Reporter Claims to Crack Natalee Holloway Case
Aruba Reopens Investigation Into Teen's Disappearance
After a Dutch journalist declared that his private investigation had solved the mysterious disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway, the chief prosecutor in Aruba announced today that he is reopening the case.
Reporter Peter R. de Vries said he used a sophisticated network of hidden cameras in what he called an "undercover operation" to obtain evidence that he claimed "has solved the mystery" of Holloway's disappearance on May 30, 2005.
The mystery behind the disappearance of the blond teenager has eluded efforts by the Aruba police and even the FBI for more than two years.
De Vries said he showed some of the key pieces of evidence to the Office of the Public Prosecutor of Aruba last Thursday, and the island's chief prosecutor, Hans Mos, announced today that he has "intensified [the] investigation of Natalee Holloway due to recently received information."
Mos had publicly closed the investigation last month after an exhausting and often frustrating two-year probe.
"This information may shed a new light on the mode of which Natalee Holloway has died and the method by which her body disappeared," Mos said today.
He credited de Vries with uncovering the leads and said, "This information may help considerably in the solution of the mystery of Natalee's disappearance."
De Vries said that he and his team had been conducting an undercover operation for several months, and that he would broadcast his findings in a special program on Dutch television this Sunday.
The only piece of the upcoming program the de Vries would release was a conversation between himself and Mos after he showed police the evidence he had collected. "Am I sitting opposite a happy man now?" de Vries asks Mos. The prosecutor is shown answering, "Now at least the truth is surfacing and with that we can at least wrap up this case."
The Alabama teenager disappeared after a boozy night in an Aruban nightclub during a high school graduation trip. She was last seen outside Carols 'n Charlies bar with Joran van der Sloot, who is from Holland, and the brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, from Aruba. They have twice been arrested, denied any involvement in her disappearance, and released due to lack of evidence.
Holloway's parents, Beth Twitty and Dave Holloway, have waged a determined publicity campaign in an effort to keep the probe alive and find out what happened to their daughter. Despite an extensive search of the island, its beaches and nearby waters, not a shred of evidence has emerged. Even the FBI, which took on the case, failed to find any breakthrough evidence.
