BREAKING NEWS suspects detained in Aruba confesses to killing Alabama teenager

[Unassisted]

Originally Posted by cincinnati chili

I'm curious if any ugly, non-white teenagers have been kidnapped lately.

But for the sake of her parents, I'm glad to hear there may be some closure.

We've had a couple of cases here of Latina women in their late teens or early 20s disappearing, as well as a 14 year-old girl, who also happened to be Latina. I never saw a word about their plight beyond the local media.

We also had a middle-aged Caucasian woman with 3 kids who disappeared for several weeks and turned out to have been murdered by her husband. Never saw that one on CNN et. al., either. Maybe it was because she was average-looking and a few pounds overweight?

The law enforcement community did its job and bodies were eventually found in all of the cases I cited above, but there was never a word about all of this in any national media outlets that I am aware of. I guess this means that all of the intense, relentless national media exposure doesn't really help solve cases.

[savafan]

http://washingtontimes.com/upi/20050...1253-1966r.htm

The mother of a missing Alabama teenager could face a libel lawsuit for speaking publicly about two suspects' release from an Aruban jail.
Wednesday, after police released brothers Satish and Deepak Kalpoe, 18 and 21, based on lack of evidence, Beth Holloway Twitty made a statement to reporters denouncing the move.
Her 18-year-old daughter, Natalee Holloway, has been missing since May 30, and was last seen with the brothers and Joran Van Der Sloot, 17.
But the Kalpoe brothers' attorney, Elgin Zeppenfeldt, threatened legal action for the mother's remarks, CNN said.
He accused her of making "prejudicial, inflammatory, libelous and totally outrageous" statements.
"She called our client, Mr. Satish Kalpoe, a 'criminal ... involved in a violent crime against my daughter' and who is 'allowed to walk freely among the tourists and citizens,'" Zeppenfeldt said in a statement.
Late Wednesday, a lawyer for the Holloway family said the comments reflected "a mother's desperation after weeks of trying to find her daughter. When emotion kicks in, reason kicks out."
An apology was not ruled out, the report said.

[GAC]

I really haven't been following this case that close; but I still think that van der Sloot kid has something to do with it.

[savafan]

Case solved?

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=4222253&page=1

In surveillance recordings aired on a Dutch TV special this evening, Joran van der Sloot, a former suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, said the American teen appeared lifeless on an Aruban beach three years ago during a romantic tryst, and "she'll never be found."

"I know what happened to that girl," van der Sloot announced during 20 hours of private conversations secretly recorded by crime reporter Peter R. de Vries.

Her body, van der Sloot said, had been dumped in the ocean by a friend with a boat.

"We're on the beach," he said on the recordings, according to the Dutch TV show. "Suddenly, she wasn't moving any more."

Nowhere on the recordings does van der Sloot display any emotion about the young woman he said he disposed of that night on the beach so far from home.

"I didn't even feel bad about it," he said at one point. "I didn't lose a night of sleep over it. I thought, 'I have to go on.'"

Since Holloway disappeared on May 30, 2005, according to the recordings, van der Sloot has lied to authorities, laughed at police and prosecutors, thrown a glass of wine in DeVries' face and boasted about his antics and alleged deceptions in conversations he thought were private. Van der Sloot even said he is pressing for financial compensation from the Aruban government for his ordeal as a suspect in the case.

Van der Sloot now claims he was lying in the secretly recorded conversations with Patrick van der Eem, a person he thought was a friend, but who was secretly working undercover for de Vries and his team of Dutch crime reporters.

The tale van der Sloot told on the tapes clearly contradicted his original story that he left the apparently intoxicated Holloway sleeping on the beach and did not know what happened to her after that.

In one taped conversation, van der Sloot told van der Eem that Holloway visibly convulsed "like a movie," that she was shaking "a lot."

"Did you try CPR on her?" asked van der Eem.

"Of course, I tried everything," van der Sloot said. "I tried to shake her. I was shaking the *****. I was like, 'What is wrong with you man?' I almost wanted to cry. Why does this s*** have to happen to me?"

He admitted his first call wasn't to the hospital or to the police -- but to a friend to help dispose of the body.

"And I told him, 'Well, this is what happened; come, come, come, come help me. And please don't call the police.' He says, 'No, I won't call the police. I'm coming to you now.'"

Van der Sloot said on the tape that his Aruban friend, alone, took Holloway out to the ocean and dumped her apparently lifeless body.

But was she really dead?

"How were you so sure she was dead, Joran?" van der Eem asked on the tapes. "You know, people can also go into a coma."

"Yeah, I wasn't sure about that, but it really startled me to death," van der Sloot admitted.

"But she could also have been in a coma," van der Eem said.

"That's possible too huh," van der Sloot answered. "That's very possible."

Van der Sloot said he immediately began crafting an alibi.

"I have to do normal things," he said. "And I am going to casino tomorrow night so I'm on camera."

But calling into a TV show this past week, van der Sloot said his admissions to van der Eem were a put-on.

"It is true I told someone. Everybody will see it Sunday," van der Sloot said over the telephone on the Dutch television show "Pauw & Witteman."

"That is what he wanted to hear, so I told him what he wanted to hear," Van der Sloot said, adding that he never fully trusted the man to whom he'd described his encounter with Natalee Holloway.

"It is so stupid, it is so stupid, it is really stupid," Van der Sloot said, his voice cracking.

Based on de Vries tapes, the chief prosecutor in Aruba announced Thursday that he is reopening the case.

De Vries also showed his findings to Holloway's mother, Beth Twitty.

"She told me she kind of knew it already that Natalee wasn't alive anymore, but when you get this message it's still, yeah, a kind of relief," de Vries told ABC News.

Twitty admitted as much to ABC News.

"Now, with the knowing," she said, "it lets you put some things to rest. And that finally, finally, finally it's over."

According to the DeVries Dutch TV special, De Vries built his case with the help of van der Eem, 34 an Antillian who spent his youth in Curacao and Aruba but who has lived in the Netherlands for many years.

Van der Eem said he met van der Sloot at a poker table in a casino, and they talked about starting a marijuana-growing business. The two later would talk about and smoke marijuana during lengthy recorded conversations.

But van der Eem said he really wanted to bring van der Sloot down and decided to set a trap. Soon, he approached de Vries, the famous Dutch crime reporter, about working undercover, and de Vries hired him.

"I knew what I was doing," van der Eem said. "I had no emotions for this kid. The mother deserves an honest answer for what happened to his daughter."

The mystery behind the disappearance of the blond teenager has eluded efforts by the Aruba police and even the FBI for more than two years.

De Vries showed some of the key pieces of videotape to the Office of the Public Prosecutor of Aruba Jan. 24. Thursday, the island's chief prosecutor, Hans Mos, announced he has "intensified [the] investigation of Natalee Holloway due to recently received information."

Mos had announced publicly last month that he had closed the investigation after an exhausting and often frustrating two-year probe.

"This information may shed a new light on the mode of which Natalee Holloway has died and the method by which her body disappeared," Mos said.

He credited de Vries with uncovering the leads and said, "This information may help considerably in the solution of the mystery of Natalee's disappearance."

De Vries said that he and his team had been conducting an undercover operation for five months.

Earlier this week de Vries released a conversation between himself and Mos after he showed police the evidence he had collected.

"Am I sitting opposite a happy man now?" de Vries asked Mos. The prosecutor is shown answering, "Now at least the truth is surfacing, and with that we can at least wrap up this case."

Holloway, from Alabama, disappeared after a boozy night in an Aruban nightclub during a high school graduation trip. She was last seen outside Carols 'n Charlies bar with van der Sloot, who is from the Netherlands, and the brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, from Aruba. They have twice been arrested and released because of a lack of evidence. They have all denied any involvement in her disappearance.

In the de Vries TV special, Van der Eem said he rarely pressed van der Sloot on the Holloway case early on -- but van der Sloot occasionally talked about it anyway.

Van der Sloot was arrested and released in December before the Holloway case was closed, and the next month a hidden camera caught van der Sloot ridiculing the Aruban authorities that failed to bring charges.

"They have nothing," van der Sloot told van der Eem. "I laughed at them, those investigators. I didn't say a word. I invoked my right to remain silent."

In January, De Vries' team launched a more ambitious surveillance plan involving a Range Rover outfitted with three hidden cameras and a tracking device, as well as several unmarked surveillance cars to observe van der Sloot and van der Eem as they rode around in the Range Rover.

And with the case dropped, it turned out, van der Sloot seemed to open up more about Holloway.

"Will they ever find her, do you think?" van der Eem asked, in one conversation.

"No," van der Sloot said.

"The only thing I still want is a big fat compensation check" for treatment by authorities in Aruba, van der Sloot added. "But before I have it, it'll be 10 years."

"But where … is she, Joran?" van der Eem asked.

"She'll never be found," van der Sloot said.

The day after that January conversation, according to the program, van der Sloot and de Vries appeared together on a Dutch TV show, "Pauw & Witteman," on which de Vries offered theories on van der Sloot's involvement in the Holloway case, and van der Sloot, as he always has, publicly denied involvement.

Dutch student Joran van der Sloot now says he was lying when he told someone privately that he'd played a role in the mysterious disappearance of Natalee Holloway.

Van der Sloot spoke out after Dutch journalist Peter R. de Vries claimed that through his private investigation he had solved the Holloway case and that he knows the American teenager is dead.

De Vries said he used a sophisticated network of hidden cameras in what he called an "undercover operation" to obtain evidence that he says "has solved the mystery" of Holloway's disappearance on May 30, 2005.

De Vries' hidden cameras caught Dutch student van der Sloot saying that Holloway died after having sex with him and that he then dumped her body at sea with the help of a friend.

But in a new development, van der Sloot now says that he was lying when he privately told an acquaintance that he was involved in Holloway's disappearance.

"It is true I told someone. Everybody will see it Sunday," Van der Sloot said on the Dutch television show "Pauw & Witteman," according to The Associated Press.

"That is what he wanted to hear, so I told him what he wanted to hear," Van der Sloot said, adding that he never fully trusted the man to whom he'd confessed.

"It is so stupid, it is so stupid, it is really stupid," Van der Sloot said, his voice cracking, the AP reported.

Based on de Vries evidence, the chief prosecutor in Aruba announced Thursday that he is reopening the case.

De Vries also showed his findings to Holloway's mother, Beth Twitty.

"She told me she kind of knew it already that Natalee wasn't alive anymore, but when you get this message it's still, yeah, a kind of relief," de Vries told ABC News.

[vaticanplum]

I completely agree with you guys that the coverage this case has gotten is absurd -- ABSURD -- in comparison with people who get murdered every single day with hardly a mention in police reports. I've had shouting matches with my family over this in fact.

However, there's no need to belittle the fact that a tragedy occurred. A girl lost her life and the responsible party should be held accountable. I think this case is a mess, I think the media coverage has been ridiculous, and I'm willing to be the case would have been solved a lot sooner without all this circus. But I hope we are never so jaded towards the misguided media that it makes us dismiss the death of a girl -- even an attractive, white girl.

[George Foster]

My father who is a prosecutor told me how to solve this case. He said it is real simple now.

1) get the cell phone records on Van der Sloot. He could not of made that many phone calls in the window of time they know she vanished. Not all of his friends have sea worthy boats, that eliminates them.

2) You call in the ones that have sea worthy boats. The ones that don't have air tight alibes, you then squeeze the hell out of them. You say you are going to charge them with Murder. They are going to spend the rest of their lives in jail.....or....we offer you immunity and you testify against Van der Sloot. Dad said they will sing like it's church on Sunday.

3) My father is convinced, and I am too, that Van der Sloot's father know's exactly what happened as well. Dad said he would charge him with the cover-up. Then you squeeze Van der Sloot to confess in court about what happen to save his father from going to jail. He will sing.

4) Dad said NO ONE confesses to murder( who really did not do it) except someone who wants media attention and has a mental disorder. We all know that Van der Sloot wants to vanish from the spot light. Van der Sloot got cocky...he thought the case was over and he was stupid and confessed to someone who he thought he could trust.... like alot of people do.

edit: no one confesses to murder voluntarily who did not do it. We all know of stories of people who confess to something after 20 hours of grilling. This is not the case in regard to the Vand er Sloot situation. He got busted telling a friend on tape. Totally different situation.

[OldRightHander]

Regarding what was said earlier in this thread, it really disgusts me that good looks will get a victim more coverage these days. Take the case of the marine who was killed. I think it might have been Nancy Grace who is the culprit, but I have heard multiple references to the "gorgeous" murder victim. So if you're attractive and get murdered is it more of a tragedy than the average looking or ugly people who are killed. How superficial is that?

[Sea Ray]

Originally Posted by George Foster

My father who is a prosecutor told me how to solve this case. He said it is real simple now.

1) get the cell phone records on Van der Sloot. He could not of made that many phone calls in the window of time they know she vanished. Not all of his friends have sea worthy boats, that eliminates them.

2) You call in the ones that have sea worthy boats. The ones that don't have air tight alibes, you then squeeze the hell out of them. You say you are going to charge them with Murder. They are going to spend the rest of their lives in jail.....or....we offer you immunity and you testify against Van der Sloot. Dad said they will sing like it's church on Sunday.

3) My father is convinced, and I am too, that Van der Sloot's father know's exactly what happened as well. Dad said he would charge him with the cover-up. Then you squeeze Van der Sloot to confess in court about what happen to save his father from going to jail. He will sing.

4) Dad said NO ONE confesses to murder( who really did not do it) except someone who wants media attention and has a mental disorder. We all know that Van der Sloot wants to vanish from the spot light. Van der Sloot got cocky...he thought the case was over and he was stupid and confessed to someone who he thought he could trust.... like alot of people do.

edit: no one confesses to murder voluntarily who did not do it. We all know of stories of people who confess to something after 20 hours of grilling. This is not the case in regard to the Vand er Sloot situation. He got busted telling a friend on tape. Totally different situation.

OK, what if there is no person with a boat? They're having a hard time finding this guy which leads me to the theory that Joran dumped the body, not this buddy he mentioned. I think he knew better than to admit to dumping the body himself. As it is he's not in too much trouble. All he's guilty of is leaving a girl on the beach. He's not guilty of killing her, giving her drugs or dumping the body. Even though he was a little stoned in that interview, I think he knew better than to come clean on dumping the body. He still hasn't come up with the shoes he was wearing that night. I don't see why that'd be an issue unless he was the one putting her in the ocean.

How would your Dad approach it using my theory?

[Dom Heffner]

Didn't the story say he called the friend with the boat from a pay phone and not a cell?

Then you could match the payphone records to anybody Van der Sloot knew.

[Sea Ray]

Originally Posted by Dom Heffner

Didn't the story say he called the friend with the boat from a pay phone and not a cell?

Then you could match the payphone records to anybody Van der Sloot knew.

Yes, you are correct and according to Joran's attorney, that pay phone was incapable of making local calls. He said there is no way Joran used that phone that night and it has been investigated.

That leads me to my theory that there was no call to a buddy with a boat.

[George Foster]

Originally Posted by Sea Ray

Yes, you are correct and according to Joran's attorney, that pay phone was incapable of making local calls. He said there is no way Joran used that phone that night and it has been investigated.

That leads me to my theory that there was no call to a buddy with a boat.

I've never heard of a phone like that. Have you? If your willing to pay for the phone call, why can't you call for a pizza? I'm not saying there are not phones like this but from a money making standpoint, I don't understand it.

[KronoRed]

No local calls = no drug dealing

At least that's what first popped into my head

[Sea Ray]

Originally Posted by George Foster

I've never heard of a phone like that. Have you? If your willing to pay for the phone call, why can't you call for a pizza? I'm not saying there are not phones like this but from a money making standpoint, I don't understand it.

No, I have not, but of course I've never been to Aruba. I'm sure they know who was called when from that phone but nothing has come of it. Just tonight I heard that the Prosecuter has left the Island for a scheduled vacation. Shows how seriously he takes this case.

[nate]

Originally Posted by George Foster

I've never heard of a phone like that. Have you? If your willing to pay for the phone call, why can't you call for a pizza? I'm not saying there are not phones like this but from a money making standpoint, I don't understand it.

Many countries have phones specifically for making international phone calls. They're commonly found in hotel lobbies.

[Ltlabner]

Originally Posted by nate

Many countries have phones specifically for making international phone calls. They're commonly found in hotel lobbies.

Yea, I see them around towns here in the states from time to time when out making sales calls.

The ones I remember seeing usually have a bright red metal box around them, and of course, big giant stickers "call Mexico for $.03 a minute, Mongolial for $.75 a minute".

Usually (IIRC) they hang outside of convienence stores, check cashing places, sometimes in truck stops, etc.