June 15 Oranjestad Aruba (AP) - Authorities released two former hotel security guards detained after an Alabama honors student went missing, intensifying the focus on three younger men who took her to a beach on the Caribbean island that night.

Attorney General Caren Janssen confirmed she had ordered the release of the two guards but declined to say why.

"The investigation is ongoing," she told the AP following the late-night release Monday. Authorities refused to comment further on Tuesday morning, offering no clues to solving the mystery of her disappearance.

Antonius 'Mickey' John, 30, and Abraham Jones, 28, were freed the day after the girl's mother, Betty Holloway Twitty, told The Associated Press that she believed the security guards were innocent but that the three young men knew what happened and should be pressed to tell the truth.

Later, John alleged that one of three younger men arrested in the case lied to police about what happened to the young woman.

The former security guard said he was detained in a cell adjacent to one of the young men, 21-year-old Deepak Kalpoe, and that the two spent time talking.

John said Kalpoe told him that he and his brother Satish Kalpoe, 18, and their 17-year-old Dutch friend never went back to the Holiday Inn the morning of May 30, but that they dropped the Dutch boy and Natalee off near the Marriott Hotel, located just north of the Holiday Inn on the same beach.

Nearly three dozen police launched a search on Tuesday near the Marriott, where they could be seen cordoning off a three-block area near the hotel.

Government spokesman Ruben Trapenberg confirmed it was yet another search for the girl.

"Investigators may be following up leads from what was said this morning," he said, referring to John's comments. "They probably need to check all those things out."

Attorney General Caren Janssen said Tuesday she had no response to John's comments "or anything else."