Investigators on the island of Aruba continue piecing together the puzzle of what happened to Natalee Holloway. The 18-year-old American girl remains missing and a 17-year-old Dutch boy is in custody along with two friends accused of having had something to do with her disappearance.
CNN's Karl Penhaul has been covering the case practically since it began. He's come to know many of those involved. Karl, what's the latest?
KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Law enforcement sources, Anderson, say that the suspects are continuing to point fingers at one another. There are three suspects, the two Kalpoe brothers, Satish and Deepak, and the son of a prominent island judge from a very well- respected family. He's the 17-year-old Joran van der Sloot.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): The judge is led away in handcuffs, Dutch-born Joran van der Sloot. His mother was there when police arrested the 17-year-old in a dawn raid.
ANITA VAN DER SLOOT, SUSPECT'S MOTHER: He said, mom, don't be upset because everything will be fine. I know I'm innocent. I didn't do anything. You know, in a very, almost naive way, he was very open with us, told us everything, what happened.
PENHAUL: Van der Sloot's mother, Anita, talked to CNN just after her son, the oldest of three children, was arrested in connection with Natalee's disappearance.
VAN DER SLOOT: I'm praying. I'm praying. I'm thinking about her, about her family. We're all thinking about her, and I don't know what to do more right now.
PENHAUL: Her husband, Paul, a judge and former prosecution service official in Aruba, declined to speak to CNN.
Days after Natalee's disappearance and just before his arrest, van der Sloot graduated from Aruba's prestigious $12,000-a-year International School. The school website described him as an honor student who had been accepted at a number of colleges in Florida.
VAN DER SLOOT: His favorite subject is physical education, sports, and he's an athlete (ph), as well as in tennis and soccer, and he enjoys being active, and he's just a very spontaneous, open, 17- year-old teenager.
PENHAUL: He's internet-savvy and visited his friend and suspect Deepak Kalpoe at a Cyberzone cafe where Deepak worked.
ANGELINA REPPAS, CYBERZONE CAFE BOSS: He's a good friend of Deepak's. He comes on the internet after school sometimes.
PENHAUL: In fact, van der Sloot had his own website where he posted photos with family, friends, girls and parties. Hours after his arrest, the website was taken down.
Schoolmate Leonardo Rivera says he had been a good friend of van der Sloot's until they had a falling out. Before the disagreement, they used to hang out at the beach and in bars.
What would you be drinking?
LEONARDO RIVERA, SCHOOLMATE: (INAUDIBLE)
PENHAUL: That's a mixture of vodka and fruit punch.
What kind of buzz did he used to get when he was a little bit drunk?
RIVERA: Normal.
PENHAUL: Was he an angry drunk?
RIVERA: No.
PENHAUL: Happy drunk?
RIVERA: No, funny, funny, funny guy, yes.
PENHAUL: Did he used to smoke a little something, or...
RIVERA: No, he didn't do drugs.
PENHAUL: Smart and athletic, Rivera says van der Sloot also fancied himself as a ladies' man.
RIVERA: He used to have a girlfriend -- girlfriends, yes. He liked to play around.
PENHAUL: His mother insists he's innocent, but says she's confounded by her son's arrest.
VAN DER SLOOT: We are parents that know our kids. We try to educate them well. We try to care for them, warn them, and it's devastating that these things happen.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PENHAUL (on camera): Van der Sloot and the other two suspects, the two Kalpoe brothers, should, under normal procedures, appear before a judge by Sunday, in order that he will decide whether to keep them in custody for a further 10 days. Also at that stage, one would expect formal charges to be lodged. Anderson?
COOPER: Now, how long, theoretically, can they be kept in custody without charges being filed? Because, I know that it's a Dutch system. It's very different than the United States.
PENHAUL: As you say, very different from the U.S., but technically, at the end of this eight-day custody period that they're now into, then at that stage, the judge will have to hear the charges against them. That's when the prosecution will have to lodge those formal charges and then under a series of guidelines they could be held technically up to 116 days before this case comes to trial, Anderson.
COOPER: All right. Karl Penhaul, appreciate it.
The island of Aruba is about the size of the city of Washington, D.C. It's home to 70,000 to 80,000 people, but every year it's visited by many times that number of tourists who come, of course, for the white sand beaches and its free-wheeling night life and it's friendly people.
Needless to say those hundreds of thousands of visitors invariably go home when their vacations are over. For one of them, of course, sad to say, for Natalee there, 18-years-old, from Alabama, she's not gone home. She has been missing now on that island of white sand beaches for more than two weeks.
We're joined live in Aruba by Pierre Koa (ph), one of the many volunteers who has spent time searching for Natalee. Thank you very much for being with us, Pierre.
What sort of searches have you been involved with thus far?
Pierre, can you hear me? This is Anderson in New York. Obviously, we can't get in touch with Pierre. We'll try to get in touch with him and bring you that interview in a little bit.
360 next, inside the police investigation on Aruba, look at what is known about Natalee Holloway and the three suspects, a timeline hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute, and day-by-day since she disappeared, what exactly do we know at this point in the investigation?
Also trying to bring that you interview with the search and rescue man.
Also tonight, driver beware. Is your car or truck at risk of catching fire, even when the engine's off? You won't want to miss this special CNN investigative report. Also, the latest on the California quake, the third this week. Are they connected? We'll take a look. All that ahead.
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