Natalee Holloway: Alabama teen vanished 15 years ago and thanks to corrupt cops, the case is still a mystery
Fifteen years on, the disappearance of Natalee Holloway remains a mystery — a mystery that is marred with accusations of police misconduct, corruption, apathy, as well as outright incompetence.
Holloway goes missing
Holloway had been entering the prime of her life in the summer of May 2005. A native of Mountain Brook, Alabama, she had just graduated high school and was all set to celebrate the occasion with a trip to Aruba with her classmates.
As expected from teenagers, it was quite the boisterous group who were insistent on spending the entirety of their time in the Caribbean paradise lounging on the beach, drinking till they dropped, and partying till the sun rose. Holloway, described by best friends Mallie Tucker and Claire Fierman as the type to not let her guard down, was seemingly swayed by the celebratory atmosphere as well, letting herself loose and soaking in the experience.
It had been a vacation to remember. Soon, it would be one no one would ever forget.
During the duration of their trip, the high school students, including Holloway, had made a popular local pub called Carlos'n Charlie's as their haunt, regularly whiling their nights away under its disco lights and wild parties. But they unfailingly made it back to the safety of their hotel rooms.
May 30, 2005, was the day the group had to pack their bags, reminisce the incredible few days they had spent at a gorgeous resort, and begrudgingly make their way back to their small home town. Instead, it was one they had to spend in panic, distressing as they realized that Holloway was missing and had not been seen since the previous night. When her disappearance raised to the hotel where they were staying, they were assured it was a common occurrence, and that they could not report it for at least 24 hours either way. She must have gone home with someone she met at the pub the previous night and was only now realizing she had to fly back to the US, they said.
That nonchalance was echoed by the police, who showed no urgency whatsoever in looking for the teen and were accused of twiddling their thumbs even though Holloway's life could have been in grave danger.
Prime suspect duly ignored, let free
As it became apparent that Holloway was missing and didn't just have a wild night, her parents flew in from the US, and many of her classmates recalled they had last seen her with Joran van der Sloot, the son of a prominent local lawyer who had a bit of a reputation for being a playboy.
Video camera footage from a casino the group had gone to before they entered Carlos'n Charlie's confirmed as much, though frustratingly, police did little to apprehend either him or the Kalpoe brothers he was known to regularly hang around.
Desperate, Holloway's mother, Beth, hired a local attorney who said she was currently representing another 14-year-old client who had claimed van der Sloot had raped her using a date rape drug. When the pace of the investigation still showed no signs of speeding up, Beth went to his home to ask to speak to him, only to be denied at the gate by his father.
That move, experts said, proved he was hiding something. Why else would someone refuse to grant a grieving parent something as small as an audience with the last person who had seen their daughter alive, they asked. As the days went by, van der Sloot remained free and Holloway's disappearance continued to remain a mystery. To make matters worse, police records in Aruba were not available to the public, meaning, besides media speculation, no one had any idea how the investigation was proceeding.
Police incompetence and corruption
On June 5, 2005, police announced they had a breakthrough in the case. They said they had detained Nick John and Abraham Jones, former security guards from a hotel nearby to where the students were staying, on suspicion of murder and kidnapping. Unsurprisingly, with little evidence to link them to Holloway's disappearance, they were released a little over a week later.
Three months later, police did arrest van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers, only for a judge to release them despite the attempts of the prosecution to keep them in custody. They were released on the condition that they remain available to police, but all their restrictions were lifted soon after. Antagonized by the authorities, Holloway's parents hired a private investigator to look into their daughter's disappearance. To nobody's surprise. the investigator, TJ Ward, uncovered that there were significant conflicts of interest that were actively sabotaging the police's investigation.
The foremost amongst those was the lead investigator himself, who, it was learned, was van der Sloot's godfather, and one of his father's best friends. It also emerged that Aruban investigators had knowingly avoided searching van der Sloot's car for five days after Holloway went missing, discarded social media and physical evidence pointing to his guilt, and ignored how his story about the teen kept changing every time he was asked of it.
The most damning indictment of their incompetence, however, was the misplacement of tape that all but proved van der Sloot was the culprit. A police microphone had allegedly caught him confessing to the Kalpoe brothers that he sexually assaulted Holloway and then ran her over with his car, only for the authorities to mysteriously lose it.
Finally some justice?
On May 30, 2010, exactly five years to the day Holloway went missing, 21-year-old business student Stephany Flores was reported missing in Lima, Peru. She was found dead three days later in a hotel room registered in van der Sloot's name. He was arrested in Chile on a murder charge and extradited to Peru a day later.
A few days later, he confessed he killed Flores after losing his temper because she accessed his laptop without permission and found information linking him to Holloway's death. He was charged with first-degree murder and robbery, and on January 11, 2012, he was sentenced to 28 years in prison after pleading guilty.
One day later, on January 12, Holloway was declared legally dead in absentia. Her whereabouts remain unknown to this day.
The 18-year-old's disappearance will be subject of the new Reelz documentary, 'Natalee Holloway: Her Friends Speak,' which is set to air on the network on Sunday, May 31, at 9 pm ET/6 pm PT.