I don't think she's dead. I think she was kidnapped into white slavery. Joran van der Sloot did describe himself as a pimp.
If that is true (I don't think it is) then Beth has every right to turn over every stone to find her daughter.
Now when I said I thought Natalie's mother is a lib, I wasn't specifically refering to her politics. What mother lets her teenage daughter fly off to another continent all by herself with the express objective of 'having fun' ?