Aruban police again search landfill for Holloway

ORANJESTAD, Aruba - Police and volunteers continued picking through a landfill Sunday where a witness claimed he saw men dumping a female body two days after an Alabama teenager vanished.

The landfill is on the southern part of the Dutch Caribbean island, the opposite side from where 18-year-old Natalee Holloway was last seen in the early hours of May 30.

Crews stopped the search late Saturday without finding anything, but resumed on Sunday, said said Tim Miller, director of Texas EquuSearch, which is coordinating the landfill search.

The witness claimed to be dropping off trash when he saw the men dumping the body on the afternoon of June 1, Miller said.

“He said he saw a face, blond hair and a woman’s chest, and that the body was dumped and covered,” Miller said.

The witness could not identify the men but said they were driving a light colored jeep, Miller said.

Landfill had been searched before
Police spokesman Edwin Comenencia said police searched the landfill after receiving the tip in days following Holloway’s disappearance, but found nothing. He said the witness recently approached Holloway’s family, who asked for another search.

Holloway’s family has offered a $1 million reward for information leading to her safe return, and a separate $100,000 award for information that help solves the mystery. It was unclear if the witness had been seeking the reward.

Miller said the witness was trying to guide search crews to the location where he believed the body was dumped.

Meanwhile, Holloway's mother has left Aruba and returned home to Alabama after spending nearly two months on the island. According to a relative, it was “very difficult” for Beth Holloway Twitty to leave without knowing her daughter’s fate, and she plans to return soon to keep the investigation alive.

Pond draining ends
On the opposite side of Aruba, police ordered crews to stop draining a pond near the Marriott hotel, Comenencia said. They found no clues to Holloway’s disappearance, he said.

Crews began draining the pond Tuesday, but it was still several feet deep on Saturday. Comenencia declined to say why investigators decided to stop draining it.

The pond became an area of interest after another witness claimed he saw three young men, including a Dutch youth detained in the case, driving near it the night Holloway disappeared.

Holloway’s stepfather, George Twitty, who was at a nearby hotel waiting for results of the search, said police asked the family not to watch as they worked behind a fence to clear the water.

“It’s the first time the fire department, the police and other authorities have collaborated on such a huge search,” the stepfather said Wednesday. “So they must know something. ... There’s so much commotion, they must have a lead.”

Holloway Twitty, the mother, also said she was hopeful.

“I’m very encouraged about moving forward and hopefully finding some answers that we’ve been waiting for for a long time, and everyone has been,” she said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” before her departure from Aruba.

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