And you weren't there either.
Like I've said, I admire Natalee's mom greatly, but I'm not sure how much stock we should put in the impressions of people who are exhausted, sick with worry, under huge, huge emotional stress.
And to look at it from the other side, I'm not sure I'd be kindly disposed toward strangers pulling up to my house at 3am, honking their horns, demanding to be let in, and jumping on my 17-year old son. (Let me stress, I don't know if that happened, either. But someone has characterized it that way.)
As to "ordering his son to keep his mouth shut," I don't find that at all surprising that a father would say that to his son -- especially a father who is a lawyer. Saying that is practically a reflex for lawyers (btw, if you're privy to that kind of information, do you know if Mr. vdS said that in English or in Dutch?).
I'm not a lawyer, but I myself have counseled my son not to volunteer information in certain situations where he's not certain what's going on.
For example, imagine you're being audited by the IRS. You don't know what triggered the audit, but the IRS, most of us suspect, is out to "get" us -- on any little thing they can find. Even if you know you've been honest, are you going to volunteer information to the IRS? If you do, you're foolish.
So I don't find it incriminating that Mr. vdS would have said that to his son, so early on in a hostile situation and before anyone knew exactly what was happening.
OF course, once the gravity of the situation had become clear and Joran was being questioned by legitimate authorities, he had an obligation to answer the authorities' questions truthfully.
But, would you be surprised if you had helped your son get rid of a girl's body 24 hours earlier?
Am I in a time warp that continually repeats the same cr@p, or what? Many of us are bone tired of repeating ourselves answering the same redundant posts. If you want to keep up, you need to study up.