S03E08: THE DISAPPEARANCE OF NATALEE HOLLOWAY

Katie: Coming up on this episode of Crime Family.

the Natalee Holloway case. And it's almost, it's coming up almost like 20 years ago when this actually happened, but there's just so much out there. It's so interesting to talk about.

Stephanie: On the morning of May 30th, 2005, everyone was supposed to meet at the airpoNataleealee just wasn't there and hadn't gotten in touch with anyone.

Katie: There's reports that the key card to Natalee's room was used three times between 2:00 AM and 4:00 AM on the morning that she had gone missing. So this would've been like the prime time where something would have happened to her in those hours when Joran said that he dropped her off, but he probably didn't really drop her off. Something happened in those hours, but her key card was being used during this time.

AJ: It's not necessarily that he like took her to that beach in order to kill her, but it just happened. However it happened and then he covered it up, which is obviously still wrong. But I could see that being a scenario.

Katie: Hey, everyone. Welcome to Crime Family. So today we're going to talk about the Natalee Holloway case, and I know that this case has gotten a lot of coverage and it's almost, it's coming up almost like 20 years ago when this actually happened, but there's just so much out there. It's so interesting to talk about. And because it's still unsolved, I think that it's still important to get the story out there. So, because you just never know what could be uncovered. So Steph and I are going to talk about this case.

AJ: I feel like, I feel like whether this case, if my memory is correct, it's almost like a case that feels like it's weird to think that it was unsolved, it is unsolved because I feel like I, it, it went from being potentially solved, oh, they know who might've done it, oh, and then back to no, it's actually not solved. And then like kind of went back and forth many times.

Katie: Yeah. You, you will find out that throughout this case, there are lots of ups and downs. It seems like they were close or it seems like it was solved. But then in the end we really still are left with questions.

Stephanie: So, okay. So Natalee was born on October 21st, 1986 in Memphis, Tennessee, and she was the oldest of two, so she also had a younger brother named Matt. Dave and Beth Holloway are Natalee's parents. Dave was working in insurance and Beth worked in the school system, but unfortunately their marriage did not last long and they ended up getting divorced in 1993. Natalee and her brother Matt ,were mostly raised by their mother and then Beth remarried in the early two thousands to a man named George Jug Twitty, and then she went by Beth Holloway Twitty. Natalee was very close to her mother and her stepfather. They moved to Mountain Brook, Alabama when Natalee was just in junior high and they lived in the upper class community called Mountain Brook and Natalee thrived there. She easily fit in at her school and had lots of friends. She was outgoing and happy. She tried out for the dance team at her school and she made it every year. In high school she was a straight A student and had a full-time scholarship to the university of Alabama, where she had plans to become a doctor. She really did have everything going for her and her whole life was still ahead of her. In 2005, when Natalie was 18, she graduated from high school and was celebrating with over a hundred of her classmates with a trip to Aruba. Her graduation was the last time her father would ever see her.

Katie: So Natalee's father Dave recalls, Natalee asking him to pay for half of the trip to Aruba. And he did, but what he didn't realize at the time was that the drinking age in Aruba was 18. And this may have made him more reluctant if he had known that because as we all know in the states, the drinking age is 21. But obviously since the drinking age was 18 in Aruba Natalee was 18, there really wouldn't be any obstacles to her buying alcohol and being able to party the entire time she was there. Which probably would have been the case anyway, even if she wasn't a legal drinking age, because obviously it's very easy to get around those kinds of things, especially in a place that's, you know, very catered towards that kind of lifestyle and the tourism that it brings in. Natalee's parents were both really reluctant at first to send her on this trip. They do eventually give in. So it's reported by multiple sources that according to her uncle Paul Reynolds, Natalee really wasn't a big partier. She hadn't dated a lot and she was very naive. So that makes me think that she would have been very trusting of anyone. Maybe wouldn't have had her guard up as much as she should have, and, you know, maybe she really decided that she was going to let loose for the first time, maybe drink more than she ever had so that, you know, she's graduating, celebrating. So, you know, why wouldn't you kind of let go a little bit, as Steph said, she was a straight a student, so she obviously worked really hard. So this was her chance to kind of let go. And I totally get it because I feel like, a lot of us have been there doing that kind of thing. So this trip to Aruba had become a yearly event for the graduating class at Mountain Brook High, where Natalee went, and Natalie's stepbrother had actually gone on the same trip two years prior to Natalee in 2003. And he had brought up just one troubling thing from his trip. So Beth, Natalee's mother, tells Chris Hanson from NBC News that her stepson says that he had been out to a bar called "Carlos 'N Charlies," and there was a group of locals that had coaxed some of the girls out of the bar and were trying to convince them to leave with them. But her stepson stepped in before they actually did have a chance to leave, just because he had a bad feeling about the situation. He didn't think that some of these local boys should be taking these intoxicated, drunk girls away from the bar to do whatever. And so he was able to step in, but anyway, despite everything, all the information, the parents kind of being hesitant about it, they do let Natalee go to Aruba with this huge group. So like, when you think about it, she's going with at least a hundred kids. I think even some sources say like 125, maybe 130 kids were all going on this trip. So as a parent, you kind of think that there's this sense of comfort, like safety in numbers kind of thing. But with that many people, it's impossible to keep track of everybody's whereabouts. And it's really easy for people to think that someone else is kind of looking out for other people or somebody else knows where another person is if you don't and that kind of thing. And there was about seven, I think, chaperones that were there, but their job wasn't really to like keep tabs on every person. Their job was to kind of do a head count every day, just to make sure that everybody was still at their hotel and everybody was still accounted for every day. But 125 people is a lot of people to keep track of.

Stephanie: So Natalee was so excited to spend some time on her vacation with her friends. Their trip was planned to be a five day long trip, so from May 25th to May 30th, 2005. So while they're on vacation, they did a lot of drinking and partying, but they were just having a good time. So like we've all been there. So that's what it was like for Natalie and her classmates. But things turned from having a great time to Natalee not showing up for her flight home and everyone panicking. So on the morning of May 30th, 2005, everyone was supposed to meet at the airport to fly back to Alabama. When Natalee's flight time was getting close, Natalee just wasn't there, and hadn't gotten in touch with anyone to let them know where she was, or if she was going to be late or anything like that. Friends became worried, but just initially thought that they were just simply there's some, there was a simple explanation, maybe she overslept, or was running late, and so her friend decides to go back to the hotel where Natalee was staying and she found no signs of Natalee but her backpack and all of her personal belongings were still there in the hotel. That's when panic set in. Friends called Beth, Natalee's mother, and within 12 hours, Beth arrived in Aruba.

AJ: I feel like I remember reading something about, about this case. Like wasn't all of her stuff packed and like neatly ready to go as if like she had like packed it the night before or something. And like, her passport was like, there. I feel like that's what I remember reading about it. It wasn't like, like she had been preparing to go, obviously, like we, everything was ready to leave.

Katie: I remember there was some sources that were saying it was as if she had packed up everything and then was planning to just come, like come back to her room and pick up her stuff before she had to go. So it wasn't like everything was everywhere. It was like neatly packed up.

AJ: Yeah. Okay. And, but also were they not all staying in the same hotel? So some have said some of her friends went to the hotel she was staying at.

Katie: Yeah. So from, I don't know where everyone was staying. It was probably maybe hard to get like 125 people all into one hotel. But I do know that there was multiple hotels, like just in a strip along the beach. There was like the Holliday Inn and there was the Marriott, there was the Raddison and there was like the Wyndham, like those were all there. So I feel like they probably could have all been scattered around, but still all very close together.

Stephanie: Beth recalls getting the phone call and she tells Chris Hanson from NBC News that she instantly knew something terrible had happened because that was so out of character for Natalee she says, "I knew instantly when I received the call that just from Natalee's history and character and just her record, I knew instantly that she'd either been kidnapped or murdered. There was no hesitation. Absolutely none." So Natalee's father Dave, recalls getting the phone call as well, and he tells Chris Hanson, "It hit me and grown men don't usually cry, but I knew this is bad. I knew then that I was going to have to go to Aruba to find her" and he gets to Aruba on June 1st. So Beth and Jug Twitty actually hired a group of local Arubians to be their guides so they could help them navigate quickly and not waste time with directions and the language barrier. By the time she gets to Aruba Natalee has already been missing for over 12 hours and she doesn't want to waste another second. There was a whole group of Alabama parents and family friends that had come out to help search for Natalee as well. They started to search for her and are asking people when they last saw Natalie to try and piece together her movements that night. Beth starts by asking friends and calling everyone that was with Natalee that night.

Katie: So they actually start their search at the Holiday Inn where Natalee was staying. And when Beth and her group get to the Holiday Inn, they talk to the staff and they speak to a night manager. And almost right away, the night manager mentions someone by the name of Joran van der Sloot who was a 17 year old local. And they also talked to the casino manager of the casino that is attached to the hotel. And it turns out that Natalie was in the casino the night that she disappeared as they actually have surveillance footage of her. And they can clearly see Joran van der Sloot at the casino as well at the same table as Natalie. So one of Natalee's friends named Lorraine Watson remembers Joran hanging out with their group that night, but she says that he introduced himself as a 19 year old tourist from Holland. And he hung out at the casino and then came with them when they all went to "Carlos N Charlie's" that night. So that's that same bar that I had mentioned earlier, "Carlos 'N Charlie's" the one that Natalie's stepbrother had said that all the locals were trying to coax the American girls to leave with them. So same bar, just a really popular place. So everyone that they're talking to seems to agree that the last known whereabouts of Natalee was at "Carlos 'N Charlie's" and her friends say that she was last seen getting into a gray Honda Civic with a group of young men and one of them was Joran. But they all assumed that she was just getting a ride back to her hotel because they said after the bar closed around 1:00 AM, there's a huge group of people. So there's probably like 60 of them at that bar. They were all outside trying to get cabs and it was really chaotic. So when they saw Natalie get into that gray Honda with Joran, who they had recognized from before, they probably just didn't think it was that alarming because everyone was just trying to get a ride home or everyone was just trying to get a ride back to their hotel. So at this point, Beth contacts the Aruban police and the police accompany Beth to Joran's house. The police start questioning Polis van der Sloot, who is Joran's father, and Polis calls Joran and tells him the police are at the house with a group of Americans asking where their daughter is. And Joran agrees to talk to them about his time with Natalee. So he does admit that he and his two friends, two brothers named Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, they were all with Natalee that night and things do start getting pretty heated between the Alabama group and Joran and that's when Joran offers to show everyone where they dropped Natalee off that night. So he goes on to say that they dropped her off in front of her hotel, the Holiday Inn, and when Natalee got out of the car in front of her hotel, she had fallen down and hit her head. And that's when two security guards came over to help her and Joran and his friends left. So Beth does try to file a missing persons report, but she was kind of brushed off by the Aruban police because they say people go missing all the time in Aruba, and that she was probably, she would probably just show up in a few days and you can imagine how frustrating this would have been for Beth and everybody else. They knew Natalee. They knew that that wasn't her style, like she's not just going to leave without telling anybody, just to go party for a couple extra days. So they are able to get a hold of the video surveillance from the Holiday Inn a few days later, but the video surveillance footage does not show Natalee making it back to the hotel that night. She's nowhere to be seen on those tapes, but it does become clear pretty quickly that Joran, Deepak and Satish can not get their stories straight about what happened that night.

AJ: If you're going to lie, or, you know, if you're going to lie or make up a story to the police, it's like at least maybe get it right between your yourselves first. I mean make sure all three of you are telling the same story or however many of you are telling the same story.

Katie: I know. I think we'll get into this a little bit, but they do kind of have a conversation about what they're going to tell the police, but they're probably just didn't have those little details together enough to be like, this is what happened because they're each maybe filling in things differently. So yeah.

AJ: Like they had a broad story, but then when the police asked very specific questions, about little things like, "oh shit, didn't think about this."

Stephanie: So a little bit about Joran. Joran was born in 1987 in the Netherlands, but moved to Aruba with his family only three years after he was born. So he basically grew up there and was considered a local. Joran was known for hitting on American girls. And he would often bring them back to his hotel room to have sex parties with his friends. But a lot of this is just speculation from the locals who knew Joran. He was a very confident and headstrong teenager that was used to getting what he wanted. His father Polis van der Sloot was a prominent attorney on the island who was, who was training to become a judge. This is another one of those cases that got a lot of media attention initially. When the media frenzy started Beth was doing a ton of press coverage in hopes that someone knew anything about the night of May 30th or any other details that might lead them to Natalee early on in the investigation Beth's father also recalls that the police tell him not to worry about Natalee and that she'll probably show up in a couple of days. They say that a lot of girls that come to the island, get in touch with a drug dealer and go on drug binges for a few days, miss their flights, but eventually they do end up back home. I mean, how, like, how is that not concerning enough for police to at least try to search for her. An 18 year old on a drug binge seems pretty serious, I would think. But of course Dave knew that wasn't the case with Natalee and he very quickly realized that him and his family would have to search for Natalie on their own for the most part. Even though they knew...

AJ: But why would he say it? Like, sorry. Why would he say like this? He's saying that to her parents, like, "Oh yeah. A lot of times they just get caught up with drug dealers, go on drug benders, it'll be fine." Like, why would you say that? It'd be like, as an attempt to calm them down. That's not going to calm anyone down. It's going to like, make it worse. It's just weird that that would be what they would use. I don't know.

Stephanie: And it's not even like plausible because she was with like 120 other people.

AJ: It is plausible.

Stephanie: So like if she was doing drugs well, it is. But if he was doing drugs, somebody in that group would have known. Or would've liked said something.

Katie: Not necessarily cause she disappeared and nobody knows what happened to her. So she obviously was separated from everybody. Right?

AJ: But if she was doing drugs throughout the trip, they would know, oh, maybe I'm getting ahead of it. But didn't people come forward and say that like she was drinking like excessively, like there was reports that said something like they were all drinking, but like they did notice that her drinking was a little bit more excessive or something like that. I feel like I heard, read that about this case. So it's like, they would have also known as she was doing drugs too.

Stephanie: But to be honest, like when I went to Quebec, I was 18. I was like, first time I ever really drank. And I got like, I drank excessively every night. Cause I was like free. Like I was, nobody was really watching out for me. I was like, no parents around. Like, it was just, I felt like this independent person.

AJ: Yes. Well I think they will, but I think they were all like maybe they were all saying like they were all drinking excessively, but like they made a point of noticing that hers was more excessive than everyone else's excessiveness.

Katie: Yeah.

AJ: Did you see that when you read this? Like, I feel like that's in there somewhere, right? I'm not mistaken.

Katie: Yeah. So a lot of people were saying, like I was saying before that she really wasn't the partying type. So even if she didn't drink as much as other people, it would have affected her more because she didn't, wasn't used to it. She hadn't built up that tolerance. So can you just think of like the first few times when you're drinking, how it just hits , you really fast, right? So this, she may have been drinking more and then also she didn't have that tolerance of other people. So it was definitely affecting her more than a lot of the other people there. So it was definitely noticeable is the point I think.

AJ: Yeah. So that's all I was trying to like, but I was just trying to make the point of like, they would have also noticed that she was doing drugs wouldn't they? Like, if they, if they noticed that she's drinking excessively, I feel like they would know that she was doing drugs. So like the fact that maybe she got caught up in a drug cartel or something that went on a drug binge, like. People would know, I feel. Oh, but maybe, I mean, I don't know.

Katie: And if she, if she was doing drugs, remember this is a short trip. So I mean its only been like four days, four nights so far. And they're only there for five days. So if she was doing drugs the whole time, I feel like, yeah, it probably would have been really obvious cause she, her behavior probably would've changed really quickly. But this could have been the last night. She was like, this is my, it does come up later that this was her last night in Aruba and she kind of wanted to savor it, like have as much fun as she could. And she didn't want to go back to her hotel room that night because it was her last night. So it was kind of like maybe her big, her last hurrah. And she could have gotten into something that she really never had done before. Who knows.

Stephanie: But going back to what AJ said, you still don't tell the parents of a missing child that "Oh, she might show up in a few days." She could just be out doing drugs. Like that's not going to make the situation better.

AJ: Like that's going to make them. Oh, okay. Sure. We'll go back to our hotel and sit here and wait till she comes back. As if.

Katie: Yeah. They probably were trying to be reassuring saying that this happens, like people go missing, but they always show up, so don't think too much into it kind of thing. Even though saying she probably out on a drug binge, wasn't the best wording, but they're probably just trying to be like, yeah, she'll show up. Cause that's what happens all the time and everybody comes back. So yeah.

Stephanie: So even though they knew that this was very unlike Natalee Jug Twitty actually tracks down some of the known drug houses looking for her, but didn't find any trace of her. ABC's 2020 reports that the investigation from the Aruban authorities was very slow going. The deputy chief at the time says that they had been working on every lead they had gotten. They had searched Joran's house and seized computers and cars and cameras to try and build an investigation, but to the public and Natalee's family, it may have looked like they weren't doing anything at all. The authorities did say that they didn't want the group of people from Alabama getting involved. The Alabama group was allegedly going around to all the bars and all the local places to try and track Joran down, to get some answers out of him. The police were also not happy that they were conducting their own searches. A lot of them disruptive to the tourists because Aruba relied heavily on their tourism industry. So they didn't want to paint this island in a bad light, especially since early on, they believed that Natalee was just partying somewhere. So that may have made it look like they weren't supporting the search efforts, when in fact they were just doing things on their own or their own way. They probably like, they probably didn't want, they didn't want the public looking at the police like, they're not doing anything, like put a bad taste in the mouths, being like these police officers are like, just don't care. So I could see kind of why they didn't want them doing that. But again, this is a mother and a father who's desperately looking for answers. And if the police aren't really doing anything, like of course they're going to try and do it on their own.

Katie: Yeah. And I can see it from both, both sides, because like, when you're doing research on this and they're explaining that there's this whole like hoard of people from Alabama that have come up, like are all the whole community of like Mountain Brook basically. And there, when they all pulled up, like Joran's house, it was like the cop car and like two vans just full of like angry parents yelling at Joran and his father. So you can see, and they are going around to the bars and are like, Where's Joran?" And like, you can see them like stomping through the streets so you can see why the authorities would be like, you know, don't do that ,for one thing, like we're doing our own thing and you in any investigation I don't think you would want just this group of people who don't even live there, just like harassing the entire island. I can definitely see where they're coming from. But then also of course you see Natalee's parents, "Lets get everyone we can involved out there looking." So it's both ways and it just, yeah.

AJ: Yeah. And I do think it was a little bit of probably both. Cause we obviously we've seen in many, many cases where the police just don't take it seriously, whatever. Like that's a common theme that we've all seen by now and all of these cases we've covered, but I think it's a little bit of like, yeah, maybe they weren't taking it as seriously because yeah, they're saying like, "Oh it happens all the time. They come home." But then also on the other hand, like there is a lot of stuff that happens in an investigation that like isn't known to the public. So just because they're not coming out with anything doesn't mean that there's nothing happening, and of course we're not going to sabotage the investigation by releasing information. They want to make sure they have it all before they kind of go out with it. So I think this might be a little bit of that and like just because, while you understand her parents sides, like, "Yeah, we want answers. We need to know what happened." But it's also like they might be following up on stuff that they're just not telling you, but that doesn't mean that they're not doing it.

Katie: Yeah, exactly. Also to Aruba's credit. There was reports that the government kind of let all the government employees off work for the day to go search the islands. So it was like they were trying to cooperate and help with the search. But you have to remember that this is such a little small island that like their only economy, that their whole economy is surrounded by like tourism, so having this huge thing blow up that Aruba's not safe for Americans would probably cripple them, like economically. Not that that's more important than the search, but you can kind of see where they're coming from. Especially since, like you said, they think that she's off having a good time. She'll be back. So don't ruin our whole economy over a girl partying was what they thought.

AJ: Yeah. And I feel like people are so quick to jump on that, like, you know, one case of somebody going missing and they're like, "Oh look, it's, it's not safe. Like, look what happens." It's like, meanwhile, people are getting going missing on the streets of, you know, on the streets of major cities in the, in the U S and people don't think anything of it, but the minute they go missing in a foreign country, it's like, "Well, look, it's not safe." So I mean, I do understand that part of it where they don't want that image to be on them.

Katie: Yeah. And also, like, I wasn't going to bring this up because the super annoying, but like Dr. Phil got involved and he was all like, he was like yelling at them. No, he was, yelling at the Arubians. And he's like, "If you guys don't take this seriously", or something like that, and he's like, he's like, "Oh the United States is going to boycott Aruba until Natalee comes home." And so he was like, just threatening to like totally shut down their economy, which is like, first of all, who are you Dr. Phil to tell every American what to do? And second, like just why? It's not like they were'nt doing anything. It's just very different. You have to understand that.

AJ: And it's just annoying. I know this is off topic. I just want to get it to say, could you imagine if it was the other way around, like if a foreign country said that about America, like, "Oh we're going to boycott America until you bring are, like, you know, they'd be fucking declaring war on that country. You know? Like it's just, it's annoying.

Katie: I know. It just seems very entitled, right? For Dr. Phil to say that.

AJ: Yeah. And like, yeah, also, yeah, like you said, "Who is Dr. Phil?" He's the voice of America now? Like give me a fucking break.

Katie: I know. Yeah. It's not like she didn't deserve the attention, but it's like, that's not the right way to do it by like threatening the Aruban government to cripple them. So anyway.

AJ: Yeah.

Katie: So the first people to be arrested in this case were those two security guards that Joran had implicated, saying that they had helped Natalee when she fell and hit her head that night. But once they looked into those two security guards, they were actually released on June 18th for having nothing to do with Natalee that night at all. Around nine to ten days into the search, Joran, Deepak and Satish were arrested and were being held on possible charges of first or second degree murder and kidnapping resulting in death. So this is later on in the investigation, but he does do an in-depth interview with Fox News in March of 2006 and this is kind of like the clearest picture we have so far of what Joran's side of the story is. So he goes into a lot of detail in this interview, but he says that he first meets one of Natalee's friends while playing poker at the casino. And it's this friend that had asked him to come out with them later that night to "Carlos 'N Charlie's". So when he does show up to the bar, "Carlos 'N Charlie's", there is a large group of Alabama students there and they're all dancing. And when Natalee sees him, she asks him to dance, but he's not really much of a dancer so he says no, but they go order drinks together instead. Juran says that Natalee wasn't super drunk. He says that she knew what was going on. She knew what she was doing the whole time, even though she was drinking a lot. And I guess, I think, you know, Joran doesn't really know Natalie, so how would he know what she'd normally acted like? So that's not really like a good indicator of how she actually was. "Carlos 'N Charlie's" closed at 1 AM that night, and Natalee leaves with Joran, Deepak and Satish. Some reports say that they do head to another bar that night, but the timeline is not completely solid, but Joran does say that after the bar, after all the bars, they start to head over to his house, but they never actually do get there because on the way, Natalee decides that she wants to go watch sharks. And even though Joran tells her that there are no sharks, they drive out to a nearby lighthouse along the coast and eventually Joran, and Natalee get dropped off by the beach to walk in the sand and watch the stars and just talk. So while they're like, when they left the bar Joran and Natalee were kind of holding hands talking and in the back of the car, they were kind of like making out and they were close and just talking the whole time. So that's kind of the vibe of this whole night. Joran says that Natalee wanted him to stay with her the whole night on the beach because it was her last night in Aruba. She really loved it there and she wanted someone to kind of share the night with, since she was going to be leaving the next day. Joran tells her that he had school the next day, cause this was a Sunday night so he had school the next day. It was a Monday and he really needed to go home and sleep. And so he says that he calls Deepak for a ride home and then Satish shows up in the gray Honda and Joran doesn't even really say goodbye to Natalee he just leaves and that's the last time he ever saw her.

AJ: As if!

Stephanie: So another version of the story is that Joran left Natalee there, even though she was starting to fall asleep, like in and out of sleep because she didn't want to go back to the hotel. So he just, so he left. But I have like, I have so many different thoughts about the scenario, because like, you don't just leave an intoxicated person on the beach in a place they don't really know, where there could be potential for them to like fall into the water or drown. . Like that's just doesn't, I don't know, that's not something you really do. Joran admits that when he got the call from his dad that Natalee was missing, is when he, and Deepak decided to make up the story about them dropping Natalee off at the Holiday Inn in case something did happen to her, so they wouldn't be implicated. The investigation continued, but after a month of not having enough evidence to keep the Kalpoe brothers, a judge ordered their release on July 4th and their charges were dropped. Joran is still in custody because he claims that the Kalpoe brothers refused to tell the police that they dropped Joran off at his house alone while Natalee was still on the beach. And because they refused to tell the police that, they still had a reason to keep Joran in custody to further look into him. The Kalpoe brothers are rearrested in August, but both of them and Joran are released in early September of 2005. And then two years later, all three of them are arrested again, as new evidence is uncovered, but again, it's not enough to move forward. So they all were released again. Joran's father Paulus...

AJ: I'm sorry. That's that's annoying. It's like, there was enough evidence, there's enough evidence to arrest them, but not enough evidence to keep them arrested, so they had to release them. Like, what's the, there's either evidence or there isn't. I don't understand.

Katie: So that's it, the thing they say with like, there's kind of this pattern with the Aruban police, it's like a catch and release thing. It's like, you catch them and you have to let them go because you don't have enough. And I think we think of like our justice system. Before you arrest somebody, you build the case and then you arrest them. Them it's arrest them and then try to scramble and get all the evidence so you can keep them. So it's kind of opposite. And I guess you could arrest him as many times as you need. Every time something comes up, it seems, but for us it would be, you know, don't arrest them for four years cause we're building a case and then arrest them while they're the opposite.

AJ: Is it because it wouldn't that tip them off then like, then they know that like you're onto them. They might have motivation to leave where they're at, leave the country like, "Oh I was arrested again. Like what's this? If I was arrested once what's to stop them from arresting me again." So I feel like that just tips them off more than anything. It's more dangerous to do that versus just, I mean, it is frustrating too where we can wait years and years to build a case, but then once you build the case and you have the evidence, then you know, you have them versus like, it is weird.

Katie: Especially if you don't, yeah. So if you don't arrest somebody for four years, they kind of get this confidence. They're like, they're not going to catch me. And that's when they slip up.

AJ: And then because most people I feel like would assume that they're going to be caught within the first, if they're going to be caught, it's going to be within this so amount, amount of time. So if you go for, years and years, you're like, okay...

Katie: Yeah, exactly.

AJ: In the, in the clear.

 Yeah. And I, and I hate saying like, things like, oh, they, they just do it. They don't do it as well as we, whatever. Right? Like, I hate that. I'm not saying that it's just in this instance, I can see how like, waiting until you have something solid, it'd be the better strategy. But...

Katie: Yeah, but this is obviously this is off topic again, but the way we do it here, someone could be out and they, for four years they could be out committing other crimes while the police are trying to catch them for a different one. So it can, it's definitely both ways have ups and downs. Good and bad.

Stephanie: Joran's father Paulus was also arrested after questioning in June. And so was a DJ of a party boat who was believed to have been involved, but they were both released on June 26th.

Katie: So during all of this, all of the arrests, Natalee's family search is still ongoing. So in the early days they searched almost the entire island, they searched the ponds, they searched the beaches, they searched the lighthouse, all through the town, but they come up with nothing. They start searching the nearby landfills and wells, and on October 21st, 2005, so this is Natalee's birthday, Dave, her father was down in a well combing through garbage, hoping to find Natalee or any evidence, anything at all to help bring her home. And it was that day when he said that he was leaving Aruba and he was never coming back because he was just thinking what a horrible way to spend your daughter's birthday. Of course, him saying that wasn't true because he'd be back so many times after that, you know, trying to follow up on leads and just continuing the search. But he's just very frustrated that day. So that same day, October 21st, 2005, a tip had come in that there was a break-in in the fishermen's huts on the beach that Natalee was reported at with Joran that night and there was speculation that some of the items stolen could have been used to dispose of and weigh down a body at sea and a man named Louis Schaefer steps up and offers his expertise of underwater exploration to the Holloway family free of charge because trying to find something on the ocean floor, in an area so vast was very difficult. And so this was his way of helping out the family. Doing this for free for them, with all his equipment, his staff and his expertise. But it wasn't until two years later in November of 2007, that they had finally gotten everything together, they made a plan about where they suspected Natalee's body would have been dumped. A man named Tim Miller whose own daughter had been kidnapped and murdered decades earlier had been involved in the search from the very, from very early on. He helped Dave searched the wells and landfills, and he was dedicated to finding Natalee. So he was on that boat, searching for her as well. On Christmas Eve, 2007, Dave gets a call from Tim who excitedly tells him that they found Natalee. He's 99.9% sure that it's her and the underwater cameras had come across an old crab trap that looked like there was a human skull inside of it. And the Aruban authorities get involved as well, and on December 30th, a group of divers make their way down to the bottom of the ocean floor to inspect what they had found. So hopes are high. They think that maybe they finally figured out what happened to Natalee and they could bring her body home. But unfortunately, they did not discover what they were hoping for. Natalee had not been found. So that was a big let down.

AJ: So whose skull was it?

Katie: That's a good question, but I don't think it was actually a skull. I think it just kind of looked like human remains through like this camera through the water and once they actually got down there, it wasn't that. So it seems very like presumptuous for Tim to be like, "Oh my God, we got her" when it wasn't even a human body. So too excited, very unfortunate. Another lead had come in around the same time from someone who wanted to stay anonymous, but he went by the name, Marcos and he told Dave that he had information about where Natalee's body could be found in Nicaragua. So his story was that someone had paid some drug runners to take Natalie's body and dump it in the ocean. For whatever reason they took it all the way to Nicaragua and disposed of it there. So this man said that he had done some bad things in his life, and this was his way, like one of the things he could do to kind of help make up for that. And Tim Miller who like I said, was on that boat, searching for Natalie actually went to meet with Marcos and they did get together in Nicaragua. And the plan was for Marcos to leave a GPS receiver on the spot where Natalee's body was buried and then Tim Miller and the police would use that GPS signal to find and locate Natalee. So Marcos tells him the next day that , he says he found the body and that he was going to bring it to them rather than them coming to get it from him. And he said that she was wrapped in a blanket and that he, she had kind of like fallen apart when he took her out of the location. And so he put her in two ice chests and he would transport her that way. And, you know, poor Dave, Natalie's father, believed that this was it.. He actually believed they had found Natalie and that she was coming home. But while they're waiting for Marcos to bring her, he never shows up and they never hear from him again. And in the end, they kind of conclude that this was just probably a sick joke. For whatever reason, this guy took it very far to the point where he just devastated this family all over again.

AJ: What's wrong with people. I feel like I lose all the faith in humanity when people are like that.

Katie: I know. I hate hearing those kinds of stories. Like why bother?

AJ: Get a life? Like it's just so annoying.

Katie: I know.

AJ: People will do anything to be relevant.

Katie: I know. Just a couple of weeks after this devastating ordeal, the Holloways are notified by the Dutch authorities, who are conducting an investigation of their own, that they had planted hidden cameras during a conversation with Joran and a friend of his named Patrick. So Joran was actually telling Patrick that he had been with Natalee that night that she disappeared and that she had started shaking or convulsing really badly on the beach. And so he kind of panicked and when he was confronted about this footage, he says that he was lying because he was on marijuana that night and he just wasn't thinking clearly. And prosecutors wanted to arrest him based on that footage, but two judges actually denied their requests. So nothing ever came from those hidden cameras.

AJ: What a stupid excuse. "I was on marijuana so I lie, like, I feel like that's not a side effect.

Katie: I know.

AJ: It's weird to me.

Katie: Why lie about that and like implicate yourself if it's something that you probably don't have anything to do with, right? Like why?

AJ: And it's obviously super fishy. Like obviously his stories aren't matching up. The story he told originally about leaving her on the beach and then the other one about convulsing. Like, I feel like to me, and that's like the biggest sign of guilt, like almost like it's like, to me, there should be evidence that you're lying. Like if you're telling the truth, it's the truth. You don't have to have three different stories. Like nobody, I feel like who has three different stories is telling the truth.

Stephanie: It just gets worse. Like his web of lies gets bigger.

Katie: Like when you think about ,when you first, if you don't really know him, which we don't, but you don't get really deep into it, you think, oh, he was a 17 year old kid when this happened and he's trying to cover his own ass by saying he dropped her off and left. So it wasn't my fault. What happened to her. So he made it up to make so kind of protect himself. So you can kind of see in the mind of a 17 year old, why that would be. You know, something that they would do, but...

AJ: Yeah I guess.

Katie: But then once he gets older and like, he just like there is like the shitstorm of like lies and things that he does, you just realized that he just a bad person.

AJ: But he's not that much older. Like sorry, how old was he when he was on marijuana and that's why he said that to his friend? . Like he's still not, it's not that long after, is it?

Katie: No, it was only, I think it was a couple of years later. So, I mean, in 2021 ish, so still very immature, but, you know. So throughout the years there were various other times that things had come up that people thought could be related to Natalee very early on, on one of the beaches in Aruba, they had found duct tape with blonde hair, stuck to it. But they tested it, that didn't match Natalee. Another time there was a human jawbone that was discovered somewhere on Aruba that didn't match Natalee either. And so there's just all these ups and downs, maybe it's Natalee, but then it obviously turns out that it never is. Another one of the major developments happened in February of 2010. So Joran van der Sloot's, father, Paulus, he passed away from a heart attack. And now that Joran's protection is gone, he supposedly decides to come clean and says that he'll tell lawyers where Natalee's body is for $250,000. So Beth and attorneys and FBI, they all work together to get some of this money to Joran, and so the down payment of $25,000, and then once they find the body, they will give him the rest. That's kind of the deal. And so they're thinking it's kind of like a win-win situation for them, because if he is telling the truth, yes, he gets a bunch of money, you know, but then he probably would be arrested because he actually did murder her.

AJ: Yeah. Well, I was going to say, did you, did he ask for immunity as well? Like, was that part of the deal too? It's like, what's the point of having all that money if your going to be arrested?

Katie: You'd think right? So, I don't know like what the whole deal was or how it went down, but they're kind of thinking like, yeah, so we either, we got him either way, because then they're like, if he is lying, we give him this money, he can be arrested for extortion. So they feel like they got him either way. So they do send him $25,000 just as a down payment. And, but somehow, like he gets this money and he's able to get away from them. Like he flees and he ends up going on a trip, this little vacation with all the money that he's just been given. Like we don't know.

AJ: It was a super, like not well thought out plan at all on any level.

Katie: Yeah. He just wanted a little bit of money. Like he was down to like his last hundred dollars or something. So he needed some money to go on a vacation, a priority. And that's what he got. So, you know, he's very manipulative and smart, I guess, to get what he wants.

AJ: But he's not gonna get that money if he, if he's lying and doesn't lead them to, he's not going to get, he'll get the $25000, but then he'll be arrested. Like, I just feel like it's not thought out, like...

Katie: No he's thinks very short term. It's like his plan was to get a little bit of money, go on vacation, party, that's what he did, but he wasn't thinking about, well, what's going to happen after that. Yeah, so, like I said, that was all bullshit about where Natalee's body was and so Joran went to South America and while he was in Peru, he meets a woman named Stephanie Flores and they were hanging out in his hotel room. And this is five years to the day that Natalie went missing. So this is May 30th, 2010. And so he's hanging out with a woman named Stephanie Flores and she finds out that Joran was linked to the Natalee Holloway case. That he was a suspect. And when she confronted him about it, things got physical between them. They start fighting. So Joran strangles and beats Stephanie in the face and eventually smuthers her to death in that hotel room. So he murdered her and then he picks up his things and he just leaves. And her body was found a few days later in, in that hotel room and Joran was arrested in 2012. And he was actually sentenced to 28 years in prison for that murder. So like I said, we find out that he obviously he's very violent. He's not a good person if he's able to just, you know, just flick like that, like a switch and murder, Stephanie for her bringing that up.

AJ: Why did it take two years for him to get arrested if he was in his hotel room?

Katie: Yeah.

AJ: Like that should've been an instant thing. They find her body and then...

Stephanie: It probably had to do with like juradiction. Like where it was in like Peru, like a different...

Katie: Yeah, maybe there was an extradition trying to find him. And then like the two authorities working together. I don't know. These things take a long time, but at least they did get him and he is in prison for 28 years.

AJ: 28 years. Wow.

Katie: So yeah, like I said, at least he is in prison for this murder, but there's still no answers for what happened to Natalee.

AJ: That's so weird though, that it's literally five years to the day. Like that's eerie. What are the chances...

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Stephanie: One of the scenarios and theories that are out there of what they think might have happened to Natalee was like a pimp scenario. And as we know, throughout this story, Joran's story has been changing a lot. And one of his stories was that he left Natalie at the beach that night, like we said, like we said previously. But when the police talked to the three fishermen who were there that night, they said that there was no one on that beach that night, they are very certain that Natalie and Joran were not there. And another witness had come forward and said that they saw Joran and the Kalpoe brothers in a car, not on the beach, but on a different part of the island. And in another statement, Joran goes on to say that he took Natalee to his apartment. He wanted to have a sexual relationship with her and that they were going to get a cab back to her hotel. The police talked to Joran's best friend Freddy, and he says that it was common for Joran and his friends to get a hotel room, pick up girls at "Carlos 'N Charlies" and that Joran would get the American ones because he spoke English and they would call themselves pimps. Joran also allegedly liked to videotape these events with the girls so just from this first scenario, you can already see how much of a scumbag Joran and the Kalpoe brothers were. Which is why they were looked at as suspects for so long. As far as I can tell, there was never any recovery of those alleged tapes. Also attached to this pimp scenario is the Mr. Pink's theory. And Mr. Pink is a man who worked on a beach in Aruba, and he lures girls from all over the world and he promises to help them become models. He had an actual porn website, allegedly Joran had visited one of these websites or a couple of the websites and that could have been a link to Mr. Pink. There is some speculation that that's why he was maybe trying to connect with him to sell off his videos or something. But it turns out there was no link between Joran and Mr. Pink or any of the porn websites. Like they never came up with like any evidence that those two were linked, but Mr. Pink is an actual person.

AJ: Is he in jail?

Stephanie: I don't think, they didn't really go into a whole lot of detail. It would, they didn't really say if he was in jail or not. But...

Katie: Well, I don't, I mean...

AJ: He probably should be.

Katie: I mean, yeah, but probably. But...

AJ: Well, it's like he's luring all these women saying he could pick them to be a model. I mean, I feel like that's fraud,

Katie: I think they are for the most part they're adults though so they kind of make their own decision and it's their decision to be in a porno.

AJ: Yeah. I guess. But is it like, isn't it under false pretense or I guess, yeah. Okay.

Katie: Maybe, I don't know. Maybe he does take pictures of them, like modeling pictures, but then he's like, if you actually want to make money, like be in my porno, and so that kind of thing.

AJ: Okay. Maybe I misunderstood what Steph was saying. I thought I got the impression when she was reading it, that it was like, like it wasn't a consensual thing. Like he lured them and then like took photos of them.

Stephanie: Yeah. Maybe lured wasn't really the appropriate word I should've used there, but like, he would like convince them, cause he was like on the beach with like what's his business or whatever. And like these girls would come up to him and he'd convinced these girls that...

Katie: Yeah. Yeah. He'd convince these girls, a lot of American girls too, so assuming that they came from America, especially for this, or maybe they were already in Aruba. It doesn't go into much detail. But in the videos and pictures, do they, the locals, they can clearly see the spots in Aruba that he's filming them at. So it's like a thing that people know about. So they were never able to link Joran with Mr. Pink, like Mr. Pink said he doesn't even know who Joran his, he was never, he never talked to him, never bought any like videos from him or anything. And the police never actually interrogated him at all. So this was...

AJ: Okay. So it wasn't like a criminal thing, Mr. Pink. It wasn't like a criminal operation, which is okay. I got that vibe from you when you were describing it. So he shouldn't be in jail then. Sorry.

Katie: Anyway, who knows?

AJ: Which is totally legal, although it sounds like he should be in jail. Yeah.

Stephanie: So, one of the other scenarios, so like scenario two was, if you remember earlier, we talked about the DJ that was on this, there was a DJ on one of the boat party boats. This DJ named Steve who worked on a party boat in 2005 in Aruba, a week after Natalee went missing, Steve voluntarily came forward as a witness and he backs up the story that Natalee was dropped off at the hotel by Joran and the Kalpoe brothers. But we know that this is a lie because the footage of the Holiday Inn does not have Natalee on, on it at all that night. He also goes on different versions of what he was doing that night, which the police started to become a little bit leery of him and they found out that he had lied about where he was that night and he was arrested for false information and was interrogated several times and was now a suspect in the case.

AJ: Why would he lie? Why would he, why would he come forward with a story that was disproven already? Like why would he come back and support, oh, yeah, about the Holiday Inn when he knows there was no footage of that, like why would you want to like, go with that theory when, you know, it's been debunked? Like, that's weird.

Katie: Yeah, but this was just a week after Natalee went missing so that wasn't public knowledge that, that had been debunked. And, yeah, and so when they're talking about this theory, they're kind of saying that he maybe knew Joran or the Kalpoe brothers or all of them and so maybe they talked to him and he was just trying to help them out by being like," yeah, I saw her get dropped off", or he might've even been like, he was in the lobby and saw her come in. So it was kind of like, he was just trying to back up the story, but it's like, why would you get yourself involved if you weren't involved? And it was almost like if he was involved, but he's like trying to deflect so like they say "they weren't involved. So neither was I" kind of thing. So it's that kind of thing. Like just don't even say anything. You weren't on the radar, but now you are. Like, he got arrested because of it. He was that DJ that got arrested. Yeah, not a smart move.

Stephanie: So, yeah. So they figured that he was lying to cover up, to cover something up, but him coming forward just made it like so much worse for himself. He had access to a boat, so there was speculation that he could have been the one to dispose of her body. But as the investigation continued Steve was cleared and no longer considered a suspect, even though he really wasn't, like they didn't really do an investigate, like a really good investigation into him. They just didn't, I guess, have enough evidence at that time or didn't think he was that suspicious. But...

Katie: Yeah. He was another one of those arrested who they couldn't find enough evidence on.

Stephanie: Yeah, which we've seen a lot of in this case so far. The third scenario, a theory that was speculated was the rapist scenario. And a woman had come forward and said that a week before Natalee Holloway came to Aruba,, she was walking the beach early in the morning by the fisherman's hut. And there was a man that was sitting there and he got up and pulled his car around and left the door open and left the car on. And he runs out to block her path of where she was walking. He approaches this woman, naked from the waist down and was trying to assault her, but she was able to get the attention of another beach goer. So that was just like a, like, there could be this like really creepy man, just chilling on the beach, waiting for young girls to walk by or whatever alone. And so she said that if Joran and the Kalpoe brothers left Natalee at the fishermen hut on the beach, then it's a very, it's a very high possibility that this guy could have picked up Natalee only nine days later. The police eventually do up a sketch of the man and the woman was able to point him out in the photo lineup. She then got a phone call a few days later and was told that this person was no longer in custody and that he might have fled to Columbia. So as you can imagine, like they get so close to a big lead like that, and then it just falls short and they have to start all over again. But I'm also curious as to why they never really charged this guy with assault because they like had him on those charges, but they never kept him or charged him with anything. He just was let go and then fled to Columbia. And they don't have access to him anymore. It was later determined that this guy was already in custody on a different matter, but police at the time didn't know that. So when they went to go arrest him on the, the assault charge, he was already set free and fled and he was on a visa that expired. So that might have been the reason why he went to Columbia and they can't get them back because of I'm assuming extraditing reasons. So just a scumbag. And I mean, it's plausible that Natalee could have been out there on the beach alone and this guy could have been there and he could have been involved, but wouldn't have known.

Katie: It was only nine days later. So...

Stephanie: Yeah. And we'll never know who this guy...

Katie: If he had done it before and he was like waiting for a girl to be alone by the fisherman's hut, which apparently Natalee could have been, that could have been his opportunity. We won't know because they, they let him flee and they never like followed up or questioned him again about it. So scenario four really isn't a scenario, but it's more of like more just mistakes made by the police in the early days. So there's reports that the key card to Natalee's room was used three times between 2:00 AM and 4:00 AM on the morning that she had gone missing. So this would have been like the prime time where something would have happened to her in those hours when Joran said that he dropped her off, but he probably didn't really drop her off. Something happened in those hours, but her key card was being used during this time. And so some think that maybe whoever killed her or took her, went back to her room, looking for things to steal and her roommates happened to be still out. Some speculate that maybe Joran did leave her on the beach and then she woke up and went back to her room on her own and then left and came back a couple of times and then went out again, and that's when something happened to her.

AJ: But there was no footage of that from the hotel of her. Right?

Katie: She was on the ground floor so there was doors that would lead right out to the outside. So you could open like a balcony door, but it would just lead right to the beach. So it'd be like an actual hotel door, but then like, an outside door too that still needed the key card. That's what, like the footage in this episode that they were showing that that's what it kind of looked like. So it was like the back door that had the key card that was being used three times. So there wouldn't be any footage in a hotel lobby and on the front of the hotel. And I guess they don't have footage in the back or because they never looked at it or something. But anyway, they're saying that they don't know who was using the key card.

AJ: But it wasn't her roommate's key card? Like they know it was her own key card? Like it wasn't just a key card to access the room. So we know it wasn't like a roommate.

Katie: So for some or whatever reason, I guess everybody had their own specific key card and they know whose key card was whose. So they know it was her key card, but I'm going to go into more detail. Like, so in that episode it was done by "Journeymen Pictures" and it was called "Exposing the truth about the Natalee Holloway murder mystery." Yes, like I was saying, they show that the doors lead right outside to the beach. And they're saying that one of the explanations could have been that maybe Natalee's key card got swapped with one of her roommates so that her roommates could have been using her key card, not knowing it was hers, like that kind of thing could happen super easily. Yeah, so maybe it was just them coming in and out using her card. But her roommates were never questioned about the key cards. And so they never knew if they did get swapped or if they were going in and out at those hours. And of course the key cards got submitted. So there's no way for them to know if there, if the key cards did get swapped and roommates were never questioned about it. So we don't know. We don't know those answers to that. Another mistake was at the Aruban police didn't gather security footage from all the other places around town or close to the hotel that night. So things like gas stations or banks and stores. It took them three weeks before they went and looked for those things and by that point, a lot of the footage had been erased. So there was no way for them to know if maybe Natalee was out somewhere like at a, at a restaurant or a store or something, or who was out there doing what to those hours, because all the footage was gone. So yeah, a lot of evidence could have been potentially uncovered, but now it's gone forever. So there's, those are some of the big missteps that they pointed out that the police, you know, kind of fucked up early on.

Stephanie: In 2012, Natalee Holloway was legally pronounced dead by a judge, even though her mother was against it. I guess there are certain times that determine how long an investigation or a case can go on for before they just pronounce people dead if they want to.

Katie: Her father wanted it. And her, I think her father wanted, her mother didn't, but then the judge ruled that ruled with the father. So she was pronounced dead even though her mother didn't want it to be. Pretty pretty tough. I feel.

AJ: Why would her father want it though? I mean, maybe just for closure.

Katie: I guess. I don't know what would be...

AJ: The benefit of that?

Katie: I don't know. Maybe I'm thinking like if she's pronounced dead, then the investigation will shift from missing kidnapped to murder. And so maybe they can, it's like a refresh. They can start looking at things or take it more seriously. That kind of thing. Maybe the benefit. And yet again, like the closure kind of thing as well.

Stephanie: Going back to, we were talking about Dr. Phil and how he was like talking about this case. Dr. Phil went on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and he talked about how he thought that Natalee was still alive and suggested that she was part of the sex slave market that sees as many as one in four million women and children are traded or sold, tricked, kidnapped into sex slavery. Anyway, I don't really know like why he would go on that show and be like, "Oh this is what I think."

AJ: Why the fuck would, why Dr. Phil talking, he's annoying. But it's just random, like, oh, let's have Dr. Phil on about this case randomly. I mean, the sex slavery, the sex slavery thing could be like legitimate. Like, you know what I mean? You never know, because that was something I was thinking too, like it's possible she got kidnapped and was just sold right away into the sex trade or whatever. So, I mean, Dr. Phil's not like wrong about that or speculating that, but like, it's just weird that he, he's annoying anyway.

Stephanie: Just like he like, he goes on and say like, "Oh I think Natalee is still alive, but this is what I, this is where I think she is."

AJ: Like, what does he have to back that up?

Stephanie: Yeah. Like, I don't know. It didn't really say anything. That was what it said.

AJ: I think it's weird. I mean, maybe I didn't see the interview, so I don't know if that's what he said or maybe he did. I just think it's weird to say, like, I think she's still alive without having anything to base it on. You can say like she could be still alive or this could be, you know, instead of saying like, well, I think she's still alive, but he has no authority or any of that. Like, he has no knowledge of anything other than what's out there in the media. So it's just weird for him to be like, I think this happened because of this when I don't know if there's nothing to suggest that you can say, like that could have happened, but to say like, I think that happened without, I don't know what I mean, I guess, but I mean, I guess we speculate on this show too a lot. So maybe who are we? You know what I mean? Who are we to speculate? We don't know anything, but...

Katie: So the last kind of, kind of a theory, incident, I guess, that we're going to get into, happened, it started in September of 2015. So Natalee's father of course has never given up on finding out what happened to Natalee and in September of 2015 he received a call from a man named Gabriel who claimed that he knows someone who claims to know a lot about Joran and this case. And this man, he says, his name is John Ludwig. And this is the whole premise behind the docu series called "The disappearance of Natalie Holloway" released in 2017 by the Oxygen Network. And yeah, so like I said, like Natalie's father never gave up on her and he had hired a private investigator almost from day one to help him figure out all the evidence, figure out things and to investigate things even further. So this private investigator is also involved in this docu series. It's like a six part, six episodes in this docu series, going into detail about what Gabriel and John Ludwig have to say about the case. John Ludwig became Joran's support after his father died. And John is completely on Joran's side throughout all of this. And John's even interviewed by Nancy Grace on her show. And when Nancy asked him, if he was surprised that Joran has pled guilty to the murder of Stephanie Flores, John just says very nonchalantly. He goes, "Well, he really didn't have a choice in the situation. He obviously murdered her. We were just hoping for the best. Hopefully he gets out in 10 years or less." And so in the docu-series, "The disappearance of Natalee Holloway", there is a clip that John makes up himself watching his own interview on Nancy Grace, and you can just tell from the short little clip that John is a very disturbed person and he has like a very skewed sense of loyalty to Joran for some reason, and while he's watching himself being questioned by Nancy Grace he says that he had a great time in Aruba and all this was after all the Natalee stuff happened, but it was before the Stephanie murder happened. So it was like a great time in his life he says, and he says that Stephanie provoked Joran because she had found she'd found one of the emails that had linked him to Natalee's case. And yeah, so she confronted him, but she kind of brought it on herself. And so John says, how dare she put her hands on Joran, cause apparently she kind of like slapped him a little bit when they were fighting. And he says that she's the one that made Joran take it to that level where he had to get that violent. And he goes on to say that she should rot in her grave for what she did to Joran and putting him in jail and that he, John should piss on her grave for that. So you can just kind of see John's character and his loyalty to Joran even though Joran did something disgusting John is still on his side.

AJ: She should apologize to him for putting him in jail versus, oh, he is in jail because of what he did.

Katie: Yeah, I know exactly. That's why it's just like he is very disturbed.

Yeah. So this is what Gabriel had to say in May of 2016. He says that John knew Joran by randomly meeting him one time when John was there in Aruba and he said that he recognized Joran right away from being on TV because of all that Natalee Holloway

coverage that was happening at the time. And John kind of thinks of Joran as a famous person and he really wanted to be friends. And so they really hit it off right away and they become fast friends because of this. And they were just constantly hanging out in Aruba and partying. And John says that Joran tells him that him and Natalee did go to the beach together and that she started foaming at the mouth and he tried to help her, but he couldn't do anything to save her. And that's when he panicked and he called his dad to help him and his dad actually came and helped bury Natalee's body. So this was all, this is everything that John is saying. And so Dave actually meets up with Gabriel in person to talk about John and the entire situation and they go into further detail. And Gabriel says that he knew John for about four years before John even started opening up to him about what he knew about Natalee so he kind of had to gain his trust and then once he came forward, or once he started talking to Gabriel about this Gabriel felt that he had to come forward with this information. So Gabriel implies that Joran had given Natalee a drink with the GHB in it, which is a type of date rape drug, and Joran claims that she overdosed and that's why she was foaming at the mouth and that she choked on her own vomit and died and because he was scared that they would find GHB in her system if they found her and did an autopsy,

he'd be in real trouble. And so he didn't want to call the police and that's why he instead decided to get rid of the body. And he called his father to help and his father actually does come and help him dispose of the body. They put her in a small burlap sack and they apparently hit it, like break her legs to get them to fold properly. So if they could get her small enough to get into the sack and then put her in the back of his aunt's car to get to the national park where he says that they buried her, and then they put a cactus over the spot. So John wasn't involved in any of this, but that's allegedly what Joran told him. And then Joran allegedly tells John that he's scared that they're going to find the body. And so he offers John $1,500 to go dig up her body. John actually agrees. And once he finds Natalee's body in the national park, he digs her up and Joran's father had a connection with someone at the morgue. And so now he's saying that they cremated the body and they threw all the ashes in the ocean. So I guess they are saying there's really going to be no trace of her anywhere ever. But Gabriel is saying that all hope is not lost because there could still be some of Natalee's DNA in that initial grave where she was, because she had been there for a little bit. So she would have decomposed and maybe, you know, just left some of her DNA there. And so this whole documentary is them trying to get John on tape through all these hidden cameras in hotel rooms to kind of reiterate his story to Gabriel. So they have it on tape and they even bring John and Gabriel to Aruba still like undercover and John brings his girlfriend. Gabriel brings his girlfriend and they're all out there kind of on vacation. But John has agreed that he will show Gabriel where he dug up Natalee's body. So actually he changes the story a couple of times saying that it's not in the national park, but it's actually not that far from John's aunt's house where she was buried. But then they're saying, well, that's a coincidence because Joran and John didn't know each other at this time that Joran would bury Natalee very close to John's aunt's house. So things aren't matching up, but John does bring Gabriel out there with the GPS and shows him exactly where her body is buried. And then he actually talks to some of the authorities also as well saying that that's where he buried the body. And they actually do find some remains after they dig and a lot of people get involved. They even contact Natalee's mother Beth to get some DNA from her. She tests some of the remains that they found but of course it turns out that it's not Natalee. And so it's almost like this whole thing either John made it up or he kind of got suspicious and then didn't want to come clean because that would implicate him and so this whole thing was kind of this big elaborate scheme that never actually amounted to anything. And the sad part is it's like Natalee's father, Dave is involved the whole time. Like he feels like he is really invested in, it feels like this is finally going to be the answer. But in February of 2018, Natalee's mother actually filed a lawsuit against Oxygen because it was the Oxygen network because she stated in an article in the Washington Post by Carl Swanson and she quoted "The show was not a real time or a legitimate investigation into new leads as the program claims to be, but it was a preplanned farce". And Holloway claims that she was duped into providing her DNA to be tested against remains found by producers, without being told that the DNA was for a television show." And so Beth feels like the whole thing was kind of staged to start with and she's suing them for that, even though Dave Holloway was very much involved. So I don't think that he thought it was made up. Like, why would he go along with it? If it was like this whole fake thing, maybe for publicity, maybe for money to help with the search? I don't know, but this whole thing, I don't know the answer to. If it actually was fake, the producers are denying that it was fake and that the whole thing... they actually did find remains and they were hoping to, you know, positively ID them as Natalee. But whether they have these remains first and then they kind of made this whole thing to be like, oh, we found her. I don't know. So the whole thing is very like, was it fake? Was it not? Either way, we're still not any further into knowing what happened to Natalee. The Oxygen network is very legitimate. Like that's where a lot of, I'll bring it up again, "Up and Vanished", like that's where a lot of, like, they have their show there and like the "Up and Vanished" people, like a partnership with Oxygen and they do stuff together. So I feel like they're very legit. So I don't know if any of this is true or fake.

AJ: Oh, really? Cause I didn't know, because when you were talking about that, like I thought Oxygen was kind of not legit. I don't know. I don't really know much about the network, but I thought it kind of was sort of like...

Katie: I don't know either but I mean, I know that like the "Up and Vanished" podcast kind of does stuff with them. So I feel like they are legit, but also maybe they sensationalized things as well to get viewership...

AJ: And also not every show has the same producers on Oxygen. So maybe the producers of this particular documentary were not legitimate, even though the network itself is.

Katie: Yeah, maybe, but I mean, the people involved in this, this little docuseries was like Dave, Natalee's father. It was his private investigator that had been working with him for, you know, almost 20 years. It was FBI agents, it was police. So everyone was involved. So I feel like, how could it be fake if all those people were there, they weren't all in on it. And that, how could the producers just make this up and string all these people along. It seems far-fetched. But anyway, Natalee's mother seems to think that it was totally fake from the beginning. So I guess we'll never really know what John actually knows. If what he knows is true, if he's made things up or Joran did actually tell him the truth. Because in 2018, John was actually stabbed to death after he attempted to kidnap a woman from her car and she fought back and killed him. So he was also not a very good person. He was, obviously you could tell he was a bad person, but then he actually tried to kidnap this woman and she killed him. His secrets died with him. So we don't know his side of the story if it was real and we'll never know. So...

Stephanie: So the Natalee Holloway case is still unsolved. And in 2020, 15 years after Natalee went missing, her mother, Beth goes back to Aruba to continue to search for her daughter. ABC's 2020, did a documentary on the case and they talked to Beth and they re-interview her and take her to Aruba to try and get some more answers and try to understand what happened to her daughter. After 15 years of her being missing, the amount of effort that Beth has gone through it's so heartbreaking to like see her, have her hope, such hopes and energy. And she believes so desperately that her daughter is still alive. I just feel like... I just feel so sad for her because like, I believe I still believe Natalee ,like, I, I don't believe Natalee is alive and that her body is out there somewhere. I don't... and I also don't buy the whole the whole sex theory or sex trafficking theories, or any of the theories that we talked about. I know that the sex trafficking things are real scary places and it does happen to a lot of women, but I don't believe, I don't believe that happened to her. What... but what I do believe is that Joran and the Kalpoe brothers had something to do with her disappearance, just from the way he was acting and all the lies and just the different stories he told about the night and just how Joran fed the media. Like if he, like, if he can come up with all these lies and it just shows you how, like he's hiding from the truth, and you're trying to confuse the investigators and leads them down, all these different alleyways that aren't even true. Like, I feel like if you're lying, because you're trying to cover up what you actually did. Cause if you actually didn't do it, then why would you lie?

AJ: Well, Katie did say earlier, I think. When you were saying that he is only 17, he was only 17 at the time. So you could see a scenario where like, it was legitimately, like, you know, she can bolster, she had a seizure or whatever she vomited and choked and died or whatever. And then he's 17 and doesn't know what to do when he thinks everything's going to be blamed on him. Cause he was the last one to see her. He was the last one with her. So like out of panic, then he did do something to cover up. So, I mean, he would still be guilty of like covering up a crime or like lying about it, obviously that would still be guilt. But like I could see a scenario where like he lied because he was afraid that he was going to be, he was going to be, you know, implicated and then by lying, it made it worse.

Katie: Yes. And also think of this. Like, he could be scared. Doesn't know what to do. He calls his father for help. His dad comes to the site, let's just bury her so nobody knows anything and your dad's an attorney, going to be a judge. You're going to be like, okay, dad, like for sure. You know what I mean? You're not going to go against him. He knows your secrets now. And if your dad is like, let's bury this dead body, so no one knows about it. And you're 17, you're going to be like, okay, like, so I feel like that didn't help. If that's actually what happened. I feel like you already could tell the whole truth now and nobody would believe him. He did write a story, he did write a book about his side of the story, what actually happened. I mean, whether that's true, we'll never know. I feel like no one's going to trust him now. But if there is any truth to him calling his dad for help that night, because Natalee was overdosing, whether it was something that he had given her, whether it's just because she was very drunk or on drugs, And his dad was like, well, you know, the only thing we can do is get rid of her then that's so messed up and you can try to see why Joran would be like, yeah, I gotta make something up to get me out of this. And you think about it, his father was arrested. So there was something that was happening there that made police think that he was involved or something sketchy. So yeah, it's very, you just don't know what actually went down.

AJ: I'm very intrigued by this Oxygen documentary, even though Natalee's mother says it's a complete farce, but

that part about him calling his father and all that stuff, you said, like, that's the one thing that makes it seem like it could be plausible and he's obviously going to trust and go with his dad and go with what his dad is saying. Like you said, if his dad is saying , Let's just cover it up. It never happened. We'll never speak about it." Whatever, obviously he's 17 and he'll be like, sure. So I feel like that could totally be plausible. And then he lied about it, obviously when it came up, but he didn't maybe foresee that, like they were going to be looking into it so quickly and that he would be looked at so quickly and then. I think that, you know, the hotel footage wouldn't line up with his story. So, and he's only 17, so he doesn't know what to say necessarily right? So I feel like that could be a possible scenario where it's not necessarily that he like took her to that beach in order to kill her, but it just happened however it happened and then he covered it up, which is obviously still wrong. But I could see that being a scenario, a plausible scenario.

Katie: Yeah. He might not have been involved. He may not have been involved in her death only so much that he just didn't help her or didn't know what to do. And then he got rid of her body and that's obviously a criminal act, but yeah.

AJ: I still think there's something, obviously Joran was involved in some way. I think it's my opinion only, but yeah, whether it was directly like you planned it or it happened, and then he covered it up, like there's something there with Joran, and I don't believe that Mr. Pink theory or sex trade thing.

Katie: Yeah. I feel like those are all red herrings but I also feel though if John Ludwick was so, you know, invested with Joran, and believed everything and like was on his side, why would he make that stuff up about Joran if it wasn't true, right? Cause he was saying, oh, I hope he gets, he murdered Stephanie, but I hope he gets out of jail in 10 years. It was like, yeah. So I'm saying, why would he, why would he make this stuff up about Joran being involved and burying the body if it wasn't true? You know what I mean? Cause why would he say this

about his best friend, this guy, that it was this famous friend, you know?

AJ: So is this guy even real? Like, is he an actor? I feel like if this was a fake documentary, that's a far worse, like maybe he's just an actor pretending that he's someone who...

Katie: No he's a real, you could tell that he's messed up and this Gabriel guy that came forward. about, John was, he was his roommate and he's like, he quit the documentary so many times it's like, I can't handle it with so much pressure. He's like, he's crazy. I got to get him out of my house. He said, you don't understand what he's like. He's like an actual, like crazy sociopath psychopath. Anyway, John's dead now. Like I said, he was stabbed. So we don't know, like and we won't know, everyone is like, almost everyone is dead in this case. Except Joran.

Stephanie: I'm saying that's unfortunate that like, if he was arrested for Natalee like for Natalee's case and this poor, Stephanie girl would never have been murdered because he would never have been around her. So it goes to show that like, he's is capable of murder because he murdered this woman.

AJ: So whether the Natalee thing was a mistake or he meant to do it, but obviously we know he can kill someone he's done it. So if he can do it, then why couldn't he have done it in 2005?

Katie: He was capable of killing her and then just kind of walking away as if nothing had happened to Stephanie. So it's almost like, well, I did it once I can do it again.

AJ: And what are the chances that somebody who's like, somebody like him who has that tendency obviously is intertwined in this case and is completely clear. Like is

completely innocent, but it has nothing to do with it. Like, what are the chances of those two things be coincidental?

Stephanie: If you ever look at like interviews with, with Joran, like just media clips of Joran, like, you can just see like this,

his smug smile that he does and annoys the hell out of me when I was watching documentaries. But like, just as like, he thinks, he knows, like he thinks he's so manipulative and he, they got like the police, off his trail or whatever, but like, it just, I don't know, people like that, just like you can tell they're evil from like the inside.

AJ: I always, well, I always, I always try...

like I go back and forth. Cause sometimes I'm like, yeah, obviously you look at somebody's demeanor that says a lot, but I feel like a lot of people that can read into sort of demeanor things, what they want to see. So I also feel like just because somebody has a weird, creepy demeanor doesn't mean they're guilty of murder. Right? Cause some people just have that vibe about them and their... and they're not criminals, they're just like creepy, but they haven't done necessarily anything. So, but I think like, just, if you take the demeanor out of it, like just looking at the facts of it, like nobody lies to the police three, four times and has nothing to do with it. Like, obviously there's something he's trying to cover up at some point, whether it was, he intentionally did it or didn't.

Katie: Yeah. And there was also this other, like going down another rabbit hole here that the Kalpoe, brothers maybe it was them that had done something. Maybe they knew that Joran had left Natalee kind of, you know, drunk, almost passed out on the beach. They dropped him off at home and then went back to the beach and found her and did something to her. So there was that theory going around as well. And so whether there's any, there's nothing really to back that up, but that was just something people were thinking of. And so, yeah, like you were saying, if they're cleared, why would they ever come forward with anything else? Cause I could just bring more suspicion onto them. Right. So I don't blame them for staying out of it. Now that they're cleared.

AJ: Yeah. So do you think it's possible, like also that one theory to that I'm going back to, or the thing that the police were thinking of? Like that person who used her key card and like went in some back door, like, I think it could have been Joran, like he killed her, then stole her keycard and then knew that, oh, there's going to be cameras at the front, so I can't go into the front. So I'm going to go in through this like back door, like, do you think that's like, could be a possible scenario,

Katie: But I also feel that the person that used to key card would have to know which room was hers, because they don't say the room number on the card. Right? Because that would just, you know, you find a key card and you know whose room it is right away. So I feel like you'd have to know whose room it was. So I don't know how that person that got the card, if it wasn't Natalee or one of her roommates maybe. But what I'm saying, it wasn't some random person, unless you're just checking every door, you know what I mean? Yeah. So yeah, if that is true, but yeah.

I don't, I don't think, I don't know. There'd be no reason for Joran to go back to her room,

AJ: Yeah. Like why would he risk having his DNA all over that room when he doesn't have to, you know? Like, he's not going to go back to her room and like put all that DNA in that room. If, if the crime happened outside of the room and he like, there's no need for him to do that. So I feel like it's probably, yeah, just maybe cause the roommates got their keys cards mixed up, you know, they're all drunk and they so just use her key card in that door. I dunno. It's probably more likely,

Katie: That seems like a very easy thing to figure out. But now that, you know, we have no way to know that because key cards are all passed in , right?. So you have no clue who's had which ones. Yeah, but you could ask that you could always ask the roommates did you come in and out between two and three, two and four in the morning. And if they were like, yeah, well then I was like, okay, well, what's that, like, that seems like a simple explanation.

Stephanie: Yeah. I'm surprised that they didn't ask or talk to any of the, the, friends that were there, any of the chaperones that were there about Natalee. Like if they saw her..

AJ: I'm sure they did. Do we know that they didn't?

Katie: I'm sure they did a little bit, but they obviously didn't go into detail about who was going in and out of the room that night, who was using a key card. They didn't go into that kind of detail.

AJ: Yeah, that's true. So they might have talked to them like superficially, but nothing actually in-depth or obviously..

Katie: A lot of the kids and probably some, maybe some of the roommates would have all left on their flights that day. Right. So it wasn't like they were all there. It could, it probably would've been a lot of work to track them all down, which would have been the job of the police to do. But, you know, they probably didn't. So ...

AJ: It was just one of those cases too. and like pretty high profile, but I, I just and it's unsolved and will probably never be solved. And like you said, Joran's credibility is totally gone at this point. Like he has no credibility. So even if you were to come forward and say, oh, I did it, and this is what happened. It's like, well, you tried to extort the FBI for money saying you knew so like, I just think it doesn't matter what he says now. It's like, no, one's going to believe anything he ever says, whether it is the truth or not.

Katie: I know. And sometimes I think like, well, he's already in jail for Stephanie's murder. Why wouldn't he just come forward if he did it? But then of course, then he'll have those charges on top of the murder charges so he'll never get out. So at least he has a little bit of hope to get out now. I don't know. So yeah.

AJ: Yeah, crazy case.

Well, that's it for this case.

Thanks for tuning in for this case, I know it was a little bit of a longer one, but thank you so much and please let us know what your theories are. Of course we love interacting with you and knowing what you think about the cases and any theories that you have. We love to hear them. So follow us on social media @crimefamilypodcast on Instagram, @crimefamilypod1 on Twitter and on Facebook at Crime Family Podcast. And as always, you can send us an email at crimefamilypodcast@gmail.com to send us those theories and feedback and all of that good stuff.

So, yeah, like I said, thank you for tuning in, yeah. Bye guys.