Holloway mystery finally solved?

Clint Van Zandt • Profile • E-mail

Most will recall that Joran Van der Sloot was one of three young men Natalee Holloway was accompanied by when she left a local Aruban bar after a night of partying in May 2005. Holloway was never seen again. Van der Sloot and his two friends, brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, were seen driving away with Natalee. All three men would later tell various stories of where they went and what level of contact they had with Natalee that night, some of which were proven to be either outright lies or statements that could not be confirmed by independent investigation.

Many believe that Holloway was either murdered or somehow died while with the three suspects, perhaps from some type of alcohol or drug overdose (i.e. from GHB, the date rape drug), the latter of which could have been secretly slipped in her glass after an afternoon and evening of intentional drinking on her part. Gerold Dompig, the Aruban police investigator that formerly ran this case, once indicated his belief that a long day of drinking at Carlos ’n’ Charlie’s could have contributed to Holloway’s death, with the three main suspects indicating, in at least one version of their various conflicting accounts of their actions that night, that they eventually left Holloway alone on the beach near her hotel, and they had no idea of what might have happened to her after they left her on the sand.

In a recent Dutch TV show, Van der Sloot was interviewed by a local crime reporter and former police officer, Peter deVries, who challenged Van der Sloot’s version of what happened to Natalee that fateful night. At the end of the interview Van der Sloot threw a glass of wine into deVries’ face, behavior that would serve to exemplify his inability to control his temper as well as his lack of impulse control: traits, some would suggest, that could also allow him to take action against another person he was angry or upset with. Someone, perhaps, like Natalee Holloway.

'No confession'
Reporter deVries soon announced that through the use of hidden surveillance cameras, he had solved the mystery surrounding Holloway’s disappearance, and in a Dutch TV special this past Sunday he provided the video in support of his claim. Evidently deVries was able to get someone close to Van der Sloot, someone who gained the suspected killer’s trust, someone Van der Sloot’s U.S. attorney would now attempt to discredit by suggesting that the undercover operative had given Van der Sloot “drugs, marijuana, things like that.” Unbelievable that this same attorney, after viewing the hidden tape of his client’s statement concerning Holloway, characterized his client’s statements as “no confession and no admission of a crime” by his client.

The now public videotape, the result of three different hidden cameras in a moving vehicle, shows Van der Sloot telling his “friend” that Holloway was drunk on the beach with him, apparently after they left the local bar, and that while kissing, etc., she began shaking and then slumped over without speaking. The Dutch teenager then says that he panicked and tried to reviver her, but as she looked dead. “Could she have been in a coma?” asked the friend. “Perhaps,” Van der Sloot appears to have suggested. He then allegedly used a nearby pay phone to call an unidentified friend to help him dispose of Holloway’s body that night. 

Van der Sloot’s unnamed friend then allegedly placed Holloway’s limp body in a boat which was used to take her out into the nearby ocean, where he allegedly pushed her body into the darkened waters and “dumped her overboard like an old rag.”  Van der Sloot, when confronted with his tape recorded confession, now says he was lying and simply telling his friend what he believed the friend wanted to hear. The Dutch teenager’s American attorney points out what he says are differences and inconsistencies in his client’s story, differences he says proves that his client was lying at the time.

Most who have followed this case will agree with Van der Sloot’s lawyer: His client is a liar.  The only question is which of the many lies that Van der Sloot and the two other suspects have apparently told are true lies, and which represent the real truth.

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