Posted on 06/16/2005 9:43:44 AM PDT by stlnative
By PETER PRENGAMAN Associated Press Writer
ORANJESTAD, Aruba — A helicopter equipped with infrared technology searched unsuccessfully for the body of a missing Alabama teenager, an official said Thursday, as investigators sifted through items seized from the island home of a justice official whose son was with the young woman the night she disappeared.
Also Thursday, a judge was to rule on a petition from the justice official, Paul van der Sloot, to see his jailed 17-year-old son, Joran. The judge was expected to rule as well on a request from lawyers defending the youth and his two Surinamese friends to see any evidence authorities have gathered. Van der Sloot, from Holland, is training to be a judge in Aruba, a Dutch Caribbean island.
More than two weeks after 18-year-old Natalee Holloway went missing, numerous searches by authorities, volunteer islanders and tourists have led nowhere, and no one has been charged in the case. Authorities have refused to say whether they think Holloway is dead.
On Thursday, however, Police Supt. Jan van der Straaten told The Associated Press that they used the helicopter "to search for possible remains — but found nothing."
He declined to say where the helicopter searched or whether authorities believed there was a body to find.
On Wednesday, investigators brought in from Holland and police using a German Shepherd searched the van der Sloots' one-story, yellow-beige home, where Joran lived in an attached apartment. Agents were seen carrying two white garbage bags filled with items from the house, while authorities towed away a blue sport utility vehicle and a red Jeep from the property in Noord, outside the capital, Oranjestad.
Van der Straaten declined to give details on what they found. "We are still busy with the investigation and interrogations of suspects," he said Thursday.
Following the approximately four-hour search, Attorney General Caren Janssen clarified that Paul van der Sloot was not under investigation.
Asked why it took investigators more than two weeks after Holloway's disappearance to search the van der Sloot home, Janssen said Thursday, "You have to build up an investigation. You can't just go in there like a cowboy, you have to give certain direction to investigators."
Joran remains in police custody along with Deepak Kalpoe, 21, and Satish Kalpoe, 18, of Suriname. The three were questioned and released shortly after Holloway's May 30 disappearance. They were formally arrested last Thursday.
The two brothers have told police that they and Joran were with Holloway and that she and the Dutch youth were petting in the back seat of their car. The detainees initially said they took Holloway to a beach on the northern part of the island then dropped her off at her Holiday Inn hotel, where they claimed she was approached by a security guard.
But Antonius "Mickey" John, a former hotel security guard released from custody on Sunday, told reporters that Deepak Kalpoe told him during a chat in jail that he and his brother actually dropped the young van der Sloot and Holloway off together near the Marriott, about 10 blocks north of the Holiday Inn. John said he passed the information on to police.
Kalpoe's lawyer would not comment on John's statement Wednesday, but said his client maintained his innocence.
Van der Straaten declined to give a timeline Thursday on when the investigation could conclude, or when Joran and the Kalpoe brothers might either be released or formally charged.
He dismissed rumors that police may investigate coastal waters on the north side of the island known to have sharks. "Sure, we have shark places on the northern side, but they have nothing to do with the investigation," he said.
Holloway was celebrating her graduation from Mountain Brook High School, near Birmingham, Alabama, with 124 other students and seven chaperones when she vanished during the early hours of May 30. Her U.S. passport and packed bags were found in her room.
The law says authorities can hold detainees for up to 116 days without filing formal charges. The three young men have been in custody since June 9.
It was not immediately clear why van der Sloot had not been allowed to see his son or whether the youth's mother had been allowed to. After the three young men were detained, the attorney general's office said Dutch law permits parents to see minors in jail.
Aruba follows Dutch law as a former colony in the Netherlands Antilles, from which it seceded in 1986 to become an independent member of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
___
June 16, 2005 - 3:29 p.m. CDT
I have always wondered that, too. I suppose there is a chance they would let you live, but you would have to start out that way, not change mid stream. If you start out that way are you misleading them? Fine line. :(
I would guess they got to go at a discount. I was asked to be a chaperone on a trip to a foreign country and was told I would be given a discount price for doing so.
Just as well since they were contaminated anyway.
Please tell her many are praying for Natalee and Natalee's family as well. Not knowing what happened to a child or a neice is a situation I cannot begin to comprehend.
Even though common sense tells us it does not look good for Natalee, faith, love, & compassion tells us not to give up.
Thank you. I will tell her.
maybe yours..........lol
by who's standards?
you mean, nobody got deathly sick, no one caught an STD, no one was humiliated, raped, scared?
I suppse the term "sucess" could mean that everybody lived......
JMO.....teenagers on vacation to an island with legal prostitution and drinking at age 18 without mom or dad around and with casino gambling sounds ridiculously risky to me.....
but that's just me....
americaninaruba
Location: Aruba
Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2005 8:13 pm
theri is an IMMENSE SILENCE with the police department.....apparently they will have a press conference tomoroow (which won thelp anyone) but yes thats it!
americaninaruba
Location: Aruba
Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2005 8:22 pm
This NH story ahs even stopped our "mini carnaval" that we have during the summer for tourist that dont make it to the grand event in february...everythign was done and then the gov't cnaceld everything du eto the NH case
always come back to FR for the real stuff........
All the fuss with Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes and her conversion to Scientology in prep for their marriage may draw attention to this, perhaps. It sounds to me like a 20th Century fiction piece that bamboozled people who would normally be considered sane.
This can be ended quite quickly with cooperation from the perps.
Why do I have the feeling that Cruise divorced Kidman because she didn't convert within their nearly 10 year marriage? And she was pregnant and subsequently miscarried. Could one connect those dots?
Yeah, my daughter says that they think that whenever you twitch, those damn thetans are acting up. Can you say cuckoo??
Very funny analysis. Very funny!
Now THAT I believe. Pure fiction.
Oh yes, the "waiver". Holding no one accountable. Nice chaperones.
AM ARUBA Thursday 16 June 2005
http://am.aruba.tv/
SEE ARTICLE on PAGE 6
"Early Saturday morning it was as if more
detentions took place in the Natalee
Holloway case however, this was not the
case."
"In connection with another investigation
the arrest-team of the police performed a
search at several houses in Seroe Patrichi
and Papaya. In Papaya they arrested an
individual as another suspect in the assault
on a supermarket in Cumana."
"We do not have much information on this case.
The investigation continues and three
individuals are detained of which 2 Aruba
citizens and one Columbian. Our photographer
managed to be present at the moment of the
arrest."
Is that reported today?
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