Natalee Holloway

[gravitational 0]

OK...Tragic that she's lost.
She went to Aruba for a high school graduation. Rich kid probably, no issues. Tropical paradise, no issues.
She was out partying with friends the night before she was to come back to the U.S., no issues.
Hmmm, wait, she was coming out of a bar? 18 as I recall? Granted, the legal drinking age in Aruba is 16 I believe, but no one has really brought up how drunk she or her friends were when they departed said bar.
Nice chaperones that let your kids live like the locals and get a little tanked, eh?
Thoughts?

edit to add:
Found this on an Aruba tourism site - drinking age:

Quote

What is the legal drinking/gambling age?
The legal age for both drinking and gambling is 18 years. It is not, however, widely enforced. You will not usually be "carded".

------
Michael

[peregrinerose 0]

I agree. You pull stupid shit, getting drunk and going off with a bunch of guys you don't know, things can happen. However, what happened still isn't her fault. There is no justification for what the guys (whoever they were) must have done to her.

Do or do not, there is no try -Yoda

[tigra 0]

I'm not 18. When my girlfriends and I vacation in Mexico, we'll often party with the locals. (Drink, dance, maybe even flirt. They're fun, but we know all they really want is to get laid. We know what's likely to happen if we accept that invite for a "walk on the beach".) None of us would leave a bar with any one of them alone no matter how nice, cute or fun they seemed. We wouldn't allow one of our friends to leave alone with any of them, and we're adults! Her chaperones and her friends let her down. They probably thought it was Ok because she left with a rich white local. They were wrong. I wonder how they sleep at night.

And yeah, I think the rich white boy raped her, killed her and fed her body to the sharks, probably with a little help from his friends and maybe even his dad. I doubt he'll be prosecuted for it. There's no evidence, he's not talking and they'll have to let him go eventually.

[psipike02 0]

Personally, i kind of fault her friends for not watching out for her, I know that in my past two years when i went to Acapulco and Cancun for spring break, we never left a club until we made sure everyone was with us, no matter how drunk we were. We never left anyone, especially girls. We are very protective of our girls that came with us and sometimes wouldn't even let them talk to other guys....you just never know whos trying to do what or what their intentions are.....

I do feel the chaperones could be at fault also, but its both parties if you ask me....

Puttin' some stank on it.

----Hellfish #707----

[GTAVercetti 0]

Quote

OK...Tragic that she's lost.
She went to Aruba for a high school graduation. Rich kid probably, no issues. Tropical paradise, no issues.
She was out partying with friends the night before she was to come back to the U.S., no issues.
Hmmm, wait, she was coming out of a bar? 18 as I recall? Granted, the legal drinking age in Aruba is 16 I believe, but no one has really brought up how drunk she or her friends were when they departed said bar.
Nice chaperones that let your kids live like the locals and get a little tanked, eh?
Thoughts?

The problem I have with this whole thing is the fact that people (children, men, women, babies) are kidnapped EVERY DAY in this country. Why is this one more important? Who decides that she deserved more attention than some other person?

Our media does this every few weeks. They pick out one child or young adult who has been kidnapped, is missing, and/or killed and they swarm. Then they just ignore all the rest.

end rant.

Why yes, my license number is a palindrome. Thank you for noticing.

[psipike02 0]

Quote

The problem I have with this whole thing is the fact that people (children, men, women, babies) are kidnapped EVERY DAY in this country. Why is this one more important? Who decides that she deserved more attention than some other person?

Our media does this every few weeks. They pick out one child or young adult who has been kidnapped, is missing, and/or killed and they swarm. Then they just ignore all the rest.

end rant.

True dat....

Puttin' some stank on it.

----Hellfish #707----

[tigra 0]

Very true, but I think the main reason she's in the media spotlight is that her parents have the means and determination to keep her there. Most parents could not afford to send their own investigators and stay in a foreign country holding daily press conferences for several weeks. I don't necessarily think its bad that this case is getting so much attention, just a shame that so many others get ignored.

[SkyDekker 1,465]

Just shows that forbidding kids to drink makes them drink even more when they get the chance.

The concept of drinking to get drunk was completely foreign to me until I started coming to North America. The problem isn't that she was drinking, the problem is that she hasn't yet leanred how to handle her dirnking.

[kenz 0]

they just did some special on world news or something 2 nights ago about how it always seems to be white middle class attractive girls that get the media attention when they go missing - and i never paid attention to it before but it really is true- it is a shame that she is gone -but it is also a shame that there are so many missing women, men, and children that go unnoticed- maybe this will teach us to look at those "have you seen this person" sheets that come in your mailbox every other day..

as far as natalee's situation i would never be able to live with myself if i was the friend that said "ok see ya later" no WAY - i know it was mentioned before and maybe we're naive to think its common knowledge but dont ever leave ANYone alone especially with people you don't know!!

i pray everyday that something happens just so natalee's mom can get some sort of peace of mind - i don't think they will ever find her body its been out to sea for a long time imo... but anything to give her some sort of closure would be nice

"life does throw curveballs sometimes but it doesn't mean we shouldn't still swing for the homerun" ~ me

[rasmack 0]

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Just shows that forbidding kids to drink makes them drink even more when they get the chance.

Very true. I have scraped a lot of 19 year old Americans off the floors, when they have come to Denmark. That does not however give her the responsibility of what may have happened to her.

HF #682, Team Dirty Sanchez #227
“I simply hate, detest, loathe, despise, and abhor redundancy.”
- Not quite Oscar Wilde...

[tigra 0]

She's a pretty white girl, and that's definitely a big part of it. But also, her parents won't let the media or the Aruban authorities forget about it. They're trying to embarrass the Aruban government into acting. And I can't say that's a bad thing, or something I wouldn't want to do if I were in their shoes. My understanding is they (the Aruban police) did nothing to find her or trace her steps until her parents arrived with their own investigators. And virtually every lead they've followed up on (even the wild goose chases) has been a result of what those investigators found.

[gravitational 0]

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The problem isn't that she was drinking, the problem is that she hasn't yet leanred how to handle her dirnking.

This has never really been mentioned which is part of my rant. The assumption is that she was tanked based on where she was coming out of - Carlos & Charlies. I've not been to the one in Aruba, but several in Mexico. One couldn't get too far through the front door without being molested by the staff and having alcohol poured down one's throat.

------
Michael

[tigra 0]

Very true about Carlos and Charlies, BUT her friends say she wasn't tanked when she left the bar. (sure, at this point they'd probably say anything.....) I truly believe if she had tried to leave the bar with a dark skinned local boy, her friends would not have allowed it. Instead, she left with a good looking dutch boy and they decided it was OK.

[juanesky 0]

It is indeed a sad event, but just as few have already stated in here, there is certainly some bias in who gets coverage and who does not...

Clicky

"According to some of the conservatives here, it sounds like it's fine to beat your wide - as long as she had it coming." -Billvon

[tigra 0]

Obviously. I don't disagree with that. But I also can't fault her parents for taking advantage of that bias and keeping this case in the spotlight for as long as possible.

[juanesky 0]

And I can't either. It is amazing how if the police profiles someone who "looks" like a gang member, the media, ACLU et the rest of the political correct community is over claiming "INJUSTICE"!!!. Yet if you read the article (in my previous post), you see that the media is not interested at all in the event if the victim does not fall into their "profile" preferences...

"According to some of the conservatives here, it sounds like it's fine to beat your wide - as long as she had it coming." -Billvon

[Muenkel 0]

I've been following this case fairly closely. The legal drinking age is 18 in Aruba. Friends close to her said she was not at all drunk that night. They claim she was drinking responsibly. Of course you may doubt the friends, but I think they would tell the truth at this point as holding any info back would hamper the investigation. There were two groups of kids at the bar. Unfortunately each thought Natalee was with the other group. Credible theories are that she was drugged with the date rape drug.

Regarding the Aruban authorities: The govt. is completely seperated from the judicial system under Dutch law. The Aruban govt has no say or influence over the investigation. One fact that raises a big red flag is the close relationship between the father of the Dutch boy (primary suspect) and the former head of the investigative team. The lead of the investigative team is named Van der Stratten. He retired just a few weeks ago and immediately left the country. There is now a new investigator in charge who has no connection to the Dutch teens father, Paulus Van der Sloot.

The reason this case has remained front and center is because the Holloway and Twitty families are driving it. IMO these people are amazing in that they seem fearless when it comes to pushing the investigation forward and demanding it does not get pushed under the carpet. They want their daughter and are not going to rest until they have her. Who wouldn't do the same. As far as the financial situation, it is my understanding that their extended families, friends, neighbors, etc have been donating money to their cause.

As for the 'pretty rich white girl' getting the attention; I believe there is definitely truth to it. Let's face it, the news media have an audience with this or else they would drop the story in a second. On the other hand, I've seen a lot of coverage on the young pregnant hispanic woman who went missing in the Philadelphia area back in July.

Bottom line: Any attention given to a missing person case is good. Unfortunately their are too many missing people.

_________________________________________
Chris

[tigra 0]

That pretty much sums it up!

[John4455 0]

I do work when needed as a pyrotechnician for Melrose Pyrotechnics. A fire works display company. Several years ago they sent me to Aruba to do a pyro-musical. A digitally produced fire works show set to music. The fire works were sent way ahead of time, but we still had to fly with lots of electronic equipment. Excess baggage to the max. Digital firing panels, firing modules...a TSA nightmare. We finally got to customs in Aruba, they were having a fit. They pulled us aside and was getting ready to search our stuff and our bags in every way imaginable, when this man walks up and tells them, "their okay"
He was the guy that hired us. A very rich man on the island. They stepped back and we went right on through. On the island of Aruba, money talks. There are certain people on that island that get or do what ever they want.
After we did our show the sherrif showed up with several guys and confiscated all of our mis-fired shells, pretending like it was some official business or something. We knew all he wanted was to shoot them himself. Hope he didn't blow himself up.

How do ya like it Johnny?

[JohnRich 4]

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They probably thought it was Ok because she left with a rich white local.

I figure this privileged kid has been abusing his position and visiting girls on his island for years. He has a steady stream of young, drunk Americans to choose from. And if they're abused, they would rather keep their mouths shut and go home than to raise a ruckus with local authorities. This kind of treatment of foreign visitors is probably considered good "sport" by local men...

[tigra 0]

Pretty much, unfortunately. And he knows if he keeps his mouth shut and her body doesn't wash up on shore, the authorities will have to release him eventually. His dad coached him well.

Hate to do the whole guilty until proven innocent bit, but that's honestly how I feel.