Beth Holloway Oxygen Media over a TV Series “The Disappearance of Natalee Holloway” of Her Daughter’s 2005 Disappearance in Aruba

BETH HOLLOWAY SUES OXYGEN MEDIA FOR 35 MILLION …

As reported at the WAPO, Beth Holloway, he mother of Natalee Holloway, is suing Oxygen media for $35 million of what she contends was a fake television documentary about the case. Natalee Holloway, a Mountainbrook, Alabama teen went missing during her senior trip to Aruba in 2005. Holloway is seeking $10 million in compensation and $25 million in punitive damages against Oxygen Media, an arm of NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment, and the Los Angeles-based Brian Graden Media. The suit contends that rather than being a documentary or true investigation, the show was a “scripted, pre-planned farce calculated to give the impression of real-time events.

All I can say is I hope Beth is successful. I thought the TV series was pretty much nonsense after the first 15 to 30 minutes. I painfully watched it to keep informed, but much of it became unwatchable. It did seem contrived, like reality TV of a missing persons case, which I find a bit disgusting. Having been involved in this case from the very beginning and having actually searched for Natalee Holloway in Aruba and knowing the family personally, the TV series seemed shameless. In full disclosure, I have to say that I have never really found T.J. Ward’s premises and conclusions credible. We shall see how this law suit develops, I hope she wins. Let’s be serious folks, we know who did it, we know how it most likely happened. Keep in mind, Joran Van der Sloot all but admitted it, the Aruba legal system just decided not to prosecute.

Law suit

Last August, when Oxygen Media debuted a six-part documentary series on the case, the first episode pulled in a cumulative 1.1 million viewers, reportedly the highest true crime show premiere in the network’s history.

But that series — “The Disappearance of Natalee Holloway” — is now at the center of a $35 million federal lawsuit filed by Natalee’s mother, Beth Holloway.

According to a legal complaint filed Feb. 2, the show was “not a realtime or legitimate investigation into new leads,” as the program claimed to be, but a “pre-planned farce.” Holloway claims she was duped into providing her DNA to be tested against remains found by producers —  without being told that the testing was for a television show. Entertainment and ratings were the priority, not investigation, the lawsuit suggests.

The lawsuit argues that the network and Brian Graden Media, the show’s production company, knew “prior to filming their Series that they would not find Natalee because the Series was pre-conceived and was not a real-time investigation discovering new facts.”

Oxygen addresses the lawsuit:

“We were disappointed to learn of the complaint and its inaccurate depiction of how the series was produced, and we want to reiterate our deep compassion and sympathy for all members of the Holloway family,” the statement said.

“The documentary series was developed by a production company in close collaboration with Dave Holloway and his longtime private investigator. The show followed his continued search to find answers about his daughter Natalee from a lead he had received. We had hoped, along with Mr. Holloway, that the information was going to provide closure.”

Brian Graden Media did not immediately return a message for comment.

Did Oxygen media exploit a desperate family looking for answers finally in the case of missing Natalee Holloway? You make the call.Was it really an attempt to find answers or just make money and exploit the case that so many want answers too?

The six-episode Oxygen series was billed as another attempt to find answers. The series followed Natalee’s father — Beth Holloway’s ex-husband Dave Holloway — and private investigator T.J. Ward as they re-tackled the case.

The key moments involved discussions with informants, including one who claimed “to have known Joran van der Sloot, to have exhumed Natalee’s body at van der Sloot’s bidding, to have ‘crushed’ Natalee’s remains into little pieces, and to have burned her skull before disposing of her remains,” the legal complaint stated.

The show’s participants took possession of the bone fragments identified by the suspects. On Aug. 10 2017, Dave Holloway contacted his ex-wife, explaining they needed her DNA to see if the human female remains were Natalee’s. He did not tell her the testing was part of a television production, the lawsuit said. She provided the DNA sample — but then heard nothing, until she learned about Oxygen series. The legal complaint alleges producers already knew the remains would not match the missing girl before making the request.

“Defendants further preyed and capitalized on Beth’s desperate need and desire to find her daughter by claiming directly to Beth that they may have found Natalee’s gravesite and asking for .?.?. Beth’s DNA to test against the remains they claimed to have spontaneously discovered there,” the suit says. “To obtain Beth’s DNA, Defendants misrepresented and omitted facts surrounding their ‘discovery’ of remains.”

Much more to follow …