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Witnesses said she drank responsibly.

Here's a comment from "Country Moon", a classmate of Natalee's, who participates on SM. She/he appears to be very intelligent, according to his/her posts.
Country Moon Says:
June 29th, 2005 at 10:44 am
The chaperones that were there did all the head counts, did all of the checking rooms, and monitored everything that they possibly could. The ratio of us to them though was us winning by a mile. We were out to all hours of the night. We had this false sense that the island was totally safe. That is the impression that everyone who lives there gives you. They try to make you feel like its all about you and your time there. Night life there is so up beat and exciting.
We all were a few sheets to the wind at C&C’s, all of us who were there, and that is our faults and we live with that guilt now every day. No one in our group here saw her leave the bar, but had we not been intoxicated I know we all would have used much better judgement and said something.
We were dispersed all over the place in Aruba. The beach, the bar, the pool, the hotel……if a person was not with one group it was thought that “Oh they must be with another”. Another bad call on our part…
590 posted on 07/01/2005 10:01:15 AM PDT by toldyou

We all were a few sheets to the wind at C&C’s, all of us who were there, and that is our faults and we live with that guilt now every day. No one in our group here saw her leave the bar, but had we not been intoxicated I know we all would have used much better judgement and said something.

This is false. A couple of the girls talked to Natalee as she was leaving. Also, the statement that all were intoxicated is clearly a generalization.

See? I wish the girls on TV would be that honest. Honesty is the best policy, and it would be good for their souls. This could have happened to any one of them; it just happened to be Natalee.

I know they are forgiven for just being drunk kids. They don't and shouldn't bear responsibility for the rest of their lives for not looking out for Natalee. But I daresay they will be much more cautious when in a similar situation in the future, as will lots of people affected by this story who were NOT there. It is GOOD to be careful!