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'Scarborough Country' for August 15

JOE SCARBOROUGH, HOST: Tonight‘s top headline: An American girl who dated Joran calls the Dutch boy a sweetheart, but an explosive court ruling may formally allow the FBI to nail the Dutch boy as a sociopath. Welcome to SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY. No passport required, only common sense allowed.

 
But first, late-breaking news in Aruba involving the FBI, the suspects, and a potentially critical witness. Plus, we‘re going to hear from an American girl who lived with Joran Van Der Sloot.
 
But we‘re beginning live in Aruba tonight with Michelle Kosinski. Of course, she‘s the NBC correspondent who‘s been covering this case from the very beginning.
 
Michelle, what‘s the latest in Aruba tonight?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CORRESPONDENT, NBC NEWS: Hi, Joe. Not a great day for the defense before the appeals court judge today who ruled that the FBI can continue to have access to prosecutor‘s files. And although there hasn‘t been anything official coming from the court system, we‘re hearing from sources that the judge has also ruled that those interrogations day after day of key suspect Joran Van Der Sloot can also continue.
 
Also, finally a key witness has appeared before a judge to give his testimony. For more than a week, prosecutors have been trying to get this person to come to court in fear that, as an illegal immigrant, he might leave the country.
 
This is a witness who says he spotted all three suspects together in a car early in the morning Natalee disappeared and after the time the Kalpoe brothers say they were already at home.
 
Now, interestingly, defense attorneys actually say that that testimony by this witness today may be good for their side. At least one of the attorneys says he feels that this witness didn‘t remember very many clear details about that early morning sighting, according to the witness. And this attorney says that the witness could not pick out Satish Kalpoe from a photo lineup—Joe?

SCARBOROUGH: Michelle, though, it does sound, though, like a big day for the family of Natalee Holloway, obviously, with the FBI allowed to continue the interrogation—or the FBI to be involved in the interrogations to go on.
 
I‘m sure Natalee‘s mom certainly has to be pleased, as well as the rest of the family. But I understand you spoke with Natalee‘s mother and grandmother today. How are they holding up through this ordeal?

KOSINSKI: It was an emotional interview. This is one of Beth Holloway Twitty‘s greatest forms of support. It‘s her own mother.
 
They‘re here together finally, at least for a couple of days. And her mother has actually experienced the incredible pain of losing a child. Her 1-year-old son died of encephalitis. They talked a little bit about that. They‘re just a great source of strength for each other, Joe.

ANN REYNOLDS, NATALEE‘S GRANDMOTHER: The wisdom that (INAUDIBLE) the pain does go away, but you don‘t ever forget. But it takes a long time. I think she‘s probably stronger than I am, maybe, or I was. I was so young.

BETH HOLLOWAY TWITTY, MOTHER OF NATALEE HOLLOWAY: And the problem that we‘re having is we just don‘t have the answers yet, Michelle.

A. REYNOLDS: That‘s what‘s terrible.

TWITTY: That is just—you really can‘t begin to go through the...

A. REYNOLDS: Closure.

TWITTY: Yes, until you have some answers.

KOSINSKI: Of course, Natalee‘s mother still wants to keep going, pushing this investigation forward as best she can from her side of things. And remember, searchers are still on this island trying to come up with some leads of their own as well.
 
Joe, back to you.

SCARBOROUGH: Hey, Michelle, thanks a lot. As always, we greatly appreciate it. NBC‘s Michelle Kosinski live tonight, as always, from Aruba.
 
Now let‘s turn to Clint van Zandt. He‘s a former FBI profiler, also an MSNBC analyst. He‘s searching in Aruba for clues, trying to see if the investigation is finally on track.
 
And, friends, of course, you know, this investigation was so wildly off-track at the beginning, some people say it‘s starting to move in the right direction, but many others, including myself, say it‘s too little, too late.
 
Hey, good evening, Clint. Tell me, what have you seen so far down in Aruba?

CLINT VAN ZANDT, FORMER FBI PROFILER: How you doing?

SCARBOROUGH: Doing OK.
 
VAN ZANDT: Well, I‘ll tell you what, Joe, your words are my words:
 
Too little too late. I mean, it‘s just like Michelle just reported. The FBI can continue to have access to those files, those records, but you and I know this investigation got off to a tremendously slow start, you know, eight to 10 days afterwards. Joe, I mean, that‘s a terrible hurdle to have to overcome from an investigative standpoint.
 
And number two, the interviews that I‘ve seen that have been written down from the suspects—I mean, Joe, these are like, “Joe, tell me how your day was. OK, thank you very much.” No penetrating questions whatsoever asked by the investigators.
 
I mean, I just want to grab those interviews on paper and just shake them and say, “Why didn‘t you ask the follow-up questions?” It just wasn‘t done, Joe. And you know, for me, as an FBI agent for 25 years, they‘ve got so much ground to cover, to catch up on, I just don‘t know that they can do it at this point.

SCARBOROUGH: You know, the thing , it‘s like Keystone Kops, it‘s like people patrolling those little cars that drive around Disneyland. These people are not equipped to carry on interrogations of Van Der Sloot and these two Kalpoe brothers.
 
But you‘ve actually been walking across the island. And, you know, for Americans like myself that have never been down to Aruba—and there‘s so many of us, millions who have been following this case would have no idea what it‘s like down there—put us on the crime scene. Tell us what it‘s like, talk about the people, talk about their attitude toward the investigation and toward the Holloway family.

VAN ZANDT: Yes. It was interesting. Let‘s start with the people, Joe.
 
We were out today just getting a feel for the land, getting a feel for where Joran Van Der Sloot said he last left Natalee Holloway. You know, the bottom line, Joe, whether he did anything or not, the bottom line, what‘s his moral responsibility when he says he leaves an 18-year-old, intoxicated girl on a beach at 2:30 by herself?
 
You know, if that‘s not criminal, it‘s stupid and immoral, to begin with. And that took place just behind us, Joe. As you look behind me right now, the beach right behind me and as it goes off to my left, this is the beach where he allegedly left her. It goes on up about two miles to the lighthouse where supposedly the three boys took Natalee up. She wanted to see this for the last night.
 
And you know, this is the scene of so many different finds. You know, we found mattresses, we found underground barrels, we found every conceivable piece—what about, you know, the duct tape with blonde hair on it?
 
You know, these are things that everyone gets up and then everybody comes back down again. Where is the level investigation that says, “Let‘s not lose our cool. Let‘s just continue to just pound away, pound away, pound away until we solve this case”?
 
Joe, I just haven‘t seen that take place. And as I look at this island, as I look at the various potential crime scenes that were done, I mean, the searches were done halfway, the investigation was done halfway. I mean, if this was a train to L.A. from New York, Joe, we haven‘t got close to Chicago yet.

SCARBOROUGH: I got to ask you a couple quick tough questions, and then we‘re going to come back to you in a little bit. There‘s a story of a forearm washing up on a beach in Venezuela. Of course, some people believe it could possibly be Natalee‘s.
 
But I‘ve just got to ask you. It‘s been a month and a half now. You‘re in a tropical climate. Would not an arm—or if Natalee were killed a month and a half ago, wouldn‘t it—I‘ve got to be blunt here. I‘m not going to say the evidence. Wouldn‘t the body be completely decomposed by now?

VAN ZANDT: Well, I‘ve got to believe so, Joe. I‘ve got to believe—you know, the idea that a bone from the forearm—or if we take this part of my arm and say this is the bone, that this bone would have found its way, the 18 or 20 miles from Aruba to Venezuela—I mean, you know, anything is possible.
 She may have gotten kidnapped by Martians. That‘s possible. But the reality is, no.
 
You know, when you‘ve got a case like this, Joe—you know, as an investigator for a quarter of a century myself—if you don‘t have anything else going, you got to take what there is there.

And in this particular case, we‘re taking duct tape, we‘re taking underwater barrels, we‘re taking bloody mattresses. I mean, they are grasping for not straws, but pieces of straws. But you know, you‘re a parent, just like I am.
 
You know, I‘m a parent, I‘m a grandparent. And if that were my child, I tell you what, I would grasp for any straw I could.

SCARBOROUGH: You‘d do anything. And finally, I want to ask you, again, another tough question, or actually more of a tough statement, I have yet to talk to somebody that didn‘t say that these three boys—one of the three killed her, got rid of her, they all three know where she is tonight.
 
Everybody I‘ve talked to, everybody agrees on that. Now, Clint, if you‘re running the FBI investigation, you have all the power in the world to get the truth. And you know that these three punks know the truth. How do you get the truth out of them?

VAN ZANDT: Well, you know, Joe, short now from taking them out and burying them in the landfill up to their neck and telling them we‘re not going to dig them up until they tell us the truth, I‘m not sure now that we‘re going to get the truth out of them.

SCARBOROUGH: I‘m afraid of that also, Clint. Hey, Clint, stand by.
 I want to bring right now in, though, Paul Reynolds. He‘s, of course, Natalee‘s uncle.
 
Paul, a lot of bad news through the past six weeks or so, but good news today in court. The FBI can stay involved. The interrogations of Joran can continue. What‘s your response to today‘s developments in Aruba?

PAUL REYNOLDS, NATALEE HOLLOWAY‘S UNCLE: Well, we‘re very glad the FBI is going to continue to be involved. You know, they bring a lot of expertise. They can be of great assistance to the Aruban authorities. And, you know, we‘re pleased to have the official ruling that allows them to continue.

SCARBOROUGH: Talk about what Clint said. He‘s afraid that, because of all the missteps early on, that this investigation is never going to find out the truth about Natalee, and that these three punk kids are going to be able to walk because they haven‘t been interrogated the proper way.
 
Have you given up hope, or do you and the family still believe that justice can be discovered in this case?

REYNOLDS: We‘re convinced that justice will be discovered. We understand the difficulties, the problems that we had in the very beginning, and, you know, all the concerns that we‘ve talked about over the last few weeks.
 
But, you know, we‘re determined. And, you know, we‘re going to stay involved. And, you know, we are seeing an increase in the effort. People are continuing to come forward. We‘re convinced, we‘re certain, that, you know, the truth will come out and there will be justice.

SCARBOROUGH: You know, I talked to John Walsh earlier today and was talking about Natalee‘s case. He shares your anger. He says it reminds him a lot of how he felt when his son disappeared and how the Hollywood investigators botched that case.
 
But he said you get to a point where you know that your child is dead, you just want to recover the body and bury your child so there can be some sort of closure. You‘ll never get complete closure, but some sort of closure.
 
Are you and the rest of the family, your sister, everybody else, to a point where you‘re afraid that one of these three boys may have killed Natalee and now you just want to bring her home?

REYNOLDS: Well, Joe, we can‘t give up hope. We still have to have hope until we‘re shown that Natalee is not alive. But...

SCARBOROUGH: So you believe, Paul, though, you believe tonight that she could still be alive?

REYNOLDS: You know, it‘s certainly possible, you know, no trace has been found. It‘s not something we can give up on until we‘re just absolutely shown otherwise.
 
That‘s not to say we‘re not realistic. We understand the possible consequences. And, certainly, we‘re looking into those consequences, but you just can‘t give up hope yet.

SCARBOROUGH: Well, you look at these pictures of her, too, these videos. She looks like such a sweet girl. And of course, the tragedy is that right now she would be packed up and be on her way to the college I went to, University of Alabama, to start her freshman year there and to start her life.
 
And it just makes you so angry looking at what‘s going on in Aruba.
 
And you just want to get a hold of those three guys and shake them.
 
Paul, stay with us. I want to talk to you more about Natalee, more about the investigation, and more about Joran, because, when we come back, my colleague, Dan Abrams, got to sit down with an American girl who actually dated Joran Van Der Sloot and invited him to come visit her in America. What‘s the Dutch boy really like? Well, you‘re going to find out next, straight from her.

SCARBOROUGH: An American girl meets a Dutch boy named Joran Van Der Sloot on a trip to Aruba. She actually invites him to come stay with her family in Jersey where the two become close friends. So what does the American girl who dated the Dutch boy have to say about him?
 
Earlier tonight, my colleague, Dan Abrams, sat down with the New Jersey teenager, Shelby Cadmus, to talk about the three weeks in which she spent with Joran Van Der Sloot, now the prime suspect in Natalee Holloway‘s disappearance.

SHELBY CADMUS, DATED JORAN VAN DER SLOOT: I was just hanging out by the pool with one of my friends who I came to Aruba with. And I saw Joran hanging around the Marriott with a group of his friends, as well. And we were both looking at each other, you know, girl-guy flirtation, eye contact.
 
We both sort of approached each other at the same time. We started talking. We both had the same interests, soccer, music and everything. So we just hung out pretty much every day by the pool and played “monkey in the middle” in the pool, normal kid stuff.
 
Once I got home, we e-mailed and everything. I was very infatuated by him. And he‘s a very romantic guy. I mean, he had a list of top 10 things he wanted to do in his life and number one was sit under the stars with the one I love.
 
That‘s just the kind of guy he was. He‘s a normal, teenage guy who just is living a normal teenage life.

DAN ABRAMS, HOST, “THE ABRAMS REPORT”: Did you ever see any violence on the part of Joran?

CADMUS None. None at all.

ABRAMS: Did you ever see him drunk?

CADMUS: Yes, actually I have.

ABRAMS: And?

CADMUS: Not violent at all.

ABRAMS: What did he—I mean, was he...

CADMUS: A goofy, fun, funny drunk.

ABRAMS: He wasn‘t one of these people—and there‘s some people, when they drink a lot, they really come to be different people than they were sober.

CADMUS: Not at all, because I know people who do become different people when they‘re drunk. And Joran‘s not one of them.

ABRAMS: Did you ever have anyone, you or anyone you know, who saw Joran, if he‘d been rejected, for example? Was there temper on him, et cetera?

CADMUS: None.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You rejected him at some point, didn‘t you? He was fine.

CADMUS: Yes.

ABRAMS: Tell me about that.

CADMUS: Times where he would—I wouldn‘t be as attracted to him and the more I—he was with me for three weeks, so, obviously, you know, you start fighting and just minor fights. Oh, “You left your cereal bowl on the table. You have to clean up after yourself,” just minor fights.
 
Obviously, we‘d become frustrated with each other, living with each other for three weeks, and no violence, no anger at all, just very calm and subdued. Towards the end of the week, I wasn‘t—end of the three weeks, I wasn‘t interested in him in a romantic way, more of just friends. And we got to know each other more over the three weeks, and I saw him as a friend.

ABRAMS: How did he react to that? How did he react to that?

CADMUS: I think he felt the same way about me. I mean, I know him. It‘s so weird for me, because, why would he do anything when—I mean, he‘s the kind of guy, he could—he‘s a good-looking kid. He could have girls approach him easily. There‘s no use for him—he doesn‘t have to do anything to get a girl. He just has to be himself.

ABRAMS: How do you picture what it‘s like for him behind bars right now?

CADMUS: I picture him being brave, and strong, and trying to live through it, doing the best he can.

SCARBOROUGH: Clint van Zandt, Joran says he just wants to sit under the stars, quote, “with the one I love.” Could a sweetheart like that actually be a sociopath?

VAN ZANDT: No, Joe, I think he‘s a hell of a guy.

 
It‘s the guy—I would love him to date my daughter or granddaughter, you know?

SCARBOROUGH: Yes.

VAN ZANDT: No, I mean, you‘re absolutely right. I mean, the guy could absolutely be a sociopath. And even by his comments like that, you know—maybe there‘s part of me that says, how could a 17-year-old kid be so successful and make all this work? And part of it is that the guy is a manipulator.

SCARBOROUGH: Oh, no doubt about it.

VAN ZANDT: He handles people. He knows how to manipulate them, and he knows how to get his own way. The question is, when he doesn‘t get his own way exactly the way he wants to, what are his anger management and his conflict resolution skills? And that‘s the challenging thing in this case.

SCARBOROUGH: That‘s important. Hey, Paul Reynolds, I want to bring you in here. Because again, I‘ve talked to teenagers who were actually at Carlos and Charlie‘s the night that Natalee disappeared.
 
They said when she was there that he actually approached her a couple times, she pushed him away, she rebuffed him. And what do you think, when you‘re hearing this American girl, who has to know that Joran was responsible—or he and one of his other friends responsible for the disappearance of Natalee, and she‘s sitting here talking about what a great sweetheart this guy is?

REYNOLDS: Well, you know, denial can be a strong emotion. You know, possibly she had a good experience with him. And you know, he did well in school. He had a scholarship, you know, a respected family. Things shouldn‘t be the way they are, but something obviously happened.
 
He was one of the last ones seen with her, multiple stories, multiple lies about what happened. Yet, we know he knows what happened. We suspect something went wrong, and we‘ve just got to get those answers from him.

SCARBOROUGH: You know, Clint, a lot of times sociopaths are very manipulative. As you know, people like Ted Bundy, able to sweet talk women, put them in vulnerable positions, and then kill them.