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 …

The Dana Pretzer Show – Thursday, August 31, 2017 – Please Join Dana Pretzer Tonight at 9 PM ET with Special Guests: Michael Bishop, Marcel Danesi & T.J. Ward

THE DANA PRETZER SHOW

LISTEN TO PODCAST HERE

Tonight’s Guests:

• Author Michael Bishop will be discussing his new book, ‘A Murder in Music City’
  • Nashville 1964. Eighteen-year-old babysitter Paula Herring is murdered in her home while her six-year-old brother apparently sleeps through the grisly event. A few months later a judge’s son is convicted of the crime. Decades after the slaying, Michael Bishop, a private citizen, stumbles upon a secret file related to the case and with the help of some of the world’s top forensic experts–including forensic psychologist Richard Walter (aka “the living Sherlock Holmes”)–he uncovers the truth. What really happened is completely different from what the public was led to believe.Now, for the very first time, Bishop reveals the true story. In this true-crime page-turner, the author lays out compelling evidence that a circle of powerful citizens were key participants in the crime and the subsequent cover-up. The ne’er-do-well judge’s son, who was falsely accused and sent to prison, proved to be the perfect setup man. The perpetrators used his checkered history to conceal the real facts for over half a century.

• Author Marcel Danesi will be discussing his new book, ‘Murder in Plain English’
  • This is the first book to examine murder through the written word–not only the writings of the killers themselves, but also the story of murder as told in literary fiction and the crime dramas that are now a staple of film and television. The authors–a criminologist specializing in cold cases, written evidence, and forensic science, and an anthropologist who has dealt with the signs and ciphers of organized crime and street gangs in his previous work–are widely recognized experts in this emerging specialty field. Based on extensive research and interviews with convicted murderers, the book emphasizes the often-overlooked narrative impulse that drives killers, with the authors explaining how both mass and serial murderers perceive their crimes as stories and why a select few are compelled to commit these stories to writing whether before, during, or after their horrific acts.The book also analyzes the written work of killers, using a combination of machine-based linguistic patterning, predictive modeling, and symbolic interpretation, to make sense of the screeds of everyone from the Son of Sam and the Zodiac Killer to the Columbine attackers, the Unabomber, and the recent spate of mass shooters using social media as their preferred narrative platform.

• T.J. Ward – Private Investigator will be discussing the latest in the Natalee Holloway case and the discoveries in the case of the missing and delared deceased Alabama teen who went missing on Aruba in 2005. The latest discoveries are being documented on Oxygen TV.

Has Natalee Holloway Finally Been Found After Missing in Aruba for 12 Years? (VIDEO)

AFTER 12 YEARS, HAS NATALEE HOLLOWAY FINALLY BEEN FOUND?

Dave Holloway, the father of missing and deceased Natalee Holloway, is stating along with private investigator T.J. Ward that they may have finally found her remains.  According to Dave Holloway and TJ Ward, remains have been discovered in the long-unsolved disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba and they have been determined to be human. Now, DNA tests will have to be conducted. The new lead was a product of the individual known as Gabriel.  This new discovery  was the result of an 18-month investigation with Ward, a search that was documented for an Oxygen TV show that debuts Saturday, “The Disappearance of Natalee Holloway.” I can only hope for the family’s sake that this is legitimate and will finally bring closure for Beth, Dave and the rest of Natalee’s family. Natalee Holloway went missing on May 30, 2005 in Aruba. But I have my doubts.

Remember the original post from 2005: This Can’t Be Good For Tourism, Where’s Natalee Holloway.

For much more and discussion, go to Scared Monkeys forum: Natalee Holloway.

The father of Natalee Holloway said he and a private investigator found human remains in Aruba and he thinks his daughter’s body may have finally been found.

Holloway was 18 years old when she disappeared in Aruba back in 2005 while on a graduation trip.

Dave Holloway said he was contacted by an informant named Gabriel, who said he had some information that may lead to finding Holloway’s body. With the help of a private investigator, they targeted where the human remains were found. The remains are now being tested for DNA, which could take weeks.

Natalee Holloway’s Father Talks About Possible New Lead In Case

The Story Behind the Story: New Clues in the case of Natalee Holloway

Tell-All Book from Prison, Admission or more BS? … Joran Van Der Sloot Promises New Details Of Natalee Holloway Case In 500-Page Book (VIDEO)

WHO THINKS THIS IS JUST MORE BS FROM A PATHOLOGICAL LIAR?

Its been a while since we heard some lies from Joran Vander Sloot, the pathological liar and suspected killer of Natalee Holloway. This was the headline from this week’s  RadarOnline.com and The National Enquirer: “World Exclusive! Evil Joran Finally Confesses ‘I murdered Natalee Holloway!’ It is supposed to be a jailhouse admission from the psychopath that has lied more times that Pinocchio. However, the parents of Natalee Holloway say reports of Joran van der Sloot’s latest “videotaped confession” are nothing more than a publicity stunt and “absolutely meaningless.” I could not agree more.

Radar on Line:

Convicted killer Joran van der Sloot has been locked behind bars for more than five years, but that hasn’t stopped his scheming! RadarOnline.com and The National ENQUIRER have obtained a bombshell new video that reveals his secret plot to escape from Peru and get extradited to Aruba — or even the United States

Van der Sloot, 28, has been serving time in Peru’s Challapalca prison since 2014 for the 2010 murder of local woman Stephany Flores. It was there that a Radar and ENQUIRER operative obtained the chilling hidden camera footage of the killer. As Radar reported, van der Sloot claimed he would reveal more details of his role in the Natalee Holloway murder in a juicy 500-page tell-all book, and the new footage reveals his secret motivation for becoming an author.

“I have no doubt that if the book gets published, they’ll extradite me to Aruba!” he bragged in the video obtained by Radar and The ENQUIRER. But he insisted, “I want to be extradited first before I tell more. If I were to be in Aruba, I wouldn’t mind giving my story first to the authorities there, before releasing it as a book so they can confirm everything.”

10 Years Later: Searching in Aruba for Natalee Holloway … The Search of the Aruba Landfill in 2005 for Missing Natalee Holloway (PICS)

THE LANDFILL SEARCH FOR NATALEE HOLLOWAY … PROBABLY ONE OF THE BEST AND WORST THINGS I HAVE EVER DONE …

On July 23, 2005 Scared Monkeys conducted an interactive, town hall style  on-line interview with Tim Miller of Texas Equusearch, the non-profit search team that had been searching for Natalee Holloway in Aruba since she had gone missing on May 30, 2005.  Texas Equusearch had been flooded with emails of encouragement and tips from the many followers and readers at Scared Monkeys that Tim granted the interview. Interactive web interviews are commonplace today, needless to say they were not in 2005 and the logistics to make it happen was nothing short of a miracle. Following the interview as I thanked Tim Miller on the phone and for TES’s great work in their search for Natalee Holloway, Mr. Miller did an amazing thing … he asked if I wanted to go to Aruba and help search for Natalee. Once we cleared up some logistics and made sure that we could pay for the ticket to Aruba ourselves so not to impose on TES or have them divert any funds from the search on our account, we let it be known that Red was going to Aruba to search with Texas Equusearch.

Returning to Aruba, a place where my family had vacationed since the 1970′s, long before the many high-rise hotels and wining vacations there on game shows. Aruba, a place where I got to know so many families, who treated us as one of their own and a place where I had even dated an Aruban girl, who’s family was pretty well connected. Talk about your long distance relationship, before the days of social media and Facetime or Skype. A place where I hung out with more locals than tourists. Aruba, a place where I lived and worked as well. Now I was going back to help find Natalee Holloway.

I have to admit i was not sure what I was getting into and was not sure which searches I would be doing, land, water, both? I had told Tim that I was going to be a member of the search team first and reporting on the story second. Little did I realize than just a couple days before going to Aruba that that I would be helping search in the Aruba landfill as The witness claimed he saw the men dumping the body on the afternoon of June 1. The following article discusses the landfill search on such a generic and antiseptic way. Let me just say it was far from that and maybe one of the most rewarding and disgusting thing I have ever done in my life.

Picture via Scared Monkeys – 2005

A volunteer group searching for Natalee Holloway dug through a landfill for a third day Sunday but found no clues, while the missing teen’s mother left Aruba for the first time since her daughter disappeared two months ago.

Crews equipped with trained dogs, a bulldozer and a tractor hoe dug 15 holes in a landfill where a witness claims he saw men dump and cover a female body two days after Holloway disappeared, said Robert Cook, spokesman for the volunteer Texas EquuSearch, which is coordinating the landfill effort.

Searches at the landfill Friday and Saturday also produced no sign of Holloway.

THE LANDFILL SEARCH FOR NAYALEE HOLLOWAY.

From July 30, 2005 … Red searched the landfill from 10 AM till 3 PM. He said it was one of the foulest and god awful smelling places he has ever been in. For three days we searched the landfill and for every hole that was dug to a certain level, some one then had to get into it to do a more fine search with rakes and shovels. The picture below taken by a digital camera, although it looks grainy. That would be because of the constant Aruba trade wind blowing all the sand and crap in the dump around.

During the landfill search, I not only searched for Natalee Holloway with the members of Texas Equusearch, I also was digging next to her dad, Dave Holloway. I thought to myself as we were digging in the worst filth and the most disgusting stench that I had ever experienced in my life, I so wanted to help this man and find his daughter. Then I thought to myself in the next second, it might not be the best thing to happen when he was present. It was one thing to take part in this search, another thing to find human remains in a landfill, but quite a different thing to have to see a grown man break down in uncontrollable tears and emotions if we actually found her. This was the roller-coaster of thoughts and emotions that took place ever day as we searched for Natalee Holloway.

This search will forever be seared in my mind, body and soul … as previously stated, one of the best and worst things I have ever done in my life.

Picture via Scared Monkeys – 2005

Unlike most landfills in America where those in charge can locate and track what was dumped where and when, Aruba had no such tracking system. Imagine that. Instead, we had to go by the witness as to what area of the landfill he thought he saw the vehicle and where the dump site was. All the while the witness covered his face for fear of being recognized and to prevent the foulness from getting into his nose and mouth. So how did we know how far down to dig or where to dig holes? At a certain point we got in the holes and looked that the daily news papers that were thrown away to see what date they were to find the date just before May 30, 2005. That was the methodology.

Picture via Scared Monkeys – 2005

And for every hole that was dug like the one above, when we got to what we thought was close enough to the correct proximity of time, some one had to get into the hole and comb throw it to see if we made needed to dig deeper or had to use a rake, shovel and your hands to search. That would be yours truly in the blue shirt in the hole.

Picture via Scared Monkeys – 2005

And all the while Red and the members of Texas Equusearch were in the landfill in some of the most foul and hideous conditions trying to help Beth and Dave find their daughter on a witness tip we were following up on, the media was kicking their feet up from a distance trying to get a picture with their telephoto lenses.

Picture via Scared Monkeys – 2005

Or better yet, a close up of the media getting a sun tan while we are in the landfill busting our butts to get some closure for the Holloway/Twitty/Reynold’s family.

Picture via Scared Monkeys – 2005

Picture via Scared Monkeys – 2005

Picture via Scared Monkeys – 2005

Picture via Scared Monkeys – 2005