A PERFECT MURDER?

By Mark Hutcherson


A few years back there was a movie staring Michael Douglas called, “The Perfect Murder”. In this movie, the husband played by Douglas hired a man who was having an affair with his wife to kill her. While this movie was fiction, I wonder how many people have somehow planned out a perfect murder and I wonder if the death of Natalee Holloway in Aruba will someday be classified as one of those perfect murders?


Sometimes a perfect murder isn’t planned that way, but turns out that way because of bad police work and prosecutors that don’t do their job properly. Since the disappearance of Natalee Holloway over a year ago all kinds of speculation has been put forward about her disappearance in Aruba on her senior trip.


The unfortunate truth is that Holloway was probably a fun loving teenager who found herself in the company of some evil minded young men who had a goal of taking advantage of her. More than likely something got out of hand and she was killed either by accident or on purpose.


My thinking is that Natalee was like many other young women in a similar situation and was drinking more than she would normally do. However, these young men who had a plan to take advantage of someone that night were probably drinking less and had evil intentions in their heart before they ever left home. This type of activity has gone on for years in places all around that world and most folks in the media don’t want to acknowledge that fact.


Then there is the island nation of Aruba whose very survival depends on tourist traffic to its shores. When I think about the police in Aruba, my mind goes back to a movie I saw years ago called, “Jaws”. In that movie local officials were so concerned about losing money during their main tourist season that they put pressure on law enforcement officials to look the other way even when faced with grave danger.


In the first few weeks after the disappearance of Natalee Holloway I believe local government officials in Aruba adopted this same type of attitude and they mistakenly thought that the disappearance of Holloway would fade from public view in short order.


However, authorities in Aruba forgot about Natalee’s mother, Beth Twitty, and they also forgot that a parent would not give up so easily when it was their own flesh and blood who was missing.


When I think back on this case now, I believe it is more likely than not that Natalee’s death was an accident that occurred when some young men were trying to take advantage of a young women who had too much to drink and at some point she decided to fight back against her attackers and lost her life. While these young men probably never left home that night with the desire to commit murder, in the end that is exactly what happened.


While the alleged actions of these young men is despicable, the real tragedy happened when older adults decided that is was in their own best interest to ignore what really happened that night and try and “white wash” the whole deal with a murder cover-up. I believe that in time most of the facts of what happened that night in Aruba will come into the light of day and most likely when that happens the real events of that night will be exposed by one of the boys involved because time does have a way of working its magic on the souls of most people, given the benefit of time.