Beth Holloway Speaks at SMU

October 30, 2008

 
For many graduating high school seniors, taking a trip after graduation is tradition. Parents watch as their children pack their bags to celebrate this landmark in their life. Many times, these parents will remind them to take safety precautions because they are going on a trip without them. They double-check that their children have remembered to bring the essentials: a toothbrush, extra underwear for freak accidents and in some cases, their passport. They see their children off and watch with glee as their pride and joy waltzes off to celebrate one of their largest accomplishments to date.
 
For Beth Holloway, this day was one of her proudest. Her daughter, Natalee, had recently graduated from high school with over a 4.0 grade point average, awarding her a full academic scholarship to the University of Alabama. She had just completed a dance career with her high school team and developed into a strikingly beautiful young woman. Holloway drove her daughter to a friend's house, where she would depart for the airport and fly to Aruba to celebrate graduation. She said her goodbyes to Natalee and watched as the dark silhouette of her daughter's body walked up the front path and went into the house. She didn't know at the time, but this would be the last time she would ever see her daughter.
 
Tuesday night, Beth Holloway, a woman who Barbara Walters selected as one of the world's most fascinating people, shared the tragic story of her daughter's kidnapping to SMU students at McFarlin Auditorium.
 
On May 30, 2005, the last day of her trip to Aruba, Natalee Holloway vanished. Sponsored by Pi Beta Phi and Hotel Palomar, Beth Holloway shared her story and how she has overcome such a huge obstacle. Liz Grayson, coordinator of the event and member of Pi Beta Phi, said Holloway's story is valuable to students.
 
"She has more courage than most people and after the tragic loss of her daughter, she has fought to increase awareness of a topic that is often overlooked," Grayson said.
 
Holloway said four days after dropping her daughter off for her senior trip, she received the phone call that parents dread. She was told that her daughter didn't arrive at the airport that morning. Holloway recalls quickly making arrangements to get to Aruba. Upon arrival, Holloway found Natalee's belongings neatly packed ready to return home. Natalee's friends said the last they saw her she was getting into a silver Honda outside Carlos' n' Charlie's, a popular nightclub in Aruba. This is the last living memory of her, Holloway said.
 
Holloway said that once she got to Aruba she followed a wild goose chase of tips from both officials and strangers. She spent days roaming the streets in search of her daughter. Holloway said the hardest part was trying to find her daughter in a country that does not honor the same laws as the United States. She said she was told of many possibilities of her daughter's whereabouts: in a Jeep, stowed away in a crack house, or even abducted and taken into slavery.
 
"As we frantically searched for our daughter, [Aruban officials] asked us not to disturb their crack houses, not to disturb their prostitutes and asked our family how much money we had," Holloway said.
 
For Holloway, trying to get help in this desperate situation was like being in another world, and in reality, she was. She said that despite all the tips and running around, Natalee was nowhere to be found.
 
Beginning to lose hope, Holloway said that she was descending to the lowest point the human spirit can fall. She recalls trying to find another way to survive the nightmare. The hope that she would find her daughter was rapidly becoming a fantasy, she said.
 
"I became resilient and decided I would pick up one foot, put it down, and the other would follow. There was much work that needed to be done for Natalee," Holloway said.
 
Holloway returned to the states where she was greeted with overwhelming support not just by her hometown community, but also from the entire nation and abroad. She said that magnificent things happen when people come together to support others. From volunteering to help with Holloway's search for answers to simply tying a yellow ribbon to their mailbox, vast amounts of people came to her aide, she said.
 
Just months ago, all of the hard work paid off. Holloway said she got the break she had been waiting for. The first and only suspect, Joran Van der Sloot, the driver of the silver Honda, confessed on a hidden camera to sexually assaulting Natalee. He said after she had a seizure he disposed of her body in the ocean. Holloway said she believes Natalee was given a date rape drug and overdosed, causing the seizures that Van der Sloot described.
 
Joran Van der Sloot is the son of an Aruban judge. Holloway said that despite his confession, the Aruban officials won't do anything against a judge's son because their system doesn't work like the United States'. Holloway compared Natalee's situation to The Wizard of Oz, saying that when you leave the United States, you are "not in Kansans anymore." Travelers must adhere to the customs of the country they are visiting, she said. Being a teacher, Holloway asked herself what she could do to teach others from her tragic lessons.
 
Since Natalee's disappearance, Holloway has founded TravelEd workshop. TravelEd is a program for college and high school students to teach about pre-departure education and safety. Holloway said that her daughter had a false sense of security among her many friends and was blind-sided. It is critically important to prepare for going abroad before leaving, she said. Her hope is that she can make TravelEd available to high schools everywhere.
 
"I want you to remember it is now your responsibility to watch out for yourself. Your parents aren't going to be around to watch over you anymore," Holloway said.
 
Students reacted to Holloway's story with emotion and sincerity. Megan Haslam, a junior public policy major and member of Pi Beta Phi, said that listening to Holloway's story was an eye-opening experience.
 
"It's devastating to hear that a family had to go through this. The important thing for those of us lucky enough to hear the story is to take the lessons Holloway is teaching to heart," Haslam said.
 
Holloway said that hope is what got her through such an upsetting experience. She said hope is a universal message that better times are ahead. It nourishes the soul just as food nourishes the body.
 
"The hope that filled her heart fills mine. It brought me here tonight and it will see me through tomorrow. Please remember that you have your own back [while travelling], and please remember Natalee," Holloway said in closing.

 


Remembering Natalee Holloway

Mother of missing student carries message of personal safety to students in Memphis.

FEBRUARY 6, 2009
 

 
On Thursday evening, more than 300 people filled the gymnasium at Rossville Christian Academy to hear Beth Holloway talk about her daughter, Natalee, who vanished on the night of May 30, 2005, during a school outing to the Caribbean island of Aruba.
The 18-year-old girl's disappearance sparked a media frenzy, and Beth Holloway began her talk by showing video clips of Barbara Walters, Geraldo Rivera, Bill O'Reilly, Nancy Grace, and even Dr. Phil. Walters began her news segment in typically dramatic fashion, calling the case "every parent's worse nightmare: A daughter goes away on holiday and never returns."
 
And this is essentially what happened to Natalee Holloway. Surrounded by ads for Collierville Screen Print, the Bank of Fayette County, Wilson Furniture, and Zellner Equipment, and facing a banner painted, "Go Lady Wolves!", Holloway began her talk in the school gymnasium by bluntly stating what she believed happened to her daughter in Aruba three years ago: "Natalee was kidnapped, raped, and killed. She went there to have fun, but she ran into others who had a different agenda."
 
According to police investigations, Natalie was last seen in the company of three young men on the evening of May 30th. More than 100 members of her school group were supposed to return to her hometown of Mountain Brook, Alabama, the following morning, but the young woman didn't show up. That morning, says Holloway, "I got the call every parent would dread -- one that would change my life forever."
 
She and her husband immediately flew to Aruba, and a quick glance at her daughter's hotel room, showing her clothes neatly packed and her passport on the bed, told her, "It was more than just intuition. I was certain that something was terribly wrong."
 
One problem was that the chief suspect, 17-year-old Joran van der Sloot, was the son of a prominent judge on the island. According to Holloway, he told "more than a dozen" different accounts of what he did with the missing girl that evening, though insisting that he later dropped her off at her hotel and never saw her again.
 
The police claimed they didn't have enough evidence to arrest the young man, or two others also seen with Natalee that evening, "so we were left to search on our own," Holloway said, by putting up "KIDNAPPED" posters with her daughter's picture, and pleading for tips and information. "It was such a paradox," she said, "to see such natural beauty [on the island] and yet experience such horror at the same time."
 
She and her family investigated every tip they could, including bizarre tales that Natalee had been kidnapped and sold into prostitution or was being held prisoner in one of the many island crack-houses that the police pretended didn't exist. "The hidden underbelly of the island had been exposed," she said, "and it wasn't pretty."
 
After four days without sleeping, eating, or even bathing, Holloway told the Rossville audience that she finally asked a cab driver to take her to a chapel.
 
"I had descended to the lowest place a human spirit could fall, but I knew Natalee wouldn't want me to give up," she said. "My faith in God was my only hope, and I needed to pray harder -- to get someplace where God could hear me."
 
She was taken to a beach on the island where someone had erected a row of crosses, and it was here, she said, "that a complete peace blanketed me. I know Natalee is with God. He wrapped his loving arms around her and helped her get through whatever ordeal she went through that night."
 
Holloway said she believes she knows what happened. She said that Joran van der Sloot finally confessed to killing her daughter: "He gave her a shot of rum, and that produced a seizure. He then got friends to help him dump her body in the sea. We'll never know if she was alive or not when that happened."
 
The case, however, is still considered unsolved because -- confession or not -- she said the Aruban police don't want to pursue it.
 
"There is nothing I can do to get justice for Natalee," said her mother, "because they just don't do things [in other countries] the way we do here."
 
So now Holloway is speaking to groups like those who gathered at Rossville Christian Academy.
 
"The best way to honor Natalee," she explained, "is by talking with students about personal safety. It's not a safe world -- not on Internet chat rooms, and not on island vacations. So don't get yourself into situations where you can't defend yourself."
 
Holloway recently founded an organization called TravelEd, to teach personal safety to students and young men and women who travel abroad. That effort has taken her to school campuses in 23 states. She offered many tips, from being aware of your surroundings to forming a "safety circle" with friends, and noted, "You can never feel too confident or too safe. My daughter let her guard down for just a moment, and in that moment she vanished."
 
Holloway concluded her hour-long talk with a video tribute to her daughter, then sat at a table in the gym and autographed more than 100 copies of her book, Loving Natalee. Everyone in the audience also picked up commemorative bookmarks and bracelets woven by Natalee's friends, the colored strands representing "faith, hope, and love."
 
"People often ask what keeps me going," Holloway said. "The human spirit can withstand a lot -- more than I ever thought possible. And I talked to Natalee and I pledged never to give up. Never."

 


Remembering Natalee

Mother of missing student carries message of personal safety to students in Memphis.

BY MICHAEL FINGER

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

On Thursday, February 5th, more than 300 people filled the gymnasium at Rossville Christian Academy to hear Beth Holloway talk about her daughter, Natalee, who vanished May 30, 2005, during a school trip to the Caribbean island of Aruba.

The 18-year-old's disappearance sparked a media frenzy, and Beth Holloway began her talk by bluntly stating what she believed happened to her daughter almost four years ago: "Natalee was kidnapped, raped, and killed. She went there to have fun, but she ran into others who had a different agenda."

According to police investigations, Natalee was last seen in the company of three young men on the evening of May 30th. Her school group was supposed to return to her hometown of Mountain Brook, Alabama, the following morning, but the young woman didn't show. That morning, said Holloway, "I got the call every parent would dread — one that would change my life forever."

She and her husband immediately flew to Aruba, and a quick glance at her daughter's hotel room, showing her clothes neatly packed and her passport on the bed, told her "something was terribly wrong."

One problem was that the chief suspect, 17-year-old Joran van der Sloot, was the son of a prominent judge. The police claimed they didn't have enough evidence to arrest the young man or two others also seen with Natalee that evening, "so we were left to search on our own," Holloway said.

She and her family investigated every tip they could, including bizarre tales that Natalee had been kidnapped and sold into prostitution or was being held prisoner in one of the many island crack houses that the police pretended didn't exist.

"The hidden underbelly of the island had been exposed," she said, "and it wasn't pretty."

Holloway believes she knows what happened. She said that van der Sloot finally confessed to killing her daughter: "He gave her a shot of rum, and that produced a seizure. He then got friends to help him dump her body in the sea. We'll never know if she was alive or not when that happened."

The case, however, is still considered unsolved. "There is nothing I can do to get justice for Natalee," said her mother, "because they don't do things [in other countries] the way we do here."

So now Holloway is speaking to groups like those who gathered at Rossville Christian Academy.

"The best way to honor Natalee," she explained, "is by talking with students about personal safety. It's not a safe world — not on Internet chat rooms and not on island vacations."

Holloway recently founded an organization called TravelEd to teach personal safety to students and young men and women who travel abroad. That effort has taken her to schools in 23 states.

"You can never feel too confident or too safe," she said. "My daughter let her guard down for a moment, and in that moment she vanished."

Holloway ended her talk with a video tribute to her daughter and then autographed copies of her book, Loving Natalee.

"People often ask what keeps me going," Holloway said. "The human spirit can withstand a lot — more than I ever thought possible. And I talked to Natalee and I pledged never to give up. Never."