NQL Case File

Circumstances

Date of Disappearance

May 30, 2005

Notes

Nathalee Holloway was visiting Aruba on a five-day trip with her high school classmates to celebrate their recent graduation. With them were seven chaperones who were responsible for checking in with the students daily but who did not control what was later described as wild partying and substantial alcohol intake by the group, including Nathalee. The students had not scheduled check-in and were changing rooms frequently which made it difficult initially to determine that something untoward had occurred. She was declared missing after failing to meet her flight back to the United States on May 30, 2005. Her suitcases were found packed with her passport at the Holiday Inn in her room. The last sighting of Nathalee was in the early morning hours at approximately 1:30am when friends saw her leaving a local Carlos’n’Charlies bar and nightclub. She was driven away in a vehicle by a local young man, Joran van der Sloot, and his two friends Deepak and Satish Kalpoe. After the vehicle drove away, she was not seen again. According to the boys’ initial testimony, they drove Nathalee to the California Lighthouse to see the sharks and then left Nathalee at her hotel at around 2:00am. They stated Nathalee with significantly under the influence at the time and was stumbling but rejected offers of help getting to her room. They said that an unidentified dark male wearing a black shirt like the hotel’s security guards approached Nathalee as they drove away. The three men were each arrested multiple times in connection to the case but the charges never went to trial, coining the now familiar term “no body, no case.” Two other men were also questioned (Nick John and Abraham Jones) as former security guards at a neighboring hotel. They were not charged and were released. The case was closed on December 18, 2007 but then re-opened on February 1, 2008 after a video surfaced showing Joran Van der Sloot under the influence of drugs confessing to covering up Nathalee’s death the morning she disappeared. He later recanted the interview, but made various concerning comments in the years since (e.g., that he sold her into slavery). Nathalee’s remains have never been found but she was declared legally deceased on January 12, 2012.

Location of the Disappearance or Crime Scene

Bar or Nightclub

Potential Circumstances

Holiday, Night, Night Out, Out with Friends, Prior Communication, Traveling Abroad, Under the Influence, With Others

Vehicle

License Plate

Photo of Vehicle

Suspect

Multiple Persons

Suspect Description

No suspect has been formally convicted in the disappearance of Nathalee; however, the three primary persons of interest have long been the three young men that were accompanying Nathalee when she was last seen leaving the nightclub/bar. Joran Andreas Pet

Photo of Suspect