pschica
LIF Toddler
Member since 5/05 424 total posts
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Re: MSN IS REPORTING...No confirmation NAtalee is Dead...
still unclear.....
usa today says
"Aruba police: Suspect leading us to scene
ORANJESTAD, Aruba (AP) — One of the young men detained in the disappearance of an Alabama honors student admitted "something bad happened" to the woman after they took her to the beach, a police officer said, while prosecutors said Saturday the investigation was at a crucial point. But prosecutors refused to comment on the statement by Deputy Police Commissioner Gerold Dompig, who told The Associated Press that the man who made that admission was leading police to the scene. He refused to identify which of the three young men who took Natalee Holloway, 18, to a northern beach the night she went missing made the statement.
Police refused Saturday morning to say whether they discovered anything overnight to solve the mystery of what happened to Holloway, who was last seen in the early hours of May 30.
Referring to Dompig's statement, prosecution spokeswoman Vivian van der Biezen said Saturday: "We neither confirm nor deny any information coming from other sources ... (about) alleged statements of suspects in this case."
"The investigation at the moment is the following: Five suspects are being held ... and we are at a very crucial, very important moment in our investigation," she said.
Police investigating Holloway's disappearance arrested a man at dawn Saturday but later said he had nothing to do with the case.
The three young men arrested Thursday — two Surinamese brothers and the 17-year-old Dutch son of a high-ranking island judicial official — were to appear before a judge Saturday, government spokesman Ruben Trapenberg said. Authorities have refused to say on what grounds they were being held. The judge would decide whether police have sufficient grounds to continue holding them.
Police also have detained two other men — former security guards at a hotel near the one where Holloway was staying. No one has been charged in the case.
Island-wide searches by Aruban police, Dutch marines and hundreds of volunteer islanders and tourists continued Saturday, Trapenberg said.
Holloway's mother, Beth Holloway Twitty, is feeling the strain, her brother-in-law told the AP as prosecutors prepared to make a statement Saturday morning.
When asked whether she was holding up, Tom "Jar" Twitty said, "No ... She has had amazing stamina up until now, but ..."
The women in the family remained sequestered in their hotel rooms while the Twitty brothers stood in the lobby, looking stressed amid a gay scene of tourists pouring onto a brightly colored bus outside advertising "Xtreme Party Cruise."
Holloway, vanished during a five-day trip to the Dutch Caribbean island with 124 classmates and seven chaperones celebrating their graduation from Mountain Brook, Ala., High School, near Birmingham. Police found her U.S. passport and packed bags in her hotel room after she failed to show up for her return flight that day.
Holloway's family continues to believe she is alive, Tom Twitty said. Rumors that she is dead are "an aggressive interpretation" of what police are saying, he told The Associated Press.
Prime Minister Nelson Oduber said on national radio Friday night that if something happened to Holloway, it would damage the reputation of this island of 97,000 people, which depends on tourism and is considered one of the safest spots in the Caribbean.
In Holloway's hometown, her friends gathered after midnight at a church where people have been holding prayer vigils for her. Some hugged and cried; one woman left a flickering candle at the base of a wall decorated with messages to Holloway, who had earned a full scholarship to the University of Alabama, where she planned to study medicine.
Antonio Carlo, an attorney for the Dutch minor, told the AP: "My client maintains his innocence." He said the boy would appear before a judge at 2 p.m. ET.
Carlo refused to comment on the alleged admission.
Holloway's mother and stepfather told The Birmingham News in Alabama that they discovered the Dutch boy's connection to their daughter within 24 hours of her disappearance by talking to other students on the trip. They then found surveillance videotapes showing him playing poker with other Mountain Brook teens in their hotel casino two days before she vanished.
A lawyer for one of the Surinamese — Satish Kalpoe, 18, whose brother, Deepak, 21, also is in custody — said they told police they took Holloway to Arashi Beach, on the northern part of the island, in the early hours of May 30.
According to their police statement, they did not get out of the car, defense lawyer David Kock said. Instead, Holloway and the Dutch teen, an honors student at the Aruba International School whom she had met at the casino in her hotel, "were in the back seat kissing."
They also told police that they dropped Holloway at her Holiday Inn at about 2 a.m. and last saw her being approached by a man in a security guard uniform before they drove off, Kock said.
The brothers told police the blond, blue-eyed young woman was drunk and refused to get out of the car, said Noraina Pietersz, who is representing Nick John, 30, one of the two former security guards. He and Abraham Jones, 28, have been detained since Sunday.
The three young men said Holloway stumbled in the parking lot of the hotel but refused help from her Dutch escort, Kock said.
Holiday Inn employees say security cameras did not record Holloway's return. A Holiday Inn guard who worked the overnight shift that day said he did not see her, said Pietersz, who said she reviewed the guard's statement to police."
and cnn is saying:
"-- A Saturday hearing is scheduled in Aruba for three youths arrested earlier this week in connection with the disappearance of an Alabama teenager.
The judge, who is flying in from another island in the Netherlands Antilles, will determine whether prosecutors have enough evidence to keep them detained for another eight days.
The hearing is set for 2 p.m. EDT.
Aruba government spokesman Rueben Trappenberg said using an outside judge is a normal procedure in high-profile cases, as government officials want to ensure a case's proper handling.
The announcement concerning the hearing happened as conflicting reports emerged about whether one in the group of suspects, which includes a judge's son, confessed to killing 18-year-old Natalee Holloway.
An Aruba prosecutor refused to confirm or deny reports that one of three males who were the last to report seeing Holloway confessed.
At a Saturday press conference, Vivian Van Der Biezen, a spokeswoman for the prosecutors' office, said that the investigation into Holloway's disappearance was at a "very crucial" point with the interrogation of the five suspects.
Late Friday, a senior police official told CNN that one of the three youths police took into custody Thursday had confessed to killing her. Holloway had been on a celebratory jaunt with more than 100 classmates and seven chaperones.
The official did not say which of the three confessed to killing the girl from Mountain Brook, an affluent suburb of Birmingham, Alabama.
Law enforcement sources close to the investigation said there has not been a confession, but that cracks in the three suspects' stories are emerging.
Aruba Prime Minister Nelson Oduber said no one had informed him of a confession, but noted that type of information is not something he would learn of during this stage of investigation.
He said early Saturday that there was no hunt for any body or remains.
"Investigators will continue early in the morning doing their job," Oduber said.
Thursday, police took into custody the three young men with whom Holloway left the popular Carlos'N Charlie's nightclub on May 30.
Authorities identified them as brothers Satish Kalpoe, 18, and Depak Kalpoe, 21, and their friend, 17-year-old Joran Van Der Sloot, the son of a judge.
Casino meeting
Police said Van Der Sloot met Holloway May 29 at the casino in the Holiday Inn where she was staying.
Later that night, Holloway went to Carlos'N Charlie's with about 40 of her classmates. She left around 1:30 a.m. on May 30 with the Kalpoes and Van Der Sloot, authorities said.
Police said the Kalpoes and Van Der Sloot told authorities they went with Holloway to a beach, after leaving the bar, before taking her back to her hotel at about 2 a.m.
The men claimed they visited a lighthouse on the northwestern tip of the island, which is about 19 miles long and 6 miles wide.
According to police statements, the Kalpoe brothers described her as stumbling on the way into the hotel, possibly as a result of alcohol, and that a "dark-colored" man in a black T-shirt with a radio helped her.
Two arrests
That testimony led to Sunday's arrest of Abraham Jones, 28, and Mickey John, 30, two security guards at a hotel near where Holloway was staying.
But a Holiday Inn employee who has reviewed surveillance tapes from that morning said the tapes do not show any sign of Holloway. Authorities had no explanation and were looking at whether the five men have any connections to each other.
The guards' attorneys maintain the two are innocent.
None of the five men has been formally charged.
Van Der Sloot's mother said she was confident her son had told authorities everything and that he was innocent.
"He was willing to help with anything, and he had a kind of quiet resolve -- I mean he said, 'Mom, don't be upset because everything will be fine. I know I am innocent, I didn't do anything,'" Anita Van Der Sloot told CNN.
"And in a very almost naive way he was very open with us, told us everything what happened," she said, adding that he has offered to speak with the Holloway family.
Government officials have said solving Holloway's disappearance is a national priority on the small Caribbean island where tourism is a top industry.
A massive search operation has involved authorities, family, friends and volunteers."
regardless, that poor girl and her family and friends.....
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