Natalee Holloway disappeared 10 years ago in Aruba while on a high school graduation trip. Last seen alive on May 30, 2005, with Joran van der Sloot and brothers Satish and Deepak Kalpoe, there are still no solid answers on what happened to Natalee. Holloway was declared legally dead in 2012 by an Alabama judge, but Natalee’s father, Dave Holloway, hasn’t given up the search and is seeking closure.
Dave Holloway believes Natalee was the victim of foul play and that her body was disposed of in the ocean. However, there seems to be a new lead, at least one Dave Holloway believes is worth checking into. Holloway was recently contacted by Jurrien de Jong, who claims to have seen van der Sloot carrying Natalee Holloway’s body the night she disappeared.
Holloway recently opened up in an interview with CNN’s Martin Savidge about this potential new lead. According to Holloway, de Jong told him that van der Sloot and Natalee got out of a car at the Marriott hotel and that there was a construction site enclosed by a chain link fence. De Jong said the gate was locked but that van der Sloot somehow unwrapped the chain.
“Then he sees them go across the construction site, and they get up on the platform, which I presume to be the foundation of the Spyglass Tower, and they run up to an area that’s got half of a stairway built and they go up that and he loses sight of them. Then, approximately five minutes later he says they emerge with Joran carrying Natalee in his arms and apparently he knew that she was not living. He put her down on the concrete slab and then jumped down off of it and put her body down on the ground and then went and dug an opening under the slab and then put her body in it and then covered it back up and walked out.”
De Jong had contacted Mr. Holloway years ago, alleging Natalee was not in the ocean but on land. At the time, de Jong’s call was one of many from people claiming to know where Natalee Holloway was, and Natalee’s father brushed it aside. Recently, de Jong contacted Holloway again, and being unsure of whether to look further into de Jong’s claims, Natalee’s father decided to contact a private investigator. The investigator let Holloway know a couple of days later that de Jong passed a voice analysis test.
“I thought ‘Oh my gosh,’ and then I started digging more and more into it. I’m thinking maybe there’s something to this, but… I’m not going to get my hopes up…. We had the opportunity about three weeks ago to go to Aruba and check this out and we did with a cadaver dog. We were kind of blocked in the areas that we wanted to do the search so it was kind of a failed mission I guess, so to speak.”
CNN’s Savidge remarked in the interview that the Marriott hotel told authorities there wasn’t any construction of the kind the witness described. However, Dave Holloway says there was because he was there.
“I can tell you for a fact. I was there on June 1, and there was definitely construction in that area. June 1, 2005, because it was all chained up. And that’s one of the areas we never searched because we assumed it’s locked up and secured at all times, and they have construction workers there on site. It was something we assumed that that would never need to be searched and it wasn’t.”
According to People magazine, the Aruban prosecutor’s office has already dismissed de Jong’s claims . They released a statement saying there was no construction going on at the location de Jong specified.
“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.
“More concretely: the foundation of the Spyglass Tower… 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.
This leads to the conclusion that the claims made by Mr. De Jong of what he saw on the night of 30th of May 2005, cannot be correct…”
Savidge asked Holloway if there’s ever a point at which he’ll stop looking for answers.
“No. As a parent you’ll never stop. Never. I mean, your child is off in a foreign country and you want to bring her back home, and I’ve got the means and the ability to go down there and check and do it, and if I’m willing and able to do it, then I always will.”
Van der Sloot, one of the three men Natalee Holloway was last seen with, is currently serving a 28-year sentence in prison in Peru for the 2010 murder of Stephany Flores. As the Inquisitr previously reported, van der Sloot has called Jurrien de Jong a “crackhead” and “a f****** liar, a compulsive liar.”
Do you think the search for Natalee Holloway should continue in light of de Jong’s claims?
[Image via CBS News ]