Posted on 06/02/2005 8:02:49 AM PDT by SamFromLivingston
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — FBI and Aruban officials said Wednesday that they had flew clues to the whereabouts of a Mountain Brook High School graduate who disappeared during a senior trip to the island.
FBI officials in the Caribbean were coordinating with Aruban police and Dutch authorities, who oversee Aruba, to search for Natalee Holloway, 18, The Birmingham News reported.
Holloway joined about 125 graduating seniors and adults on the five-day trip, which is an annual tradition not sponsored by the school. Other students said she never showed up for the group's return flight Monday.
"We went to check in for our airplane, and she wasn't there, and she's been missing since then," said Jay Weinacker, a member of Holloway's graduating class.
Holloway's parents, David Holloway, of Meridian, Miss., and Beth Holloway Twitty of Mountain Brook, and several family members traveled to Aruba to aid the search, said Robin Holloway, the girl's stepmother.
"It is torture," Robin Holloway said. "It is just agony."
Aruban police said Wednesday that they had questioned and released three local men who said they dropped the teenager off at her hotel late Sunday night. Officials said the girl's parents were unable to spot her on a hotel surveillance tape.
Officials said there were few leads on Natalee's whereabouts.
After hearing of her disappearance, Robin Holloway said her husband felt compelled to search for his daughter.
"We can't just sit here and do nothing," she said. "We don't know if she is still in Aruba ... or she's been kidnapped. We just don't know anything."
Officials at Mountain Brook Community Church said more than 150 people participated Tuesday in a prayer service for Holloway.
"Word just kind of got out, and parents and students just really wanted to get together and have a little prayer service for the whole situation," said Troy Gambrell, an associate in the youth ministry.
Wow, you got that from the story?
I'm suggesting you respond to what I wrote, not what you dreamed it meant.
It wasn't careless, but perhaps the reading of it was.
I reposted the passage for your edification.
Uh oh.
That must have been intense. From what I have learned, Aruba doesn't have an indigenous drug problem per se; the island is a waystop for major traffic coming up from South America, in other words a laundromat for further shipments into the USA.
I always see lots of patrol boats, especially near the harbor areas...they are looking for the drug smugglers.
I just recalled that my friend in B'ham mentioned that authorities are continuing to watch these three.
Nor was it the CONtent.
On the other hand, the casinos there are run by the Chicago mob.
"There are blonde women in Aruba."
I dunno, I think there's a difference between being blonde through the magical powers of chlorine and being a young pretty blue-eyed blonde with a Southern, Alabama accent.
I'm not normally attracted to blondes and that sounds enticing.
She could be still partying in Aruba, so drunk she can't move, dead, or on her way to the Middle East, Brunei, or someplace else where she will be "appreciated."
I have never seen a "girls gone wild" anything, Cyborg. I travel alot and maybe there are blondes in Aruba (I haven't been there), but I can tell you that in many, many cultures (countries), blondes are rare. In fact, in the world population they are extremely rare (don't count bottle blondes) so they DO stick out. Think about it. Biggest populations are India and China (NO BLONDES). They are targets. All young, attractive females potentially are targets for people - of course some serious sociopaths have certain traits they seek (such as brunette, certain height, eye color etc.) but when you look at abductions in general and factor in the % of blondes that exist in a given population, the # seems high to me.
I totally agree with you that there is a good chance this girl was out drinking and that may be the real key to this story, but even so, women are vulnerable when alone, even sober, and especially if it's 3 guys vs. 1 girl.
When I was in my early 20's I did some very foolish things. I cringe when I think back. Alcohol wasn't even a factor for ME but it was for others in some of the situations. One case had myself and 3 girlfriends meet some guys at a club and they had a nice sailboat docked clubside; we hopped on (cool, right?) They turned out to be decent guys but later on when we were older, we all thought we were stupid. The guys could've thrown us overboard into Lake Erie and worse. Another case was I stopped by the house of a guy I liked (dated a couple of times) without advance notice. His roommate let me in and said my "boyfriend" would be home soon (ran to the store or something, don't exactly recall). Meanwhile, the roommate I soon see is a little drunk and so are a couple of his buddies that are already there; also, the doorbell rings and in walk 2 more guys. As I'm sitting there with like 5 guys (4 I don't even know) and 3 somewhat drunk, I start realizing I am in a very, very tenuous situation. Nothing happened; my guy showed up and the goofballs all went out but SOMETHING COULD HAVE HAPPENED AND BY THE GRACE OF GOD, NOBODY HURT ME, BUT AGAIN, IT COULD HAVE HAPPENED. In addition to giving good advice to our daughters (and sons too), we need to pray for their safety at ALL times.
Bless you Cyborg.
I hope this is true because if anyone has a chance, they do, but it doesn't appear very optimistic at this point. I feel sick for this family, just sick.
point taken... I've done some dumb things too when I was in college. I look back now and say 'wow obvious someone was looking out for me'!
One of us is.
Hint, it's the one who didn't try to start a flamewar with insults.
Have a nice day as well.
AMEN, Cyborg. AMEN.
Do you think three men would admit to dropping her off at her hotel if they had no connection to her that night (remember the hotel security camera does not show them dropping her off) ?
Do you think she was not raped (and/or tortured) ?
Do you think she is still alive ?
Lots of kids get drunk and do dumb stuff and live. I wonder why some people live and some people die. If I figured that out, I think someone will hand me a Nobel prize.
They should. They gave one to Jimmy Carter and he hasn't figured anything out.
LOL good point ;-)
My daughter is about to spend a month in Europe on a school sponsored trip. It is a real challenge for me to communicate the importance of being extremely careful in avoiding problems. Watch out for this and that... We live in such an insular naive world of TV reality ! It is absolutely essential to get American youth out into the world.
Didn't know that...all I know is I have yet to win any money there, so I stay out of the casinos.
How do you know this?
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