THE NIGHT NATALEE HOLLOWAY DIED

"Patrick Hurley is one of the best writers on the Internet or anywhere. He has been involved in writing about the Holloway case from the very beginning and he approaches the case and Natalee herself with an open mind and a huge heart. Pat is someone who I respect more than most and I believe that his article will enlighten and make people think. Not everyone will agree...but everyone will learn and be moved."--Meri, Aruban Boycott Contributor

By Patrick Hurley


For the past year I have gone back and forth speculating on who and what killed Natalee Holloway on that horrific night in May in Aruba. Like many of you who are reading this, it was easier to keep changing our minds as new facts and witnesses kept rolling in during the course of the investigation. Now that the dust has settled for awhile (and I believe it could be for a long while), I am going to use logic in deducing what happened to her.



I am doing this because the theories of her disappearance and death is getting more and more absurd. Mystery mansions, crematoriums, a two country conspiracy, the Mafia in Chicago and other complex plot lines are getting way ahead of the basic truth here. If you want to solve this case, I believe you need to keep it simple. This was a night involving five people. As Joran said, "Something bad happened to Natalee that night." For one of the few times whenever he speaks, I believe him. Something bad did happen and I think, based upon the way the story unfolded after that night, I think I know how it all came down. It was a night of partying with some deadly obsessive consequences. Now that we all have had a chance to breathe and re-evaluate everything, here is my story of how a beautiful young girl with so much potential will never be found again to realize her hopes and dreams and most importantly, her potential in life.



To understand what happened the night of May 30, you have to back up a few days. This is very important. The horror of the final events of her life would never have occurred had it not been for three minor events aligning themselves to doom Natalee Holloway. The first scenario is that Paulus Van der Sloot allowed his son Joran to roam the casinos at night at will. Joran had plenty of charm, good looks, money, freedom and most importantly, the opportunity to meet as many tourist girls as he wanted on that island of paradise. For a 17 year-old, he was living the life of an adult playboy with very few restrictions. On the night Natalee went missing, Joran's mother was out of town, so he had even more access to staying out all night. He had an example in his own father who lived a very similar lifestyle. Like father, like son. Without this aspect of reality, Natalee would still be alive today.



The second concept that affected this tragedy also involves Joran. There were a lot of young men like him who loved to party but Joran was more calculating and predatory than his contemporaries. He knew how to get around and go after what he wanted. He did not just go to the casinos to drink and gamble, he went there to find a girl to seduce. Over time, he perfected his techniques and he was a work of art. He would spot an intended victim and instead of rushing into her force field immediately, he would "accidentally" bump into her and lightly tease her so that she would find him charmingly nonchalant. There was no hurry to pick her up because Joran usually preferred the tourist girls and he knew he had two things going for his con; no parents to worry about and time. He would hit on them earlier in the week and keep "bumping into them" as the week developed. This is what he did with Natalee as he slowly gained her trust and devotion during the time she was there until he had enough of it to get her into a car with him on the last night of her trip. He even helped her win money at the blackjack table earlier in the evening. She never saw anything bad coming from Joran. It was all good. All he had to do was ask her to go with him at the end.



(Note: There is a possibility that in one of the videos showing Natalee and Joran at the blackjack table, Paulus is present at the far right side sitting with the group. If this is really him, and it is speculative, it would only help Joran's credibility as Natalee sat with him and his father feeling even more comfortable now that she is with his parent)



The third event that sealed her fate involves Natalee herself. Had she been sober on the night she left Carlos and Charlie's, she may not have gotten into the car with Joran. But, Natalee was far from coherent at that point. All day long, according to her three best friends, Natalee had been drinking. This followed four days of binging on alcohol by many of the kids from Mountain Brook. That is why they went to Aruba and not to Vatican City. It was their last chance to blow off steam before many of them began the rigors of college life. Natalee was a very smart girl with a full scholarship to the University of Alabama. She thrived under pressure but she knew how to escape it, too. Unfortunately, by the early evening she was a little too relaxed and by midnight she was in no position to make wise decisions. Whether she was date raped drugged or not is immaterial at that point. Natalee was having fun and she trusted Joran enough to dance with him, do jelly shots at the bar for him and get into a car with him. The three scenarios had now come to unified point and it was now up to the boys in that car to make certain that anything that happened now would not be disastrous. The boys failed miserably at Natalee's expense. She should never have been in that vulnerable position in the first place.



Dave was firmly against his daughter going on a trip to Aruba. He even balked at paying half the financing so Natalee could go there. Finally, after hearing from Natalee's step brother who had gone two years earlier and listening to pleas from his daughter, he relented and provided the rest of the money as a graduation gift. As it turned out, his initial instincts as a father and as a Christian were devastatingly on target. He just got worn down from everyone else around him, including the daughter he adored so much. Beth knew the chaperones and Natalee's friends and was more comfortable with the charter. Natalee had a cell phone and roommates. As long as Natalee stayed safe within the limits of the group what could possibly go wrong?



But, Beth did not count on the three scenarios. A good-looking boy, his ability to troll for young women and her own daughter's naiveté in handling herself with alcohol and the decisions that followed that state of mind. If any of these scenarios had not been present, there would be no tragedy and Natalee Holloway would be preparing for her second year of college at the University of Alabama. Trust in others and self-trust are critical in life and relationships. But, in a place like Aruba, they can be life-saving if you make the right choices. Natalee failed to understand the kind of people she was dealing with and her own flawed actions. She was not self-destructive, but she sabotaged her ability to comprehend potential danger enough to let that car door close behind her. In fairness to her, there is a very good chance that some of her girlfriends also made some solo stops in the arms of some of the local guys at some point during the week, but they faced far less consequences for their actions. They are still alive.



Now, Natalee is in the backseat with Joran with Deepak Kalpoe driving and his brother Satish in the passenger seat. It is important to understand why the Kalpoe brothers are even there in the first place. They did not possess the educational and social status of Van der Sloot. But, like wannabes (we all knew guys like this in high school, remember?) they were important for Joran's ego and need to accomplish his fun. He needed a chauffer that night and the brothers were only too happy to accommodate him. There is a chance that Joran tried to add at least one of Natalee's friends to party with Deepak or Satish, but the Mountain Brook girls were too savvy to fall for that arrrangement. So, Joran and Natalee are making out in the back while Deepak grouses at the wheel. His only hope is that when Joran is finished with her, maybe he will get his chance at "sloppy seconds." The odds are good that had happened before with drunken girls Joran had picked up on the island. My guess is that Natalee would never have allowed herself to be handed from guy to guy to guy no matter how drunk she was at the moment. Once Joran was done with her, her danger was just beginning.



Finally, after driving around aimlessly for a while, Deepak drops Joran and Natalee off on the beach and they resume their sexual grappling about one hundred yards off the road. Because we don't have any other facts at this point to pinpoint all three boys and their actions over the next several minutes here is my conclusion based upon what happened over the next few days and backtracking to this moment to find the perpetrator of Natalee Holloway.



I do not believe Joran Van der Sloot killed Natalee. I do not believe she died of an accidental overdose of alcohol, GHB or any other kind of drugs. I do not believe she accidentally hit her head on a rock or committed suicide. She did not run away.



If you want to find out why she is no longer with us, go to one individual and pressure him until he cracks the case and admits what he did to her. This is the guy who took her life and Joran and his father know it.

Deepak Kalpoe

How he did it, we may never know. But, I can tell you why he did it and I can build logical evidence for the fact that he did it.


Do the math. In the following days after Natalee went missing several things happened that points the finger at Deepak and not Joran.



It was Deepak who insisted on making up the story of the two security guards to get the focus off the three boys.



It was Deepak who cleaned and washed his car thoroughly right after Natalee disappeared.




It was Deepak's good friend, (not Joran's) Steve Croes who "innocently" went to the police and supported the boys' story even though he insisted none of them asked him to do so. Joran did not need Steve Croes. Deepak did.




There are a lot of things that sicken me about Joran Van der Sloot. I think he is a pathological liar, a misogynist and possibly a sociopath. But, I do not believe he is a murderer. I think he had his fun with Natalee and said to Deepak who was standing there waiting impatiently, "Okay, now you can have her now!" When Natalee saw Deepak approaching her I believe she reacted violently even in her alcohol-induced state and as he tried to have his way with her she fought him off. In the struggle that followed she lost her life. The details are not important except for the fact that it was not accidental.

Now the boys had a problem, especially Joran. With all his status and a great future ahead of him, unlike the Kalpoe brothers, he would be the one to suffer the most from a dead girl lying there on the sand. Even if Deepak did kill Natalee, Joran would go to prison for the same amount of time as his friends. All three of them would be punished equally. If they could get Natalee off that beach and make her disappear forever, they would be all right. Enter Steve Croes with his motorized small craft that was capable of going out into the water. It is documented that he was seen breaking into the fishermen's hut that week. It is possible that Deepak, Satish and Croes buried Natalee that night while Joran went home When Beth Twitty arrived enraged the following night at the Van der Sloot home, I think the boys arranged for Natalee to be taken out to the sea, weighted down inside one of the cages and disposed of forever.

That's it.

I don't believe Paulus was even needed for the physical work to take Natalee away. His job was to protect his son after the fact and to use his connections to make certain Joran still had a future. I don't believe Anita Van der Sloot has a clue that Joran was even involved. It is not unusual for a parent who has wealth, status and connections in the community to use them to keep his son out of trouble especially if Joran did not actually commit the murder. That is why Joran is going on all these talk shows proclaiming his innocence of killing Natalee. Yes, Scott Peterson did one interview and OJ Simpson has gone on television, too. But, someone who commits a murder does not keep appearing in public and taking the chance to trip himself up with a statement that could indict him if he is guilty. He lays low like Deepak is doing. Joran hates Deepak because his reputation and future are now in jeopardy because of his friend. But, Joran would not be in this position if he had not been a playboy seducing girls and hanging out with friends who were desperate to find a girlfriend or emulate him.

All the talk about the Mafia, sex slavery, other witnesses, friends of Joran, crematoriums and other dangerous predators roaming the island may be true to some degree.. But, I do not believe, they played a part in what happened on the night of May 30, 2005. This was Joran, Deepak and Satish having fun with a compromised girl and it got way out of hand. It is a story that is sadly repeated thousands of times in America. Drugs or alcohol, a sweet girl, predatory guys, late at night, no parents around, no friends to protect her and a life is affected forever, sometimes fatally.

Joran cannot tell people that Deepak did it or he will go to jail with his friends forever. So, he is relegated to trying to clear himself without revealing any information. That is one of the reasons he keeps getting tripped up in lies. In order to tell the entire truth, he will incriminate himself. He is in a no win situation. I trust he will choose his friends a lot more carefully from now on. I would not be shocked if Deepak hung himself someday out of remorse for what he did. I do believe we will finally get the final details from someone in the future. One of these boys will talk to a friend or a girlfriend and they will go to the police. Young people cannot keep their mouth shut.

Anita Van der Sloot is a sympathetic victim here. She really believes her husband and her son and they are not telling her what they know. I would not be surprised if there is a divorce down the road for that marriage. Paulus, is an unsympathetic victim, but still a victim. He did not ask for all this trouble but he got it because he is such a bad parent and by allowing his son to have unlimited freedom he is now paying for it.

Beth Twitty is an ongoing victim. Her life is forever ruined. She not only lost a child, she lost part of her soul. This has been devastating for her. It would be easy for her to blame herself for allowing Natalee to go to Aruba and that would be unfair. Thousands of graduating seniors go on trips as a reward for completing high school and less than 1% of them die on the tour. A parent cannot police their child twenty-four hours a day. We raise our son or daughter the best we can and we hope that when they are presented with a critical decision they will make the correct one. If they don't, and they are eighteen years of age or older, the responsibility has to rest on the shoulders of the young adult. My heart feels so sad for Beth. I have never met her or talked with her or even corresponded with her, but every time I see her on television I feel her pain. She is in agony. No amount of emotion or rationalization will make her feel better. I pray she can find closure someday with the answers that she is seeking as to what happened to Natalee.

Dave Holloway is a quiet and humble man. He lives one state away from the epicenter of Mountain Brook. Yet, his heart is damaged forever, too. His regret is that he will forever wish he would have stopped Natalee from going on her senior trip. But, that would be unfair, too. If you are a Christian man as Dave Holloway is and you believe in the sovereignty of God it was Natalee's time to go. We can prepare and be proactive in doing what we can to keep our child out of harm's way, but death is always inevitable. I am reminded of a plane crash in 1977 which took the lives of everyone on board. It was a charter flight of the Evansville College basketball team. One player missed the flight because of a broken leg. Did he escape his fate? No. Two weeks later, he was killed in an automobile crash. We need to appreciate our lives for they are, as the musical group Kansas reminded us, "dust in the wind." We should also never take our friends and families for granted, either. Never let a day go by without telling them, "I love you." I know that Beth and Dave would give anything to say that to their precious daughter face to face right now. I do believe they were able to express that at her graduation. It was a blessing that they had that last event with her on one of the proudest moments of their lives to see her promise fulfilled up to that night.

When tragedy befalls families, the writers and the spokespeople all take over to take advantage of it for their own agendas. We have all seen Greta, Rita, Joe, Geraldo, Dan, Bill, Sean, Nancy, et. al. who incessantly talked ad nauseum in the hopes their ratings would continue to hold steady at the risk of their self-respect. It is one thing to keep a story alive for a grieving mother in Aruba; it is quite another to use the story for voyeuristic entertainment. There have been Natalee teams, blogs, supporters, detractors and websites that have dissected this case down to its nub. There has been anger and frustration, criticism and compliments, love, pain and the whole damn thing.

But, there is one thing that needs to always be remembered here....

A girl named Natalee Ann Holloway, five feet four inches tall, blue eyes, blonde hair and vitally important to her family and friends is no longer with them. She is gone forever. When the media found a new story and the bloggers moved on to a new mystery there remains a mom in Alabama and a daddy in Mississippi who will continue to go to bed every night with a hole in their heart that had never existed before. That emptiness will never be filled by anyone or anything else again. Think of that when you think of them or any other parent who has lost a child. It is not because their daughter was good-looking or better than anyone else; it is because they loved her more than anyone else.

Remember that the next time you write or talk about Natalee or any other person of any color or standing when they go missing. To you, it may be a spirited discussion or a macabre mystery. To you it might be an ego boost to brag to your friends that a giant conspiracy exists and that you are in the know on all the details of that tragedy. To you it is great theater.

But to those who love her and miss her terribly it is their life.

Three scenarios. Natalee Holloway is gone forever. People are changed forever on both sides of this tragic event.

And, they all need our prayers.