What happened to Natalee could happen anyplace in the United States. Just read a newspaper - how many young women who have left home to attend college disappear? Oh, right. None of them. Just couldn't happen here.
Posted on 07/11/2005 9:37:09 AM PDT by Responsibility1st
"Two suspects were released yesterday who were involved in a violent crime against my daughter," "These criminals are not only being allowed to walk around among the tourists and citizens of Aruba, but there were no limits where they could go."
Statement by Beth Holloway Twitty, Natalee's mother, upon release of brothers, Deepak Kalpoe, 21, and Stish Kalpoe, 18, for lack of evidence.
This is the desperate cry of a mother who has witnessed six suspects in the disappearance of her daughter released for lack of evidence. Only Joran van der Sloot remains behind bars, and Beth Twitty is terrified that he might also be released, leaving no clues to the mystery of what happened to Natalee Holloway.
Although I sympathize with Beth's heart-rendering dilemma, I take exception with her inflammatory statement. In America we treasure the principle of "innocent until proven guilty", the Kalpoe brothers deserve to be considered innocent. They are not criminals, they are not even defendants, there is no evidence they had anything to do with Natalee's disappearance.
The Twitty/Holloway clan has adopted a lynch mob mentality, they are desperate to find someone/anyone to blame for the disappearance of Natalee Holloway.
But Beth Holloway Twitty didn't have to travel thousands of miles to Aruba to point the finger of blame at a couple of dark-skinned brothers, she could have stayed home and looked in the mirror to find the person responsible for Natalee's tragic fate.
She allowed her barely eighteen year-old daughter to celebrate her high school graduation, by taking a trip to an island renowned for its casinos, bars and its "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" morality.
Where are all the Christian commentators who are always preaching the doctrine of "personal responsibility"? Why has Beth Holloway Twitty been granted a free pass?
It's ironic that this agnostic editorialist is just about the only one taking the unpopular view that Beth Holloway Twitty bears some responsibility for her daughter's disappearance and probable death.
IMO Christianity is about compassion. Right now is maybe not a good time to rub salt in her wounds; not a good time to throw it in her face, that she let her young daughter run off to Aruba.
Carolyn
Run off to?? She allowed her daughter to go on a chaperoned school trip. That's hardly 'running off".
This is really kind of disgusting. He is calling for people to pile on this woman. This publication usually has better stuff than this.
For what? Giving birth?
She "allowed" her to go to Aruba and so now she shares part blame? How could she stop an 18 year old from going and why would she? Typical left wing liberal pass-the-blame BS.
Hannibal Lector would probably disagree. :=)
While I would never send a daughter off to another country like that I refuse to blame the parents. After all plenty of harm can come and often does is done to our children in this country.
Natalee was an 18 year old high school graduate. Her mother could not have stopped her from going to Aruba.
I'm sure the overwhelming feeling of guilt has consumed most mothers at one time or another for a trip/date/experience gone bad for their daughter(s). It has been a "push" for me to take a firmer stand if/when I allow my single 22 year old daughter to take any such trips. At this point, not without me, she won't. (Absestos ready.)
What happened to Natalee could happen anyplace in the United States. Just read a newspaper - how many young women who have left home to attend college disappear? Oh, right. None of them. Just couldn't happen here.
Wow - where did this come from? Talk about a reach to bash Christians! I don't think Beth Twitty is being given a pass at all. She did what MANY parents do - let their children go on chaperoned trips - arguments about the details aside. Natalee was 18, not 2. Her mom is fighting like a tiger for her child and any parent worth their salt would do the same. What about the kids who were on chaperoned field trips to London? Would their parents be blamed if they happened to be on the trains or the bus that blew up? Bad things happen to people because there is evil in this world - Natalee could have been snatched from a mall parking lot just as easily as disappearing from Aruba.
Yeah, but I bet mother paid for the trip.
I don't know many 18 year olds (with common sense) who have that kind of expendable cash for lavish trips, unless it's supplied by someone else.
I think it is a totally worthwhile call for her to shut the funk up. Enough is enough. Of course, I blame the media more than her it is the reason this crime has been on 24/7 during which time hundreds of people have gone missing or been killed without a perp being arrested.
She is doing a magnificent job of making Americans appear to be overbearing loudmouths without a clue. It is terrible to lose a child like this but blaming the Arubans for not having wholesale executions of anyone who SAW Natalie during that week is a bit much.
The bigger crime is that of the RATmedia and Fox for making this into far more than it is- a routine sex murder of a young girl who should have never been there in the first place. Beth's actions could be overcompensation for a guilty conscience.
Of course she could have. But it's much more fun to bash her mother, and slam "third world countries".
Agreed however you have to be pretty damn stupid to send your child anywhere foreign after 911. Frankly I won't be leaving USA shores anytime in the future which is a shame because I had dreams of going to Egypt but now my skin color and voice make me a walking target. Instead I will visit the King TUT exibit in Pa, in 2007. Also had dreams of a trip, just daughter and I to go to Paris. We will now settle for New Orleans or one of the Las Vegas Casinos.
LOOK OUT HAWAII we will be returning soon : )
USA is so vast I think my money should be spent at home. : ) As for my kids...they will live under my rules until they move out so if they did defy me and travel abroad while under my roof they will not have a room to return to when they return, if they return.
18 year olds are not famous for common sense but she could have had her own money and she was free to go. I can't blame her parents for this.
Hope Reyes doesn't have children or loved ones. His pompous arrogance will haunt him one day. Life's lesson.
My 18 1/2 year old son was killed in a traffic accident. I gave him the car, am I to blame for his death?
I mentioned that I thought the circumstances of the trip were an invitation to trouble, at the time. Boy did I get savaged for that!
I of course know nothing about the circumstances regarding your son's death. I just hope they were not as questionable as Natalies's death.
I'm sorry for your loss.
I feel just like you do about traveling abroad. I have made many trips outside of the US but I have lost my desire to do it again. Egypt is one one place in the world that I would love to see but I'm not going to go. Scared? Maybe but I just refuse to go someplace where I know I will be a target.
If you have never been you will love New Orleans.
This sounds like one of the public relations firms Arubans have hired to shift blame from the perps to the victim.
No you are not. No way, now how.
As a person who has looked for lost children and has friends who's daughter was abducted and BUTCHERED I can tell you all that you cannot imagine what this woman is feeling right now. What it means to lose a child and not know what happened. I don't think there is even a word for it. I bet Ditter agrees.
Thank you. No one was ever held responsible for the accident, that hurt. According to a witness our son did not run the red light but the other guy, an illegal alien, wasn't even ticketed or deported.
Why? On 9/11, your kids would have been in a lot more danger in NYC or DC than they would have been in London or Toronto.
When I was 14 in 8th grade my parents allowed me to go on a foreign exchange program to Madrid, Spain for a month. Each of us actually lived in the house of a sponsor family and attended school daily. There were 2 chaperones on trip but we barely saw them. My particular host family did not care what time I got home at night nor if I had been drinking, or if I attended school. Our chaperones barely checked on us. There were 12 of us. Anyway this was a time when the Bathists were bombing away and one bomb went off at a political building across St. from on of our girls and blew out all the windows of the apt. she was staying in. We still stayed. I dont even recall any mention of cutting trip short. Anyways this was in 82 and times have changed. It's a shame I can not approve of a similar trip for my children but their safety is my primary concern as a parent.
BTW we are in NY and I am so sick of NYC bashing. Crime is down so far from its levels of the 80's that you have to pretty much be involved in domestic dispute or gangdrug violence to be murdered in NYC. Sure a few every year are in wrong place at wrong time but when you take the size of the city its miniscule.
But any parent who doesn't learn from this lesson, be the child a son or daughter, is going to be responsible should something happen in Aruba, Cancun, or on a Florida beach. This was a formula for disaster, just waiting to happen.
After 911 I said wise guy. After 911 it became clear to this casual MOM of 2 youngens that our skin color and heritage have made us targets of islamo fascists and their sympathizers, prior to 911 I like many were living in a dream world. Live and learn : )
Like I said way back at post # 1: Christianity is about compassion. And when a child dies, be it your son or Natalie Holloway, I know it must hurt for the parents.
Even an agnostic like Robert Paul Reyes should understand that.
my story is very similar to your's only i was a few years older. i was a junior in college when i did a field study program in COLOMBIA, SA. same situation with host families, a professor and a TA that were not remotely responsible for our comings and goings and the host family also did not keep tabs on us. the group i was with had a wonderful experience. but i don't feel i could let my daughter go on anything like it unless i was there as a chaperone.
Other than warzones like Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans have not been attacked anywhere OUTSIDE of the US since 9/11, AFAIK.
Meanwhile, in this country, there have been several foiled terrorist plots, along with such incidents as the DC Sniper and the LA Airport shooter. And Al-Qaeda would love to pull another 9/11 or worse in an American city.
When it comes to terrorism, you are probably a lot safer as an American in Tokyo, Toronto, New Delhi or Paris than you are in a major American city.
I am very sorry for your loss.
That's a disgusting thing to say. It's not her fault. It's not her daughters fault either. It's the fault of the crimminal who took her/ hurt her. You sound just like the liberals who blame America- "We-must -consider-what-we-did-to-make-them-so-angry-at-us"- for the attacks of 9/11.
As for the Kalpoe brothers- they lied and they're not even being charged for that. LE in Aruba is a joke. I will never go there. Seems like they have a bad case of anti-Americanitis too.
And you were about 20, I was only 14. I have enough struggles on deciding which houses my kids can have a sleepover at now....Right now we are having no sleepovers accept for my sons best friend who I consider a nephew who we have been with for 6 years. My kids are 13 and 9.
yes i was 20 but think about it, COLOMBIA.... i loved it there but will never go back bc of all that has happened and continues to happen there. But anything could have happened to us. i know i would not have gone off with a local anywhere, but there wasn't anything being slipped into drinks back in 1977 or so, either.
Check out the old threads.
The adults were not present
to be chaperones.
From posted reports,
the kids were on their own, and
adults were just "there."
I am liking exploring good ole USA. We just did a drive to Florida which we loved. Spent nights in VA BEACH, Norfolk and Savanahh. Been to upstate NY twice since 911. We are considering a cruise to Bermuda in 06 but that is being debated. A trip to Las Vegas in 07 and Hawaii in 10. Would love to check out the Tetons etc. One big blight will be staying on American side for Niagara Falls. I think we would go across to Canada for that. But otherwise HOME SWEET HOME : )
i was a latin american studies major so i have more of a desire for international travel, but xshub doesn't. he and i went to Costa Rica about 8-9 yrs ago bc he had a work conference there. i really enjoyed it and always thought of Costa Rica as very safe, but another freeper told me recently that a friend of their's was murdered in Costa Rica, so there ya go. Hawaii is gorgeous and you will love it, we have taken the kids there several times. This summer is Kiawah Island SC and Colorado for our summer vacas.
I would liken this to an 18 yr old being killed in a car wreck by a criminally negligent drunk driver, and some writer asking if the parents were not somehow responsible by letting the 18 yr old 'run off' in a car unsupervised. What a supreme ass this guy is.
I do hope to someday go to Egypt but seriously we will need a whole new world order for that : )
Our good neighbors are Egyptian and we have dinner with them every now and then and I even love the food. Her decor in her house is to die for. Husband goes to Egypt now from Nov. to April due to the cold. He had a heart attack a few years back and he is near Alexandria (sp) I would love to go. He told us about this cruise that takes you to all the important ports...how I would love that. So unless I go with him its pretty much not going to happen anytime soon : (.
a good friend of mine from work is going this summer with his wife and 9 yo son, back to visit Israel, and it will coincide with the turning over of the West Bank, talk about scary stuff!
LOL! That's awful!
Carolyn
Rumor has it that her stepson told the family the dangers of aruba and C&C before they allowed her to go on the trip UNCHAPERONED.
I won't blame her tho, and I certainly dont blame the Dad, again this is rumor but its been said he did not want her to go.
Looking back, we all wish we hadn't made some decision that affected ours and others lives, and Lord knows we kick ourselves and wish we could change things, but we cant. Eventually I am sure this mother and father will regret things but it wont change the outcome.
I'm with you -- this is no time to rub salt in her wounds. It is too easy to blame the mother. And very hard for me to find fault with her for being perturbed!! I for one will NEVER go to Aruba. What a dump. I have never seen such an inept NON-pursuit of justice! Such stone-walling. Of course she is upset. And regardless of any of the victims being responsible, you do not get to murder people.
B*stards!
This article is unbelievable.
Natalie was an adult. She didn't need mom's permission to go.
Robert Paul Reyes is a total bonehead. This guy should drop the keyboard and find a new occupation.
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