This Tuesday, after 932 days of searching, prosecutors closed investigations on the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Ann Holloway. They still believe three young men were involved in her death but cannot prove this due to their failed search for a body.
Last month authorities in Aruba discovered online chat sessions between the three main suspects of the case and re-arrested them hoping they could solve the case. However, with no body or new information form the suspects authorities decided to close the notorious case.
A statement form the Public Prosecutor’s Office acknowledged that if the suspects were put on trial they would have been acquitted due to lack of evidence. Moving to cold-case files was hard for them and her parents but all resources have been tried.
“The public prosecutor’s office and the police have gone the extra mile and have exhausted all their powers and techniques in order to solve the mystery of the disappearance of the girl,” said the statement.
Holloway, an Alabama high school student, disappeared on May 30, 2005, during a graduating class trip to Aruba. She was last seen leaving a bar with the three main suspects, Joran van der Sloot, Deepak and Satish Kalpoe.
Quickly after her disappearance her divorced parents made every effort to find their daughter, using the media to broaden the reach of the search. Holloway’s mother, Beth Twitty, is “terribly disappointed” with Tuesday’s decision, her spokeswoman said.
“She was very hopeful the last couple of weeks and she went down there and met with the prosecutor,” Sunny Tillman told The Associated Press. “He told her face-to-face that he had new and incriminating evidence, and that made her hopeful.”
Unfortunately the prosecutor’s on-line chat findings were not incriminating enough. Prosecutors said the case could still be reopened if “serious” new evidence emerges. The statute of limitations is six years for involuntary manslaughter and 12 for homicide.
After extended searches, vigils and worldwide interest on the case Tillman said Holloway’s family is planning a deep-water search by a private group, but many don’t think the search will turn up anything.