The Never Ending Saga of Dompig’s Demotion, Removal, Request To Leave from the Natalee Holloway Case

The soap opera of what is the Gerold Dompig firing, reorganization, demotion, and removal from the Natalee Holloway investigation is a microcosm of the investigation itself. Confused and questionable at best. There are more versions of what took place to cover up the fact that Gerold Dompig had done enough PR damage with his nearly blaming the victim of her own demise from a drug overdose.

First the family was ti blame for the arrest of the three suspects prematurely, yet Dompig does not account for the initial arrest of the two security guards. Then Gerold Dompig states that Natalee was not murdered, but instead died of an apparent accidental overdose.

All in all, a rather peculiar time to just step down from the case on one’s own accord. So much for the “critical last phase” that Gerold Dompig referred to in his 48 Hours interview.

We first learned of Dompig’s demotion in a Diario (4/5/06). He won’t be saying anything more on the Natalee Holloway case Commissioner Dompig practically without power Dolfi Richardson now heads Natalee Holloway case

We continued to look for information and it results that Commissioner Gerold Dompig is not at the head of the investigation into the case of Natalee Holloway. Neither is the substitute High Commissioner, now that Mr. Ronny Bernadina is no longer there.

Followed up by an article in Bon Dia (4/6/06), “Gerold Dompig remains spokesperson but not head of the Natalee Holloway investigative team“.

Only to be followed up on by an Amigoe article (4/7/06), Dompig no longer on Holloway-case

To be further added to by a Bon Dia story, “Gerold Dompig said that information given about his demotion is not true.”

It is not true that Gerold Dompig was demoted in his functions as some media outlets published yesterday. After many attempts, Bon Dia Aruba was able to contact the Commissioner, who did not want to give out too much information, but categorically denied that the information published was true.

Now we are told that, “It was Commissioner Gerold Dompig himself who asked to be removed from the Holloway case.”

The High Commissioner said that he doesn’t want to go into details on the reasons why Mr. Dompig took such a decision, but mr. Bernadina made it be known that he sat down with the Attorney General already and they put another person at the head of the investigation. The High Commissioner reiterated that Mr. Gerold Dompig himself asked to be removed. The High Commissioner indicated that the team is actually the one that does the main task, and not the tactical guide.

From The April 6, 2006 Abrams Report, Julia Renfro of Aruba Today provides us with yet another spin on the events of the circumstances of why Gerold Dompig left the job as lead investigator in the Natalee Holloway case.

RENFRO: Well, Susan, I heard you mention that he has been pulled off the case. That‘s not exactly how it happened. He most recently requested to be taken off the case. And maybe you‘re not aware, but he was only an interim lead investigator in between the original lead investigator, which was (INAUDIBLE) and now the recently appointed investigator, which is Dolfi Richardson.

FILAN: OK, but is this just sort of spin? I mean is this nice language to cover up the fact that he is not on this case anymore and there is probably a good reason for it?

RENFRO: No, I wouldn‘t really say so. I do know that he has recently and on similar occasions made several comments to the press, which is a little bit out of character for, you know, an investigation. As you might know, very, very little details are usually given in a case from the police department or from the prosecution.

FILAN: So was it just out of the ordinary or was it actually inappropriate?

RENFRO: Well I‘m not going to exactly say it‘s inappropriate. Of course, you know, a lot of people were shocked by some of his statements, but did that cause an uproar and is that the reason why he is off the case? No, absolutely not.

(Full Abrams Report Transcript)