New tip raises questions in Natalee Holloway's disappearance

ByABC7.com staff KABC logo
Saturday, May 30, 2015
New tip raises questions in Natalee Holloway's disappearance
Nearly 10 years after Alabama high school student Natalee Holloway disappeared on a trip to Aruba, investigators received another tip about the location to her body.

Nearly 10 years after Alabama high school student Natalee Holloway disappeared on a trip to Aruba, investigators received another tip about the location to her body.

Jurrien de Jong claims he saw the chief suspect in Holloway's disappearance chase her into a construction site and later hide her body under a staircase of the Marriott Hotel in Aruba.

Holloway's father said he saw construction at the time and Google Earth images back him up.

"What he is describing in his story matches what's physically there at the time. I'm thinking this could be something," Dave Holloway said.

Marriott officials said the site wasn't under construction on May 30, 2005, the date of Holloway's disappearance.

"That's useless to search there with a cadaver dog or drilling," Aruba prosecutor Eric Olthof said. "One thing will be sure, she's not lying there. She can't be lying there."

Marriott hasn't commented publicly about the construction timeline, only releasing a statement that it is fully cooperating with the official investigation.

The 18-year-old was on a high school graduation trip when she vanished. She was last seen leaving a bar with Joran van der Sloot, who remains the main suspect.

In 2010, Van der Sloot pleaded guilty to the murder of another woman in Peru killed five years before Holloway disappeared.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.