page_title: Disappearance of Natalee Holloway
section_title: Continued search, rearrests and releases
hierarchical_section_title: Disappearance of Natalee Holloway / Investigation / Continued search, rearrests and releases
caption_attribution_description: A shot of the California Lighthouse in Aruba, which includes the Natalee Holloway search party.
context_page_description: Natalee Ann Holloway was an eighteen-year-old American woman whose mysterious disappearance made international news after she vanished on May 30, 2005, near the end of a high school graduation trip to Aruba in the Caribbean. Holloway lived in Mountain Brook, Alabama, and graduated from Mountain Brook High School on May 24, 2005, days before the trip. Her disappearance resulted in a media sensation in the United States, and remains unsolved.
  Holloway was scheduled to fly home from the Caribbean island on May 30, 2005, but she failed to appear for her flight. She was last seen by her classmates outside of Carlos'n Charlie's, a restaurant and nightclub in Oranjestad. She was in a car with local residents Joran van der Sloot and brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe. When the three men were questioned, they said that they dropped off Holloway at her hotel and denied knowing what had become of her. Upon further investigation by authorities, Van der Sloot was arrested twice on suspicion of involvement in her disappearance and the Kalpoes were each arrested three times. Due to lack of evidence, the three suspects were released each time without being charged with a crime.
context_section_description: On July 4, the Royal Netherlands Air Force deployed three F-16 aircraft equipped with infrared sensors to aid in the search, but the results came up empty. In March 2006 it was reported that satellite photos were being compared with photographs taken more recently (presumably from the F-16s) in an attempt to find unexpected shifts of ground that might be Holloway's grave.
  After a local gardener came forward with information, a small pond near the Aruba Racquet Club close to the Marriott Hotel beach was partly drained between July 27 and 30, 2005. According to Jug Twitty, the gardener claimed to have seen Van der Sloot attempting to hide his face as he drove into the Racquet Club with the Kalpoe brothers on the very early morning of May 30 between 2:30 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. Nancy Grace described the gardener as "the man whose testimony cracks the case wide open". Another person, "the jogger", claimed to have seen men burying a blonde-haired woman in a landfill during the afternoon of May 30. The police had searched the landfill in the days following Holloway's disappearance. After the jogger's statements, the landfill was searched three more times; the FBI used cadaver dogs to assist in the recovery operation. The searches were fruitless.
  Holloway's family initially offered $175,000 and donors offered $50,000 for her safe return. Two months after her disappearance, the reward was increased from $200,000 to $1,000,000, with a $100,000 reward for information leading to the location of her remains. In August 2005, the reward for information leading to Natalee's corpse was increased from $100,000 to $250,000.
  The FBI announced that Aruban authorities had provided its agency with documents, suspect interviews, and other evidence. Investigators found a piece of duct tape with strands of blond hair attached to it; the samples were tested at a Dutch lab. A group from the Aruban police and prosecutor's office then traveled to the FBI central laboratory at Quantico, Virginia, to consult with American investigators. The hair samples were then tested a second time. The FBI announced that the hair samples did not belong to Holloway.
  The Kalpoe brothers were rearrested on August 26 along with another new suspect, 21-year-old Freddy Arambatzis. Arambatzis' lawyer said that his client was suspected of taking photographs of an underage girl and having inappropriate physical contact with the same girl. This incident allegedly occurred before the Holloway disappearance. Arambatzis' friends Van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers were supposedly involved in the incident. Van der Sloot's mother, Anita van der Sloot, stated, "It's a desperate attempt to get the boys to talk. But there is nothing to talk about." While no public explanation was then made for the Kalpoe rearrests, Dompig later said that it was an unsuccessful attempt to pressure the brothers into confessing.
  On September 3, the four detained suspects were released by a judge despite the attempts of the prosecution to keep them in custody. The suspects were released on the condition that they remain available to police. On September 14, all restrictions on them were removed by the Combined Appeals Court of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba.
  In the months following his release, Van der Sloot gave several interviews that explained his version of events. The most notable interview was broadcast on Fox News over three nights in March 2006. During the interview, Van der Sloot indicated that Holloway wanted to have sex with him, but he did not because he didn't have a condom. He stated that Holloway wanted them to stay on the beach, but that he had to go to school in the morning. According to Van der Sloot, he was picked up by Satish Kalpoe at about 3:00 am and left Holloway sitting on the beach. In August 2005, David Kock, Kalpoe's attorney, stated that his client had gone to sleep, and had not returned to drive Van der Sloot home. Van der Sloot stated that he was somewhat ashamed to have left a young woman alone on the beach, albeit by her own request, and related that he was not truthful
caption: Dutch Marines searching for Holloway's remains near the California Lighthouse in Aruba
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