8/2/2005 10:34 AM
By: Associated Press
ORANJESTAD, Aruba – On Monday a group from Texas used dogs to search land surrounding the home of a Dutch youth detained over an Alabama teen's disappearance.
Officials with Texas EquuSearch say two dog teams were led around the properties surrounding the house of 17-year-old Joran van der Sloot.
A specialist used ground-penetrating radar to check if anything had been buried in the area.
Spokesman Joe Huston said the group found no clues into the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, 18.
Huston said van der Sloot's neighbors gave the group permission to search, but they did not enter the van der Sloot property.
The van der Sloot home was searched by Aruban police and forensic scientists in June, but authorities have never released details of information gathered.
Holloway has been missing since May 30.
Natalee Probers At Suspect's Home
(CBS) The search in Aruba for missing Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway centered Monday on the property around the house of the main suspect in her disappearance.
Teams of volunteers used dogs and high-tech ground radar to scour the area, reports CBS News Correspondent Kelly Cobiella on The Early Show.
Among the places gone over: a septic tank next to the home of Joran van der Sloot, the main suspect and only one still being held in Holloway's disappearance.
But Joe Houston, director of the Texas firm EquuSearch, says they found "nothing of interest, so basically (we) eliminated another area."
A drained pond's been crossed off the list, too. Investigators were hoping to find some hint of Holloway there.
Those, notes Cobiella, are the best leads they have. Hundreds of searches, by local police, Dutch marines, the FBI and, at one point, the entire island, and even Holloway's mother's heart-wrenching pleas, have yielded nothing.
All anyone knows for sure, Cobiella observes, is that Holloway left a bar with three young men the night of May 30th and, if you believe van der Sloot's story, even he's in the dark.
Says Anita van der Sloot, Joran's mother, "He says, 'Mom, I dropped the girl at the beach. I walked with her on the beach. I left her because she wanted to stay there. I left and I don't know what happened … but the truth will come out.' "
It hasn't yet, remarks Cobiella, and after 63 days, many on the island are starting to wonder if it ever will.