Volunteer member of Texas EquuSearch, Darryl Philips of Houston, TX, puts a yellow flag into the ground during a search for missing Alabama teen Natalee Holloway who disappeared on this Dutch Caribbean Island, May 30, in Aruba, Saturday, June 25, 2005. (AP Photo/Leslie Mazoch)
Texans search for missing teen Update
ORANJESTAD Aruba -- Volunteer rescuers from Texas led a sniffer dog over large swaths of land and scanned the ocean bottom with sonar Saturday in the latest search for U.S. teen-ager Natalee Holloway who disappeared almost a month ago.
Tim Miller director of Texas EquuSearch based in Dickenson said searchers focused on five or six areas of interest on land but declined to give details or say where they were looking in the sea.
EquuSearch's 24 volunteers including eight rescue divers arrived late Friday at the request of Paul Reynolds of Houston Holloway's uncle They brought four specialized dogs as well as the sonar equipment which technicians tested on a dock near the Holiday Inn where Holloway stayed.
Ralph Baird a petroleum engineer from Houston helping in the search said a probe with sonar sensors will be pulled at various depths to create a picture of the sea floor.
Baird said that will help divers eliminate areas without objects that look like bodies.
It's sad but we know we are not going out there to find someone alive he said Miller said that the search could cost up to $100,000 and that his group has raised about $25,000 No matter what happens we can't leave without Natalee he said.
Also on Saturday the lawyer for one of two Surinamese brothers being held in connection with her disappearance confirmed that his client admitted lying to police.
Satish Kalpoe had told investigators that he brother Deepak Kalpoe 21 and a Dutch friend dropped Holloway off alone at her hotel Satish Kalpoe now says he and his brother dropped off Holloway and 17-year-old Joran van der Sloot together at a Marriott hotel and then went home.
He lied initially to help his friends but said at a certain moment I can't help you anymore Satish Kalpoe's lawyer David Kock told The Associated Press without elaborating.
Joran's mother Anita van der Sloot 49 told AP last week that her son too had changed his story acknowledging that he and Holloway were alone together at a beach near the Marriott But she said her son insists that he left Holloway there and did not hurt her.