Natalee Holloway is Missing

Senior Trip Goes Wild

Missing Alabama Teen

Natalee Holloway was born on October 21, 1986 to Beth and Dave Holloway. Her parents divorced and she then spent her teen years growing up in the community of Mountain Brook, a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. On May 30, 2005, during a five-day, unofficial senior class graduation trip she went missing on the island of Aruba. Natalie was traveling with 124 classmates and seven chaperones celebrating their graduation from Mountain Brook High School. Initially she was characterized as "Miss Perfect," by family and friends like Francis Ellen Byrd and Ruth McVay. Later more realistic behavior from the graduates would come to light, including drinking "Red Fires," for breakfast, jelly shots off of navels and possibly even the use of drugs. Even the gang signs which the media showed immediately of Joran were later depicted as a prevalent part of the Mt. Brook teen behavior. How might this case have been shown differently if perhaps a more realistic view had been seen from day one?

The last known time that Natalee was ever seen was leaving the popular tourist bar of Carlos'n Charlies in downtown Oranjestad. At approximately 1:30 A.M. on May 30th her friends would report that Natalee got into a silver car. Later the young men she got into the car with would be identified as Joran van der Sloot, and his two friends, Deepak Kalpoe and his brother Satish.

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. To this day she has never been heard from and to further complicate this mystery there has not been one shred of "physical evidence that links anyone to a crime or to her disappearance."

Even though adults were part of this trip as chaperones, waivers were signed by the students and or parents absolving any responsibility by said chaperones. It seemed clear that these chaperones were merely traveling along with the students, and only there as facilitators. These Mountain Brook teens were celebrating years of hard work and sacrifice and this was to be their opportunity to strike out on their own for the first time, separate from adult supervision.

Natalee did not appear in any security camera footage of her hotel lobby during the course of the night. According to a statements made by her mother, Beth Twitty, the security cameras at the Holiday Inn were not working the night Natalee vanished. Like so many of Beth's statements regarding this case, it contradicts earlier reports that say police viewed the footage of the lobby tape to see if Natalee had returned that night. There are even reports by Beth Twitty herself saying that she reviewed this hotel security footage of the lobby video. Even more interesting are those that claim to have actually seen Natalee on this hotel lobby video tape.

All of the unattributed material in this chapter and in this book is based on news articles or other media reports, but is not copied or plagiarized from anywhere; it is original composition. But, anywhere in the book, if material is copied from any location (including Wikipedia), then attribution is given at the point of the quotation. Any similarity to what you read here unattributed and what appears in Wikipedia or anywhere else is purely and honestly coincidental.