched the home of a high-ranking Dutch judicial official whose son was with Natalee Holloway the night she disappeared, emerging four hours later carrying several full plastic bags and towing two cars.

Two white-uniformed investigators from Holland on Wednesday also entered the yellow-beige home, which includes an attached apartment where the young man lives, carrying suitcases. They later returned the suitcases to their white, unmarked car.

However, as the search of the van der Sloot home was conducted yesterday and evidence removed many have questioned why this had not occurred earlier? Aruban authorities have stated that the 3 suspects now in jail had been tracked by electronic surveillance and there phones tapped after that had originally been let out and only been given the status of “witnesses”. The current push to investigate the van der Sloot home has some wondering whether is is, Too Little, Too Late?

While Aruban authorities on Wednesday searched the home of a teenager who was one of the last people to see a Natalee Holloway, legal and investigative experts said the search, along with many other investigative techniques, could have been done long ago.

The investigation has “been severely compromised because what they’re doing now they should have done two weeks ago,” said forensic pathologist Michael Baden, who added that evidence could have been hidden or washed away within the past two weeks from the time the Alabama teen went missing and Wednesday’s search.

“The chances of finding anything significant has been greatly reduced by the two week’s interval,” he added.

The Birmingham News, Police investigating using helicopter to survey island before dawn Thursday.

Police investigating Natalee Holloway’s disappearance made a helicopter survey of this Dutch Caribbean island before dawn Thursday after seizing cars and other items at the home of a judicial official whose son was with the Alabama teen the night she vanished.

A judge was expected to rule later Thursday on a motion from the official to see his 17-year-old son, who is being held along with two friends from Suriname. The judge also was to rule on a request by lawyers for the two Surinamese to see any evidence against their clients.

Authorities did not return phone calls seeking information about the helicopter flight. In a statement released late Wednesday, officials said the helicopter would conduct “technical investigations” across the island during the night.

Video and more news from MSNBC.

‘Pieces’ to puzzle found
Government spokesman Ruben Trapenberg said investigators were making progress.

“They’re getting pieces that they need to solve this puzzle, put it together,” he told CNBC. “It is a question of national priority for us.”