Taxi’s In Aruba; Could You Tell the Difference?

From the beginning Beth Twitty stated that her daughter Natalee Holloway thought she was getting into a taxi cab after leaving Carlos & Charlie’s.

She spent her 5 days at home reviewing all of her notes and statements from witnesses and friends and she says on the night Natalee disappeared, she left a bar thinking she was getting into a cab.

Beth Holloway Twitty said, “Now I know– I know what happened to Natalee! Do you know that our daughter felt like she was getting into a cab? That Deepak Kalpoe was a taxi driver? She thought she was going to the Holiday Inn!”

That was the last time Natalee’s friends saw her, happily yelling out of that car window, “yay Aruba!”

After the mention of confusing a taxi cab for an individuals private vehicle, much debate ensued where many stated that was impossible. That the cabs were clearly marked. Many claims that Beth Twitty was lying. It was simply impossible to confuse the two. Impossible and never are very dangerous words to use. Especially in the case of the disappearance of Natalee Holloway.

Cliff Van Zandt of MSNBC provided the following information with his own eye witness accounts of what we saw while in Aruba in August 2005.

As I walked out of the bar the cabs and cars drove by. Some were looking for fares, while some were just cruising, checking out the nightlife in the area. In Aruba it can be hard at times to tell a private car from a cab. If you play detective you can spot the special license plate decal on registered cabs, if, that is, you go to the rear of the car to look for it. Sometimes there’s a small, plug-in sign on the dash of the car that says “taxi,” and sometimes the driver even has a CB-like radio. But other times a car rolls up and when you climb inside you see nothing that suggests it is a cab. This happened to me twice. When I asked, the driver said his “real” taxi was being repaired, so he was driving a friend’s car. The reality is that you have about five seconds to decide whether to get into the car or not. It’s hard to know if it’s a real taxi, perhaps a situation that Natalee, like me, accepted at face value. What we do know from witnesses is that at about 1:45 a.m. she drove off in the back seat of a car with Joran van der Sloot while the two Kalpoe brothers were in front, and she was never seen again.

Could you tell the difference between these two cars whether one was a taxi cab or not at 1:30AM after coming out of a bar on vacation and being escorted to it?

The following is from an individual who has been to Aruba on many occasions:

Could Natalee have mistaken Deepak’s car for a taxi? My initial thought was that there was no way a car could be mistaken from a taxi, as taxis always have a prominently displayed yellow taxi sign, which is lit at night.  Or so I thought, until I saw this car….

(Deepak Kalpoe’s silver car)

(Aruban Taxi)

At night, if taxis were to bring people home at closing time and the passenger door was to the curb; is it completely impossible for some one who had just come from a bar to confuse the two? Impossible?

Or is it like what Clint Van Zandt witnessed with his own eyes when at the very same location?

The reality is that you have about five seconds to decide whether to get into the car or not. It’s hard to know if it’s a real taxi, perhaps a situation that Natalee, like me, accepted at face value. What we do know from witnesses is that at about 1:45 a.m. she drove off in the back seat of a car with Joran van der Sloot while the two Kalpoe brothers were in front, and she was never seen again.

You decide whether it is possible or impossible.

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