Daniel Smith Death: Who Says Caribbean Islands Do not want to be the Next Aruba? The Bahamas Do Not

What is the affect of the disappearance of Natalee Holloway? Aruba thought is was just going to go away. Seems more that it is on the minds of many. The mysterious death of Anna Nicole Smith’s son, Daniel Smith, has caused the Bahamas to fear a hit to their image, similar to what has happened in Aruba. What do The Bahamas fear? PANTS, otherwise known as “Post Aruba Natalee Tourism Syndrome”. The high profile and undetermined death of Daniel Smith have some worried in the Bahamas that people may get the wrong idea and image of the Bahamas. The end result would be to suffer the same fate as Aruba, a sever drop off in tourism. Aruba wonders why the continue to see a perpetual, unending slide to their tourism? Wake up Aruba, you have made it to the worldwide lexicon of being the poster child island for missing and pathetically investigated crime. Think you are going to recover by throwing marketing dollars at the problem? Hardly.

Scott criticized the Bahamas’ head coroner, Linda Virgill, for labeling the death “suspicious” last week and saying that her office knew the cause of death before toxicology tests were complete. “Unless she’s psychic or God, unless the pathologists know the cause of death, how does she?” asked Scott, adding that some in the Bahamas worried the highly publicized case was affecting the island chain’s image. “We are all aware of what happened in Aruba. We are all aware of what happened to Natalee Holloway,” he said, referring to the high-profile disappearance last year of an Alabama teen. “We don’t want that to happen in this jurisdiction.” (Pioneer Press)

 Smith Death Sparks Scandal in Bahamas

“The fact of the matter is, the investigation surrounding this thing must be thoroughly done, it must be seen to be thoroughly investigated in any event,” he said. “You have to follow everything.”

Fears of missteps in the investigation have led some to worry aloud about the islands’ image overseas, and to comparisons with the much-criticized investigation into the disappearance of American teen Natalee Holloway in Aruba. Authorities there have arrested nine people in her disappearance and released all of them for lack of evidence.

“We are all aware of what happened in Aruba,” Michael Scott, a Bahamian attorney for Anna Nicole Smith, said on Thursday. “We don’t want that to happen in this jurisdiction.” (Wilmington Star)