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

Part 1: It Has Been 10 Years Since Natalee Holloway Went Missing, No Body … No Crime … And No One Tried, But We Know Damn Well Who Is Responsible, Don’t We Joran Van der Sloot?

ITS HARD TO BELIEVE IT HAS BEEN 10 YEARS …

May 30, 2005 … Alabama teen Natalee Holloway has gone missing in Aruba while on a class trip with her fellow Mountain Brook classmates to celebrate their graduation from high school, to begin their college careers and the rest of their lives. Or so they all thought. All of these young teens with their whole lives ahead of them, just celebrating one more time together before they went their separate ways in what was supposed to be a safe vacation surrounded by sand, sun and the sea. Like so many classes before them, a visit to Aruba was supposed to be the one last high school fling. Sadly, for Natalee Holloway it would be the one last thing she ever did in life, never to attend college, never to have the rest of her life. Enter Joran Van der Sloot, Deepak Kalpoe and Satish Kalpoe and everyone’s lives would be changed forever and not for the better.

Natalee Holloway and friends in Aruba 2005

The first post Scared Monkeys ever wrote on this missing persons case was entitled, ‘This Can’t Be Good For Tourism, Where’s Natalee Holloway’. At first glance, one night think it was rather crass and insensitive. But having visited Aruba since the 1970′s, having friends on the small Caribbean Island, even having dated a beautiful Aruba girl in my teens, and having lived and worked on Aruba, I pretty much knew what the prime concern would be for “One Happy Island” and that was to save its tourism industry at all cost. Even if it meant trying to push the dirt under the rug and hide things in the closet. The cover-up, collusion, corruption and cronyism would only be made worse in the case of missing Natalee Holloway when the individual last seen with the beautiful blond Alabama teen was Joran Van der Sloot, a boy of Dutch privilege who’s father was a judge in waiting with so many connections legally, politically and with law enforcement that all signs pointed toward the Holloway, Twitty and Reynold’s family being given the run around from the very beginning. I say this prior to ever having researched the case in depth or having talked to or met any of the family members. From experience, I knew the family was in for a hell of a time from past experiences on Aruba where the most simple of things are made into some of the most exasperating efforts in futility. I knew that Dave Holloway and Beth Twitty were in for a hell of a roller-coaster experience.

No one will ever convince me otherwise that the disappearance of Natalee Holloway and the subsequent search and investigation in Aruba was obstructed on two levels, one from the Van der Sloot family and Paulus Van der Sloot with his connections to prevent his son from going to prison and two, on a police, prosecution and government level to attempt to sweep this under the sand and save their economy that depended upon American tourism.

18 year old Natalee Holloway went missing on Aruba and was last seen leaving an Aruba bar, Carlos N’ Charlies, with three boys, Joran Van der Sloot, Deepak Kalpoe and Satish Kalpoe. The news of Natalee’s disappearance was not made public to the adults in attendance with the teens until the following day when it was time to head off for the airport to leave. Natalee was missing. From the outset, something was very wrong in how this case was being investigated. The Aruba police had the mindset that Natalee was just off having fun and she would return because this happens all the time. REALLY? That might have been some what okay reasoning for Aruba LE had any one of the three people Natalee was last with were missing too. However, they were not, they were already lying. What changed this case, brought it to the forefront and escalated it to new heights that we have never seen before in a missing persons case was that Aruba and the powers that be never imagines that the Holloway/Twitty family would have arrived so quickly on Aruba and hit the ground running trying to find Natalee. The Holloway/Twitty crew were doing the police and detective work that the Aruba LE should have already had done. Like I said, from the outset something smelled to the high heavens, and it was not just inept and incompetent police work, some was so bad it was obvious it had to be intentional.

Carlos N’ Charlies 2005

The lies begin from the three amigos, Joran, Deepak and Satish … From the beginning of dealing with the three individuals who were last seen with Natalee, the lies were flowing. They stated that they dropped her off at her hotel, the Holiday Inn after having left Carlos n’ Charlies. How can the last three people ever to see Natalee not be considered suspects? especially when video surveillance tape showed that the three had never done any such thing. Wouldn’t that or shouldn’t that have been the first thing that Aruba LE should have checked? Instead, the family had to do the investigative work.

Holloway was last seen by friends getting into a vehicle and leaving the Carlos and Charlie’s nightclub in the capital of Oranjestad  before dawn Monday.

Police questioned and released three Aruban men who said they dropped Holloway off early Monday at the Holiday Inn, where she had been staying about 3 miles from the capital of Oranjestad, said police assistant inspector Jules Sambo. The three were not suspects, he said.

MORE LIES … BLAME IT ON THE BLACK GUYS.

On June 5th, 2005 two black men were arrested in connection with the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. Why, because they were black. How racist is that? The former security guards, Mickey John, 30, and Abraham Jones, worked for the vacant Allegro hotel, two blocks from the Holiday Inn where Holloway stayed. How does anyone arrest two black men for a crime when the last people seen with a missing person walk free? Thus, we see from the outset the mindset in Aruba to blame this on anyone, two hapless black men, just because Aruba can. And they might have gotten away with it had Beth Holloway not come to their rescue and state, they were innocent.

The 2005 Arrest of Mickey John

A judge ruled Wednesday there was sufficient cause to keep holding two former hotel security guards in connection with the disappearance of an Alabama high school honors student.

The decision means authorities may hold Nick John, 30, and Abraham Jones, 28, for nearly four months while prosecutors investigate possible murder and kidnapping charges in the disappearance of 18-year-old Natalee Holloway, defense attorneys said. Neither man has been formally charged.

The two men were arrested Sunday on suspicion of first- and second-degree murder and capital kidnapping, the latter of which is invoked when a kidnapping victim is killed, according to court-appointed defense attorneys Noraina Pietersz and Chris Lejuez.

Later in the case, I had the opportunity to meet Mickey John in the States through the aid of FOM and talk to him as to what happened, his involvement, if any, and his opinions on the case. After talking to him for 5 minutes it became obvious he had nothing to do with Natalee’s disappearance and what just an easy patsy to blame it on. Was Micky John a choir boy, of course not, but he was hardly a murderer. John told me that he would never make any type of statement, especially in Aruba fro fear he would be arrested again for no reason. What had always bothered me to this day was how did the Aruba LE, prosecution and judiciary allow the last three people ever to be seen with Natalee Holloway go from persons of interest and prime suspects to witnesses? From 6/8/05, Attorney general spokeswoman Vivian Van Der Biezan also told a news conference that three “persons of interest” who were questioned and released last week were considered “witnesses,” not suspects. HUH? They dropped the dime on Micky John and Abraham Jones and the Aruba legal brain-trust fell for it hook, line and sinker. Of course the fact that Joran Van der Sloot’s father, Paulus, was a lawyer and a judge in waiting with his many connections had nothing to do with this attempted cover up and frame job. It would not be until June 13, 2005 that Abraham Jones and Mickey John was released from jail.

Abraham Jones Released!

This announcement was telling on two fronts, one, justice finally prevailed in that these two black security guards were finally let out of jail as they had no involvement in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway and the other would be something that would become a common occurrence through out the investigation in Aruba. The second interest fact was that Scared Monkeys broke the news of the release of the two security guards before the AP. Needless to say that prompted many news outlets to contact us and ask how that was possible. This became one of the events in the case that prompted the news outlets to track SM, not the other way around. That’s what happens when you have people on the ground and know others with connections that supplied info and data on a case that was so fluid.

On June 6th, volunteers in Aruba searched for missing Natalee Holloway. About 700 volunteers joined police, soldiers and FBI agents on Monday, combing scrubland and beaches on Aruba’s southeastern tip in an unprecedented search for an Alabama teenager who vanished a week ago on a trip to the Dutch Caribbean island. The Aruba government gave their civil servant employees the day off to help search for Natalee. However, only about 18% of government employees showed to search on what was the biggest story to hit Aruba since their independence from Holland. Also, who did not search … Joran Van der Sloot, Deepak Kalpoe or Satish Kalpoe.

It would not be until June 8, 2005 that the three boys, Joran Van der Sloot, Deepak Kalpoe and Satish Kalpoe would be arrested by Aruba authorities in connection with the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. However, Natalee went missing on May 30, all this time for these three to get their stories synched together and to be coached by Joran’s father, Paulus Van der Sloot. Eight days go by and the individuals who were last seen with a missing person were allowed to sanitize, erase, get rid of and clean up all loose ends with the help of their master white-washer, Paulus.

Aruban police arrested three more suspects in the case of the missing American honors student Thursday, the attorney general said.

Attorney General Caren Janssen said police arrested three men that police had previously questioned and released in the disappearance of 18-year-old Natalee Holloway.

Authorities have described the three as students – two Surinamese and a native of the Netherlands – who told police they dropped off Holloway at her hotel around 2 a.m. on May 30. Hotel employees, however, say that security cameras did not record her return.

From SM 2005: This Can’t Be Good For Tourism, Where’s Natalee Holloway?

FROM 2005 COMES THE FOLLOWING POST IN THE DISAPPEARANCE OF NATALEE HOLLOWAY THAT STARTED IT ALL …

It started out as a simple post of a missing teen on vacation with her high school classmates and would become the top story of 2005 and one of the most covered missing person cases in history. Today marks 10 years since Natalee Holloway went missing in Aruba, her body has never been recovered and no one has answered for her death. JUSTICE FOR NATALEE!!!

For an Island paradise that prides itself on sandy beaches and a constant trade wind, the last thing they would want is bad publicity of an unsafe island. However, An Alabama high school student, Natalee Holloway, disappeared during her graduation trip to Aruba.

Natalee Holloway, 18, was among 125 graduating seniors from Mountain Brook High School, near Birmingham, on a five-day trip to the Caribbean island.

She was last seen getting into a vehicle and leaving a nightclub in the capital, Oranjestad, before dawn on Monday, deputy police chief Gerold Dompig said. She did not show up for her group’s return flight later in the day.

“We went to check in for our airplane, and she wasn’t there, and she’s been missing since then,” classmate Jay Weinacker said.

Having lived and worked there, people really need to understand that island’s like Aruba have their fair share of crime as well. Once you are away from the hotels and in Oranjestad it is no different than any other city in the US. Sometimes even worse.

Aruba police said Wednesday that they had questioned and released three local men who said they dropped the teenager off at her hotel late Sunday night. Officials said the girl’s parents were unable to spot her on a hotel surveillance tape.

There will be much, much more to come, check back during the day.

CNN’s Martin Savidge Interviews Eye Witness Jurriën de Jong in the Disappearance and Death of Natalee Holloway in Aruba (VIDEO)

CNN’s Martin Savidge interviews Jurriën de Jong who calls himself an eye-witness to the death and disappearance of Natalee Holloway. De Jong says he saw Joran Van der Sloot bury Holloway’s body on a construction site of what is now the Marriott Aruba Surf Club.  Natalee Holloway went missing on Aruba on May 30, 2015 while on vacation with her high school from Mountainbrook, Alabama.

CNN – New clues, questions in Natalee Holloway case.

Ten years after Natalee Holloway went missing, a Dutch citizen says he knows where to find her. Prosecutors, however, aren’t buying it.

Jurriën de Jong told CNN’s Martin Savidge that the teen’s body is buried in a crawl space at a Marriott vacation property in Aruba, and he believes he saw her in her final moments.

De Jong says he was near Marriott’s Aruba Surf Club, then under construction, on the night of May 30, 2005, when he saw a young man chase a young woman through the construction site.

At first, he thought the two were being playful, but he says a short time later the man reappeared, carrying the woman in his arms. He says her body appeared limp.

“… He pulled (the woman) by the ankles inside the crawl space, stayed inside for a minute and then came out and closed the gap,” de Jong said.

Even though de Jong suspected he had witnessed something serious, he says didn’t go to the police because he was involved in “illegal activities” at the time.

Possible new lead in Natalee Holloway case … Anderson Cooper Interviews Dave Holloway and TJ Ward

10 Years Later Google Earth Image Offers New clues & Raises New Questions in Natalee Holloway Case … Was There Construction Taking Place at Marriott Aruba Surf Club … See Pics for Yourself

Tomorrow will mark 10 years that Alabama teen Natalee Holloway went missing in Aruba. After all the searches, all the lies, all the incompetent police work, all the cronyism, all the corruption and all the cover up, Natalee Holloway is still missing and is presumed dead. At the heart of Natalee’s disappearance and death is the prime suspect who was last seen with her, Joran Van der Sloot. Also at the root of the Natalee Holloway disappearance was a Caribbean Islands attempt to not have their tourism hurt by the case.

Recently a witness has come forward, Jurrien De Jong, who said he saw Natalee and Joran that fateful night in May 2005. De Jong said, “I saw that Joran was chasing Natalee into a small building under construction. In about five minutes he came out with Natalee in his arms, and slammed the body of Natalee on the floor, and then he made an opening in a crawl space … I knew she was dead.” Actually, Jurrien De Jong is not a new witness to the case because he said similar comments in 2010. Jurrien De Jong spoke with Diario and said that Joran killed Natalee at the Marriott Aruba Surf Club that was under construction.

Their right is the Marriott Aruba Surf Club Phase 3, in terms of structure is finished and only needs to be finished and left, a row of containers.

Joran suggests that stars and look at Natalee’s remark that there is already a roof on the hotel is right, then he points to show a small building at the very end of the site.

If your building plan of the hotel on Google Earth satellite image of June 22, 2005 submit, you will find that this building is the start of the emergency stairwell # 3 of “The Spyglass Tower”.

They run inside, climb on the landing, go through the stairs to the first floor and steps in a “half” room, which later the space behind the elevators would be.

He then takes her in his arms and running down the stairs and puts her on the landing. He jumps down, pulls her into the hallway and grabbed a fire with a twist smacks her on the ground. Then he pushes the sand to crawl away and he pulls Natalee at her feet inside. He crawls to the end of the room and stuffed with sand near the crack. His shoes, where blood is, he kicks off and leaves behind this spot.

However, Aruba Chief Prosecutor Eric Olthof dismisses Jurrien De Jong’s story that he saw Joran Van der Sloot kill Natalee Holloway at this location. But we know ARUBA IS CORRUPT AS HELL.

“Even though Mr. De Jong has not presented more plausible proof of his claims (his current testimony is identical to the one he gave in 2013 to the Prosecutor’s Office), Chief Prosecutor Olthof commissioned the police to contact the management of the Marriott -considering the type of case, the importance of the case and the long duration of the disappearance of Natalee Holloway- with the request to supply information about the state of the construction site of the Spyglass Tower of the Marriott hotel on the 30th of May 2005,” Angela said in the press release. “In short: what was built and what was not yet built on that 30th of May 2005, the night of the disappearance of Natalee?”

Recently the Prosecutor’s Office received the requested information from the management of the Marriott based in Orlando. “From this information, it becomes indisputably clear that on the 30th of May 2005, no construction or building activities were started at the location that Mr. De Jong has specifically pointed out as the spot where Natalee Holloway would have been hidden and/or buried,” according to Angela’s press release. “More concretely: the foundation of the Spyglass Tower (that still had to be built at the time) and of the staircase of the Spyglass Tower was not in place. This means that Natalee Holloway could never have been hidden and/or buried there.”

Enter Google Earth …

The Aruban authorities and the Marriott claim that the construction of Spyglass Tower at the Marriott Aruba Surf Club claim that it was not under construction at the time. REALLY? Judge for yourself from the picture taken from Google Earth 2005.

June 2005

Pic – Hat Tip Klaas

On the other hand, some signs complicate Marriott’s official time line of the construction of Spyglass Tower. A satellite image from Google Earth taken in June 2005, just a few weeks after Natalee Holloway disappeared, shows what appears to be the blurry outlines of structures that could resemble a construction site.

Holloway’s father says he remembers the site from the day after his daughter’s disappearance. “I can tell you for a fact. I was there on June 1, and there was definitely construction in that area,” he says.

Holloway says he has information that construction began in February, but he was not clear on how he knows. Natalee Holloway was last seen on May 30, 2005.

Pic – Hat Tip Kermit

CNN’s Savidge received this statement from Jeff Flaherty of global corporate relations at Marriott International Inc.: “Mr. de Jong has contacted Marriott in the past and each time we have suggested to Mr. de Jong that he present his account of the matter to the authorities. As we have done all along, we cooperate fully with the authorities whenever they are conducting an official investigation.”

For his part, de Jong says he believes authorities are dragging their feet.

“It’s the inconvenient truth. It would damage the image of Aruba as one happy island,” he says.

Oltholf won’t say that de Jong is lying, but says his statement can’t be true.

UPDATE I: More pics from Google Earth via CNN video of the Marriott Aruba Surf club in 2005. From the pics it appears, unlike what Marriott has stated, there was construction taking place at the site and the location of the Spyglass Tower.

PIC 1

PIC 2

PIC 3

PIC 4

For much more information, past and present, to read others analysis and comments and to provide your own,  go to Scared Monkeys Forum: Natalee Holloway.