http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0510/03/ng.01.html
NANCY GRACE
Holloway Parents Pursue Suspect; VCU Student Still Missing
Aired October 3, 2005 - 20:00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Tonight, after an Aruban judge let all three suspects walk free in the Natalee Holloway case, including a fellow judge`s son, the chief suspect, Joran Van Der Sloot, court watchers thought the case was over. But tonight, Natalee`s parents say, no way.
Snip...GRACE: You know what? The Aruban government may have released all three suspects in the disappearance of 18-year-old American Natalee Holloway, but the case is not over. Joran Van Der Sloot, the judge`s son from Aruba, is free to leave the island and go study in the Netherlands. He gave an interview off the cuff. We have that sound for you. Also with us tonight, two very special guests. Natalee`s mother, Beth Twitty, is with us. Her stepdad, Jug Twitty. You`ve seen them night after night leading the battle to find their girl. Very quickly to "A Current Affair" correspondent Harris Faulkner.
Harris, any updates?
HARRIS FAULKNER, "A CURRENT AFFAIR" CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, after catching up with Joran Van Der Sloot in Holland and getting that interview, that exclusive interview with him, Nancy, Holland news-gathering organizations are now asking "A Current Affair" if they can have a copy of the tape. They want to see it there. They are hearings reports that we`ve said, and I think you`ve said on your show that Beth and her husband plan to go to Holland now and plaster the area with missing posters of Natalee.
I think journalists there, citizens there are more curious than ever about the new person they have in their midst her. Of course, Joran Van Der Sloot, moving with his family, to an area of Holland where Joran is enrolled as a college student.
When you talk about that interview, one of the most and interesting things about that interview, I think, Nancy, is the fact that he begins to paint Natalee Holloway as the aggressor in every way that he talks about her. She came up to him. She held him by the hand. She wanted to drink. She wanted to party.
And getting Beth`s response to that, I think, was really key.
GRACE: You know, I read in a tabloid last week, Beth, where some young girl had spent the evening or had a date with Joran Van Der Sloot and she was photographed. And whether the tab is true or not, I just thought about another young girl going out with Joran Van Der Sloot. It`s as if he`s starting all over in another country.
BETH TWITTY, MOTHER OF NATALLE HOLLOWAY: Exactly, Nancy. And he will. And he will not stop until something is done about this.
GRACE: I have so many questions for you. But what is your immediate reaction to this interview of sorts that he gave while at school?
B. TWITTY: You know, just outrage. When I hear how he`s placing all the blame on either myself for tourism being low, if that`s the case, how everything is Natalee`s fault. It was her fault that she was drunk. It was her fault that she wanted to go with him. She initiated coming to his home. That is simply not true. None of that is true.
GRACE: Every time he speaks, his story is different.
B. TWITTY: You know, and one reporter said it beautifully. He said, when Joran tells one lie, more evolve. And that`s how this entire summer has been with Joran.
GRACE: With us here in the HEADLINE NEWS studios, Natalee`s mother, Beth, her stepfather, Jug.
We`ll all be right back.
As we go to break, you know that here at Nancy Grace, we want very much to help solve unsolved homicides, find missing people. Take a look at 31-year-old Edward Perez, shot outside his home July `95 in Earlimart, California. If you have any info on this man, Edward Perez, please call the Carole Sund Carrington Foundation toll free, 888-813-8389. Please help us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: In all the weeks that we have helped search for Natalee Holloway, this beauty from Alabama set for a full scholarship at University of Alabama, it`s almost as if she became our girl, our sister, our next door neighbor, and the fact that the Aruban government has apparently dropped the investigation into her whereabouts is a very bitter pill to swallow.
Here in the studio with me, Natalee`s mother and her stepfather. They have not given up the search even though the Aruban government has released all three of the major suspects.
I want to talk a moment about Natalee, before I get into the ins and outs of the investigation. At this moment, when you think of her, what is your most vivid memory of Natalee?
BETH HOLLOWAY TWITTY, NATALEE`S MOTHER: It`s going to have to go to her dance. I mean, that was her life, Nancy. I mean, she just -- she loved it, she excelled at it, she worked so hard. I mean, every year she spent the entire year just preparing for one try out to be on that dance team for the upcoming year. And she just was so dedicated.
Yet Natalee had a fun side too, where she loved her friends. I mean, she loved being with her friends. That was her next most favorite, if you even had to say it was her next. I mean, it was ranked right up there with her dance and her friends.
GRACE: I know my parents felt like that with me doing cheerleading all by myself in the living room over and over and over to practice for the tryouts. You know, it just never ended. I am imaging the same thing with her.
What about it, most vivid memory if you`re thinking about her right now, what comes to your mind?
JUG TWITTY, NATALEE`S STEPFATHER: I would say the same thing. Beth and I have been married now five years, but we dated about eight years, moving from Mississippi.
GRACE: Didn`t want to rush into anything, eight years.
J. TWITTY: And when we got married and they moved from Mississippi to Mountain Brook, I thought it was going to be a real culture shock, and I remember Natalee making that dance team, which is so hard. It`s hard for people to understand how hard it is to make this, especially for girls that have been trying to make this forever. And she came right in and made that dance team, and I`m sitting there, and I know my daughter has gone out for a couple of sports events and not made it, and I know how it breaks your heart, but I remember when she made it. That was quite an experience.
GRACE: When she was growing up there in the home with you, what was she like? What was her favorite thing to do? What was her favorite TV? Did she like breakfast more than dinner? What was Natalee all about?
B. TWITTY: You know, Nancy, Natalee was so independent and Natalee was so in charge of who she wanted to be and what she wanted to be, that, you know, to pin down the specifics as far as that goes, that`s just really not Natalee.
I mean, she was fun. But she was so independent and just fully in charge of her life and what she was going to do.
GRACE: When you first got to Aruba, you had received a phone call first here in the states, correct? What happened?
B. TWITTY: I received a phone call that Natalee had not shown up for the group in time to -- they were departing for the airport.
GRACE: And you --
B. TWITTY: Oh, I knew immediately. I mean, Natalee would never be late for anything, never. She would never not be on time or --
GRACE: Where were you when you got that call?
B. TWITTY: I was returning from a trip --
GRACE: You were in the car, right?
B. TWITTY: Yes, I was in the car.
GRACE: What did you do?
B. TWITTY: I immediately dialed 911. I don`t even know what that was going to accomplish, but I knew that --
GRACE: What did you say to local 911?
B. TWITTY: I can`t remember. I know it was something like, my daughter has been kidnapped in Aruba. Or -- there was something so serious that I knew this was more than just a young girl not showing up for her departure, to leave the trip.
GRACE: You knew immediately.
B. TWITTY: I knew immediately, immediately with Natalee. Something was wrong, very wrong.
GRACE: And when did you leave to go?
B. TWITTY: We left that same day. We let probably by 6:00 or 7:00 p.m., that evening, or maybe even a little bit sooner.
GRACE: So you got that phone call at one time?
B. TWITTY: I got the phone call at 12:00 p.m.
GRACE: And by 6:00 you`re on a plane to Aruba?
B. TWITTY: Oh, yes, absolutely.
GRACE: Who went with you?
B. TWITTY: Jug and several other friends that flew down.
GRACE: So you all went down. Now, the first -- I can`t imagine touching down on non-U.S. soil and trying to find someone. What was the first thing you did?
B. TWITTY: Luckily we were met at the airport by three Aruban citizens who were very helpful for us that night, and we went to the Holiday Inn.
GRACE: Where she had been. And what happened?
B. TWITTY: Well, we were met by the DEA Eric Williams (ph) and Paul Lilly (ph).
GRACE: DEA?
B. TWITTY: Yes, there was a DEA on island, Eric Williams (ph) -- that`s another story, Nancy. But, anyway, they met us there at the Holiday Inn lobby because Paul Lilly (ph) had had such a horrific time on that Monday, the 30th, just trying to get help. He had been speaking with the beach patrol, visibility team, no one seemed to know -- talk about the right hand and left hand -- no one knew how to guide him or help him begin.
GRACE: Who is Eric Lilly (ph)?
B. TWITTY: Paul Lilly (ph). He`s the chaperone for the --
GRACE: All right. So he`s frantically trying to find Natalee and get help and nobody can even say this is the first thing to do.
B. TWITTY: Yes, yes. He was working -- he was trying so desperately to find someone to help him.
GRACE: So what time did you get to the Holiday Inn?
B. TWITTY: Probably about 11:00 p.m. on the 30th.
GRACE: And what happened when you got there?
B. TWITTY: You know, we acted with such a sense of urgency. The first thing that I wanted to do with Eric Williams (ph), the DEA, was establish Natalee`s character, so they would see that this is not a missing girl, this is not someone who has just decided not to show up or is having an extended stay on her senior trip.
And, you know, I felt the best thing I could do was establish Natalee`s character, so that they could see a sense of urgency had to be --
GRACE: When was it you talked to the player in this case? I thought it was that night.
B. TWITTY: It was that night, but it took us a while to find them. We had to -- there are several things that went on, Nancy.
We reviewed video footage from the Excelsior Casino, where Joran had been playing with Jug`s nephew, Thomas Twitty (ph), at a Texas Hold `Em table, so we could lay eyes on him and see him.
GRACE: That was before Natalee went missing, that night, that`s when the video came from.
B. TWITTY: Yes.
GRACE: OK. So you saw what he looked like, and then what happened?
B. TWITTY: From there, Jug might have a better .
GRACE: What happened next?
J. TWITTY: We were watching the video and during that period of time, we split up into two or three different groups and some of the chaperones in the other group that was with us, some of my friends, had gone around to different hotels looking for Joran. We didn`t know his name. We knew he liked playing card games.
GRACE: You knew what he looked like.
J. TWITTY: We didn`t know what he looked like.
GRACE: I thought you saw him in the video.
J. TWITTY: They didn`t know what he looked like. We knew what he looked like because we were sitting there -- you can see how small a video screen is.
But anyway, they`re asking questions and also when we went to Carlos and Charlie`s, we asked questions in there, when we first got here, and one of the guys that was with us obviously asked somebody where we could find him, and they drove to the beach and they went down there and started asking some kids about him, and he ended up paying one of the kids $100 to tell him where Joran lived.
All of this time, Beth and I are up looking at videotape in the Holiday Inn. So at about 3:00 in the morning, everybody came back to the Holiday Inn --
GRACE: Let me get this straight. This is 3:00 a.m. and Natalee was last seen about 25, 26 hours before that?
J. TWITTY: Exactly.
And so one of the guys that helped us, with Universal Air, came running in and saying we`ve found him, we found the house, we found the car and everything, and Beth and I were just coming down. So we go and get two uniformed officers. We stopped at the police station.
We go in and sit there and wait about 15 minutes out in the parking lot. Finally the police officers come out. We go to his house, which is maybe a mile away from the police station. The police pull up to his house, turn the lights on, you know, shine the spotlight, and about 15 minutes later here comes a gentleman walking out to the fence.
Beth goes, "There he is." I said, "Beth, that`s not him, that`s a 45- year-old man."
GRACE: When we get back, we`re going to pick up right where we left off, where Jug and Beth meet for the first time Joran Van Der Sloot and his father, the judge, in Aruba.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JORAN VAN DER SLOOT, SUSPECT: I would have just stayed home that night. I wouldn`t have even gone out. It was Natalee who asked me to go out with her. It was her that asked me to come to the club. It was her that was yelling at me to go dance with her, and I said -- and I went to go drink something with my friends.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you that irresistible? I mean, is that what - -
VAN DER SLOOT: No, I don`t know. That`s not -- that`s absolutely not what it is about. I don`t know. When her parents showed up at my door with her picture, I didn`t even know who Natalee Holloway was. I didn`t even know her name.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Well, it`s all Natalee`s fault, I guess, that she went missing off the island of Aruba after last being seen with him, Joran Van Der Sloot, the judge`s son, the chief suspect, changes his story every time he speaks, and yet Aruban authorities have released him.
Here in the studio with me, Natalee`s mother and her stepfather.
Let`s go straight back to where you first saw Joran Van Der Sloot, the first time. He was just describing the night you showed up at his house, as if that is the crime.
J. TWITTY: We showed up at his house, as I said, at about 3:00 in the morning. His father walks out, OK, and then his father gets on his cell phone after the police talk to him for about maybe 10 minutes. Next thing I know, the police are walking back and they`re saying, "We`re going to the Wyndham Hotel. He says Joran is at the Wyndham, gambling."
This is about 3:30 in the morning, so we`re going OK, great. So we all get in cars, a big entourage, go to the Wyndham. We all go in -- she is frantic. She runs in there and he`s not there.
And then we`re searching the beach and all this kind of stuff, and we come back, his father is on the cell phone again, with the two policemen standing next to him -- he rode in the car with the policemen over there -- and he goes, well -- he calls his son. His son says, "Well, I`m back at home."
He said, "I thought you said you were at Wyndham?"
He said, "Well, you said the police were here, so I`m back at home."
GRACE: So you go back --
J. TWITTY: We go back there. It takes about eight minutes or so. We get there, pull up there --
GRACE: When you get there, what happened?
J. TWITTY: Deepak and Joran are standing there.
GRACE: So they were together the next night as well?
J. TWITTY: Oh, yeah. And they talk four different languages down there. So first of all, there is one gentleman who, if somebody would go back and get Charles Cruse (ph), who was with us that night and who spoke to them away from us for about 10 minutes with the uniformed officers, before he came over and translated what Joran said to us -- and Joran speaks all the languages too. But Charles Cruse (ph), in my mind, holds a lot of keys to what happened that night, or what Joran said.
GRACE: What was the first thing Van Der Sloot said to you?
J. TWITTY: First he looked at the picture and I said, "Don`t say you don`t know her, because we have eye witnesses who saw you get in this car with her," and he goes, "Yeah, yeah, I know who she is."
And he walks over to us and starts talking, and he says things that -- you know, he danced with her at the Holiday Inn or whatever -- I mean at the Carlos and Charlie`s. But after we talked a little bit, we asked him where she is, he says, "I don`t know, I dropped her off." Then he says, "Is anybody here with the family?"
And I said, "Yes, I`m her stepfather."
He said, "Do you mind stepping away for a minute?"
So I stepped away, went back to the van, Beth was still in the van this whole time, watching, because we had --
GRACE: Who asked you to step away?
J. TWITTY: Joran did. So he could tell my friends and he could tell the uniformed officers and all the people there what he did with Natalee that night, as far as taking her and his sexual stuff with her. In the car.
GRACE: So you know for a fact that that night he admitted to having sex with Natalee?
J. TWITTY: Yes, and we`ve got --
GRACE: Because we`ve got so many different stories.
J. TWITTY: I`ll tell you, Nancy, the thing that really upset me, and I found this out when Beth read some statements down there, is that the two uniformed officers that were there, that were standing as close as we are here, listening to him say this, they gave their statements, and they were very graphic in detail of everything that happened that night, except for one thing. Guess what they left out? The part about him saying what he did sexually to her in that car.
And I went ballistic, because I wasn`t there, and I told Beth, I said this thing is a set up. I`m telling you right now. Why would they leave that out of there?
GRACE: The most significant portion of what he admitted to.
J. TWITTY: Right, right, so --
GRACE: You know what is interesting to me -- that night -- so you finally go home with no resolution.
J. TWITTY: That`s right.
GRACE: But you know Van Der Sloot was with her that night, had sex with her that night, according to him. Is that the night he came up with the idea to blame the two black security guards?
J. TWITTY: That came like a day later, or whatever.
One of the problems I had was, the next morning -- we stayed up all night. Beth stayed up all night. And the police officer in charge came and got us the next morning and took us to his office. And it was so frustrating, because Beth is frantic. She knows something is wrong. She says, here, let me tell you my statement -- he says, wait, I haven`t had my Frosted Flakes and I haven`t shaved yet.
GRACE: Who said this?
J. TWITTY: The chief of police or whatever --
GRACE: "I haven`t had my Frosted Flakes?" Did I just hear that?
J. TWITTY: Yes.
GRACE: Hold on, hold on, let me just check this earpiece for a minute.
The mother of a missing girl says, "I need to speak to you right now," and the chief of police says, "I`ve got to have my Frosted Flakes."
J. TWITTY: That`s just one small thing that he said that was very disturbing to me because, you know, I sat back there with Beth when he was talking to her, and some of the things were so sickening to me that he was talking about, and I`ll just say it, because I had to explain -- he was talking about putas and things, and I had to explain to her what that meant.
GRACE: You mean he said the word bitch? The chief of police did? Is that who we`re still talking about?
J. TWITTY: They were just using language like this when we were sitting in there and she was trying to give her statements and stuff, and joking about it and everything. The whole thing was like it was a joke, like she`s going to show up. She`s drunk, she`ll come in -- you know, don`t worry about it.
GRACE: Is that the way you remember it, Beth?
B. TWITTY: Oh, yeah, Nancy.
GRACE: Did you understand, I know they were speaking a different language partially at that time -- did you understand what they were saying?
B. TWITTY: I understood everything they were saying, Nancy.
GRACE: Who exactly is the bitch in this scenario?
J. TWITTY: He was using language like that, you know, just graphic language like that, jokingly, and, you know, like what goes on in Aruba, this happens and this happens, and, you know, just some of the words he was using, to me, it was sickening to me to have to sit here.
GRACE: When your girl is missing.
J. TWITTY: Right.
GRACE: You`re at their mercy.
J. TWITTY: We were at their mercy, and I am sitting there saying, these guys are on our side. I have to sit here and listen to this to try to get an answer.
GRACE: With me right now, the managing director of "El Diario" magazine, a newspaper there in Aruba, Jossy Mansur.
Jossy, thank you for being with us, friend. I am glad to see that you are well.
My question is, tell me the truth, is the investigation still ongoing in Aruba? Or is it all over now that the three suspects have been released?
JOSSY MANSUR, "EL DIARIO": No, it`s still ongoing. The police are doing their work. They`re intensely continuing with their investigation.
GRACE: Like what?
MANSUR: I mean, they`re putting the whole thing together. Remember that they went back form Murder One to Sexual Assault. They had to review about 1,000 and something pages.
GRACE: A thousand pages, that should take maybe two days.
MANSUR: Maybe, but they are still intensely following the case, and so is the prosecution. They`re fine-tuning whatever case they`re going to bring up against these three suspects. The case is going on.
GRACE: Are they continuing the dive efforts?
MANSUR: They are continuing to do every single effort that they can. The police of Aruba and the prosecution.
GRACE: Are they diving? Are they diving?
MANSUR: Yes, they are diving, because they have been searching to the north in an undersea cave, to the north of the lighthouse. They`ve been searching, as I speak now, they`ve been searching.
GRACE: Beth, when you hear that they are still searching, do you believe it?
B. TWITTY: I just hope that they are searching in the proper areas. I mean, I don`t -- I think what we would like to know is, you know, what is warranting their searches in those areas. What information was coming.
GRACE: Do you believe that the statement that you gave was changed?
B. TWITTY: Absolutely it was.
GRACE: What was taken out or put in?
B. TWITTY: A lot of key elements. And, you know, just what Jug was describing a while ago. When I had the two uniformed officers` statements translated for me in English, they left off the key elements of the sexual assaults that Joran committed against Natalee.
GRACE: Here in the studio with me, Natalee`s mother and stepfather, with very disturbing revelations about the so-called investigation into their daughter`s disappearance.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: 18-year-old Natalee Holloway went away for her high school senior trip in Aruba, never seen again. The disappearance unsolved. Is that the way the Aruban authorities want to keep it?
Here in the studio with me, Natalee`s mother, Beth, and her stepfather, Jug.
You know what is amazing to me, Beth, is that the morning after your conversation with Joran Van Der Sloot, instead of him and his father, the judge, coming to help you look for Natalee the next day, they had a big powwow at the judge`s house, outside the pool, with them, their lawyers, the Kalpoe family, correct? Why weren`t they out helping you? Why were they already lawyering up?
B. TWITTY: You know, not only that, Nancy. Deepak gives a detailed statement on Paulus Van Der Sloot`s role in this, how Paulus hired the lawyers, arranged for the lawyers, called them over to his home, instructed the boys not to use their cell phone, they could be bugged. Also told them how to get their stories straight and then use their email, then begin emailing the story and use your hard drive to nail an alibi.
What was the need for all of that?
GRACE: The judge told them --
B. TWITTY: Yes.
GRACE: Was Paulus, the judge, Van Der Sloots` home ever searched? I understand that Joran Van Der Sloot`s apartment, where he says he had consensual sex with Natalee, is attached to the home?
B. TWITTY: I want to make it perfectly clear: the Van Der Sloot primary residence was never searched. Forensics were not conducted at the primary residence of the Van Der Sloots.
GRACE: What do you think at this juncture is your alternative?
B. TWITTY: You know, Nancy, we don`t know what our alternative is. I mean, we have worked so hard. The whole family, every one that has watched this with us and remained supportive with us. Everyone has worked so hard, and now look at what`s happened.
GRACE: Do you ever even have time to miss her? Or are you still so intent on finding her?
B. TWITTY: I miss her every day, but, you know, not to have to deal with anything yet, because there are still so many answers that are right there glaring at us, and nobody can get them. It`s just outrageous.
GRACE: Thank you to all of my guests, but all of us have the biggest thank you to you for being with us, letting us into your home and keeping Natalee`s case alive.
