Holloway Not Only American Missing In Aruba

[cricket]

"I don't think slavers are interested in a corpse. She is obviously dead."

'Obviiusly' slavers are not interested in a corpse ; what is NOT obvioius however, is that this young woman IS dead.

It is my first assumption; but nothing obvious about a murder, yet. . .

[RushCrush]

Very true!

(Rushcrush thinks back to college boating incidents on Mississippi river :)

[William Terrell]

"Speaking of falling overboard, didn't this happen to an elderly man on a cruise ship recently? He 'disappeared', having been last seen on the deck of the ship." Maybe he was sold into a brothel.

You guys are being sarcastic, I know. But there have been a number of threads on FR dealing with the slave trade in young girls and young boys. Muslims in the middle east and Africa, not to mention Asians, have been making it a fairly large business in the past decade.

Now, I understand that Aruba is effectively a vassal of Holland, where there is a large and de facto sovereign population of Muslims.

I suggest that before you just flip off the notion of slavery, you consider the very lucrative, and well known, trade in such. The notion is not the same a abduction by "aliens", unless the "aliens" are non-nationals instead of extraterrestials.

[afraidfortherepublic]

There is a male missing too. I saw his brother and sister on Fox (Hannity, I think). The man went there to go wind surfing, left his passport and belongings in his room, went out to get a drink at Carlos & Charlies and hasn't been seen since. It's been 6 years. According to his family he was a stable guy and he often visited Aruba for the snorkeling and sailing, so he was familiar with the Island.

Unlike the Holloway family, this man's family has had a difficult time with the Aruban authorities trying to trace his whereabouts. They weren't even notified that he was missing for weeks. They can't even get a death certificate in order to close his estate.

[1066AD]

Thought Ms Bradley was in Curacao when she disappeared ?

[NavyCanDo]

Am I the only one left who thinks this story is overblown as a National news story? Sure it's a tragic situation and I feel sorry for the family and friends of Natalee, and I hope who ever was involved with her disappearance gets what's coming to them, but why does the news media ignore the missing and presumed dead ugly people? Their photos line the post office walls.
With the thousands of hours of Elizabeth Smart, and Lacy Peterson news stories now in the archives, I feel like the media was jumping it to bit to find another missing pretty girl story to dominate television news once again.

[Itzlzha]

My dad thinks she was sold into slavery and that's why she hasn't been found. The Bradley girl appears to have been sold to a brothel. I think this kind of thing goes on more than we realize.

That was my first instinct as well.

Check good 'ol Chavez' place...I suspect his corrupt communist administration is involved! Also, I suspect the kid's father..the Judge is in this up to his Nazgul Robed eyeballs!

If her body EVER shows up, it will have been messed with in a way to make indeterminate when she died...so that the slavery angle will be covered up. Like her body will have been chopped and left in sea water to remove ANY ancillary evidence.

[fatnotlazy]

Initially, I was willing to give Aruba the benefit of the doubt -- figuring that the Holloway matter was an isolated incident, that Aruba didn't have the experience or expertise, and that, because of the country's dependency on tourism (particurlarly tourists from the U.S.), it would go all out to find this young lady, including calling in the best and the brightest from the U.S. and anywhere else. But now I'm beginning to wonder why the country seems to be dragging this out. Is it political? Is it ineptitude? Is it a desire to try to gloss over this, hope it goes away, and everything will be fine again?

I think the Holloways have done their part to keep the media attention focused on Aruba -- this particular case is not going to be hushed. This time, I think we are going to see results.

[88keys]

From the article:

Iva Bradley said her 23-year-old daughter, Amy, befriended three men who worked on the cruise ship and they wanted to take her to a bar in Aruba.

"They said they wanted to take her to a bar on Aruba that was called Carlos and Charlie's," said Bradley.

Goes on to say, Amy refused to go to out to the bar in Aruba with those guys...but went missing nevertheless, and presumeably quite soon after the Aruba stop...

The common thread is the ship's crew in 1998, and the Carlos and Charlie's bar on Aruba...

Re: the Navy sailor...I'd guess he reported the contact with Amy when he got back stateside, and he may have even contacted "local authorities" at the time. From what I've heard about them, they're less than helpful, and by the time any U.S. investigators showed up, the brothel had burned down, according to the article. I expect he feels terrible about it.

I hope Natalee Holloway is still alive, even if abducted...a chance of eventually being found would still be better than being murdered, wouldn't it?! And with this outcry, it's quite possible the attention being focussed on Natalee's disappearance will lead to new information in the Bradley case...perhaps they will both be found, and maybe even others who were thought to have simply and tragically "fallen overboard" while on a vacation cruise... (this isn't Reno's Justice Department/FBI anymore!)

[fatnotlazy]

The article says:

"The Bradleys, of Virginia, went on a cruise in 1998 and Aruba was one of the stops. That's where their daughter disappeared."

I think someone said the brothel where the military guy allegedly found her was supposed to be in Caracas. Caracas/Curacao -- sound alike?????

[Publius6961]

The officer told the FBI he went to a brothel in Curac'l on Canal...

Does anyone have any idea what this means?

[fatnotlazy]

"this isn't Reno's Justice Department/FBI anymore!)"

Unfortunately, I don't know how much help our governmental agencies can be. Ms. Holloways presumably disappeared in Aruba...Ms. Bradley presumably disappeared in or somewhere near Aruba. Both are outside the jurisdiction of the U.S. Only way would be for enough public outcry to force the Aruban government (and in the Bradley case, the cruise line perhaps?) to get our FBI on those cases.

At this point, it appears that our country cannot take the lead in these investigations unless they are invited to do so.

[Rock N Jones]

I have heard that one before but what I don't understand is why no one has mentioned a boat when Aruba is relatively a small island and surrounded by water. I would like to know if Van Sloot had access to one and my guess is he did. I know someone has to have considered it but I have not heard it mentioned.

[eddie65]

One of the articles says they did try to investigate the brother in Venezuela, but it had burned down.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Hell, he was at a whorehouse. He may have been an officer, but he was no gentleman and he was obviously more worried about how this would look for his military career than helping anyone.

[Blood of Tyrants]

P.S. Other websites are saying that this was a petty officer. Enlisted man. Probably married.

[TexasTransplant]

>>>"As I recall, he said the place was "off limits"<<<

Digging way back into my youthful memories, "off limits" meant "We will meet there at 2100" or if you had Shore Patrol "Off Limits" meant that that is where you are going to Patrol for Duty that night.

Tijuana is "Off Limits" but when I served in SOCAL I knew guys that lived there and commuted daily.

[jess35]

He was a US Navy Petty Officer....and enlisted man. He wasn't supposed to be hanging out at brothels so he didn't report it at the time for fear of being punished.

[toldyou]

This is from a post about a week or so ago:

The parents were interviewed on msnbc last night & said the navy chief didn't report it right away:
1) because the brothel was off limits
2) because he didn't know anything about the girl being missing until he saw her story in a magazine after he got out of service....he did contact authorities at that time.

[Froggie]

OK. let's organize a search party of all the brothels....volunteers?