DAN ABRAMS--AM I GOING CRAZY?

Dan: Is this as crazy as I think it is? Julia, is really as crazy as it sounds? That the son of the police commissioner may have falsely implicated another kid because he was mad at him?!





Julia: (nonchalantly) I wouldn’t exactly say it that way. I think there were statements made by Michael Dompig that implicated this young man and there was a lot of speculation that this boy had spent some time with Natalee. (Since when? Last week?) So it was normal for the police to pick up him based on that information, ask him questions; and as it turns out he wasn’t as cooperative as the police expected which landed this kid in jail. (Then how is he OUT of jail, Julia?)



Dan: Sounds to me that Dompig made false statements! He said he (Dompig's son) is a kid, got confused and frustrated and he said things he shouldn’t have said…it went too far, one started talking about the other and the other talked back, and it became something worse than a soap opera!



Vinda (attorney): Yes, but I don’t think we can say that Dompig is saying that whatever his son said about this young man, that were false accusations…he doesn’t say what it is that his son exaggerated. (SPINNING…)



Dan: But everything he is saying is “he is sorry about it”, “he’s taking it back”, “his son was tricked”, “he was frustrated”, “he was emotionally vulnerable” …he’s certainly not standing by the statements his son made.



Vinda: (Spinning like a top) We must keep one thing in mind, when this young man, GVC, was arrested, he was not arrested only on accusations or statements given by Dompig’s son…there was more to implicate GVC and based on that, that is why he was arrested.



Dan: Do you know that to be the case, Julia?



Julia: Yes, I do. And I also know that there was a taxi cab driver (a witness Julia probably made up…she and her cohorts probably paid off some poor-ass cabbie who needed some crack cash) who also gave a witness statement that also implicated this young man.


(Rolling her eyes) This wasn’t specifically about Michael Dompig pointing the finger at him. There was substantial reason to pick up this boy. (Again, Julia...then WHY is he OUT of jail?)



Dan: I’ve been critical of people who overstate the blame that the aruban officials deserve in the context of this investigation. I’ve often said that there are many police departments around this country make the same mistakes that they made in Aruba. But with that said, I’m listening to Julia and Vinda sort of suggest, ‘you know, look…this happened, it not that big a deal…’


(Flabbergasted) Uh…I mean, if THIS happened in the United States where the SON of the POLICE commissioner leading an investigation made comments that weren’t even…let’s just say they weren’t entirely accurate about this investigation we’d be going nuts!!!





Clint Van Zandt: We would. A number of things Dan…we have three different stories that implicate this young man. One, there is this female cab driver who says that Natalee and her friends talked about this ‘blonde haired blue-eyed dutch kid’ who Natalee really liked…was really hitting on. Beth refutes those statements, the students in the United States refute those statements; then you have another story that says the Dutch America’s Most Wanted came up with this young man’s name; and now we seem to have the reality that you are talking about right now--that the #2 man in the police department…the person who headed up this investigation for months...


There wasn’t enough relationship between he (Dompig) and his 19-year old son to say, “wait a minute son, if you get upset don’t start name dropping…come to your dad, let me tell you, take a drink of calm and relax a little bit..” This case…and I know the Arubans are trying…and as for your other guests, I’m not going to slam dunk ‘em, BUT…somewhere Dan, this case lies between either ineptitude, inexperience, or corruption and where does it lie? Why are we 11 months into this, 9 people have been arrested and no one has been charged?



Vinda: (Now spinning out of control…) I still keep repeating that our legal system down here works this way. If there are enough indications to implicate somebody in some crime, the person will be arrested and the investigation will continue. When a person is arrested, it does not wrap up the investigation, actually it’s only starting then.


Dan: (Sighs, obviously annoyed with their stupidity…) Yeah, yeah…alright. Well, I don’t know. Seems like a mess to me.

Seemed like a mess to me starting on June 1, 2005.