Who Killed Natalee Holloway? What We Know, Remaining Questions 10 Years After Disappearance
Natalee Holloway, an 18-year-old Alabama native, disappeared 10 years ago during a high school graduation trip to Aruba. Since then, media attention and public interest has followed the case looking for breakthroughs.
Holloway has never been found and was declared legally dead by a judge in 2012. The case has had numerous twists and turns -- with much speculation about Holloway's death. Recently Holloway's father, Dave Holloway, said he has been tipped off about new information from a man claiming to be witness to Natalee's murder, Jurrien de Jong, a 59-year-old Dutch man.
Holloway was last seen alive leaving a nightclub with then-17-year-old Joran van der Sloot and two brothers, Satish Kalpoe and Deepak Kalpoe, according to CNN. Van der Sloot would later become the primary suspect in the case, and he, along with the Kalpoe brothers, were arrested on on suspicion of kidnapping and murder, AL.com reported. After inconsistent stories between the brothers and van der Sloot, he told police that he left Holloway on the beach by the Marriott hotel at which she was staying, CNN reported. The Kalpoe brothers had previously said they dropped off Holloway and van der Sloot at a different hotel.
Van der Sloot was released in 2005, along with all other suspects related to the case, according to AL.com. Van der Sloot was re-arrested in 2007, along the Kalpoe brothers, but were again released without charges. Van der Sloot would later confess to the murder of to the 2010 murder of 21-year-old Stephanie Flores in Peru.
Dave Holloway said his daughter had been killed and thrown into the ocean, CNN reported. He has also begun to listen, to an extent, to the story from de Jong, who first tried to tip off Dave Holloway years ago. De Jong said he saw van der Sloot bury Natalee Holloway's body in a crawl space of Marriott's Aruba Surf Club, which was then under construction, CNN reported. De Jong said in the interview he had been quiet about what he saw because he was involved in illegal activities at the time. Authorities, who previously didn't find the story credible, said they were looking into De Jong's claims, according to the NL Times. Ten years after her disappearance there are perhaps still more questions than definitive answers in Natalee Holloway's case.
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