June 11 ORANJESTAD, Aruba -- One of three young men who took a missing Alabama
honors student to the beach confessed that "something bad" happened to the 18-year-old American, police say.
Deputy
Police Commissioner Gerold Dompig told The Associated Press that one of the men admitted that "something bad has happened
he confessed" and was leading police late Friday night to the scene.
He refused to identify which young man had made the statement in the disappearance
of Natalee Holloway, who was in the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba to celebrate her graduation from a Mountain Brook High
School, near Birmingham.
A 17-year-old Dutch boy and his two Surinamese friends, identified by defense lawyer David
Kock as his client, Satish Kalpoe, 18, and his brother, Deepak, 21, had told police they took Holloway to Arashi Beach, on
the northern tip of the island, in the early hours of May 30.
According to their testimony, they didn't get out of
the car. Instead, Holloway and the Dutch teen, an honors student at Aruba International School, "were in the back seat kissing"
in an intimate embrace.
The testimony was reviewed by the court-appointed lawyer for one of two former hotel security
guards being held in the case.
According to the testimony, they told police that they dropped Holloway at her Holiday
Inn Hotel around 2 a.m., and last saw her being approached by a man in a black security guard uniform before they drove off.
Holloway disappeared while on a five-day trip with 124 classmates and seven chaperones. Police found her U.S. passport
and packed bags in her hotel room.
The brothers told police the young woman was drunk and refused to get out of the
car when asked to, said Noraina Pietersz, who is representing 30-year-old Nick John, a former security guard arrested Sunday.
The three young men said Holloway stumbled in the parking lot of the hotel but refused help from her Dutch escort,
Kock told The Associated Press.
Holiday Inn employees say security cameras did not record Holloway's return. In addition,
a Holiday Inn guard who worked the overnight shift the day the young woman disappeared said he did not see the high school
graduate, said Pietersz, who said she also reviewed the guard's testimony to police.
In Mountain Brook, Alabama, Holloway's
aunt, Marcia Twitty, expressed frustration that Aruban authorities initially released the three young men last week after
questioning them.
"These are the last three guys to be with her, and we just feel like they know something," said
Twitty, who is serving as the spokeswoman.
The criticism came after Holloway's stepfather, George "Jug" Twitty, told
the AP the young men told him that Holloway had been flirting with the Dutch student. Police Superintendent Jan van der Straaten
said at a news conference that Holloway and the Dutch teen had met two days earlier at the casino of her hotel.
John
and Abraham Jones, 28, a fellow former security guard, have been detained since Sunday. They are being held in separate locations
on suspicion of murder and capital kidnapping, or kidnapping resulting in death, Pietersz said. None of the five has been
charged. |