THE SAD LEGACY OF NATALEE HOLLOWAY
BY LISA RICHARDS
http://www.lisa-richards.com/id22.htmlJuly 3, 2006
It has been one year and thirty three days since Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway vanished on the Bahamian island of Aruba without a trace.
On May 30, 2005, pre-med student Natalee Holloway celebrated her High school graduation with a group of teenage girls from her hometown High school. Natalee was a straight A valedictorian on her way to study medicine at the University of Alabama.
Everything was perfect the day of May thirtieth; Natalee and her friends packed their bags for the next day’s early morning flight then went to a popular bar to have one more night of celebratory fun.
Everyone on the trip had fun that night; only Natalee, a girl never known to get in to any kind of trouble accepted a ride with three strangers. That was the last time friends saw Natalee Holloway alive.
When Natalee’s roommate awoke the next mourning, Natalee still had not returned. A few hours later, every teen on the Aruba trip was at the airport except Natalee who still had not returned. That evening, Natalie’s parents arrived on the Island; the American teen from Alabama had vanished and the only clue to her disappearance was a seventeen-year-old Dutchman named Joran Van Der Sloot, the strange boy Natalee got in to a car with before she vanished.
According to Natalie’s mother Beth Holloway-Twitty, Van Der Sloot, his father and the two friends Natalie had also left with—the Kalpoe brothers—acted nervous about the Holloway’s and Twitty’s arriving at the Van Der Sloot home at 4:a.m. demanding to know where their daughter was.
Paulus Van Der Sloot, an attorney and soon to be judge with extraordinary power on the island, told his son to shut up and not say a word when the boy began to talk. The Holloway/Twitty family was forbidden entrance to the Van Der Sloot property when asking if Joran knew where Natalee was. Mrs. Twitty stated; Van Der Sloot got so close to her face and nastily asked: “What the hell do you want me to do about it?”
The four men never tried to cooperate with the panic-stricken family; instead, they were defensive about anyone asking them about the missing girl.
The car Natalee was last seen getting into was parked right behind the gate in front of Beth Holloway-Twitty; yet Aruban police did not open the car trunk or scour the place; instead, they told Natalee’s family to go away.
398 days later, Natalee is still vanished and Joran Van Der Sloot still won’t say what happened to Natalee Holloway. In Fact, his story has changed more times than Madonna changes her look with help of father Paulus Van Der Sloot, who was imprisoned along with his son and their two cohorts for Natalee’s disappearance.
Aruba waited nine days before arresting the four men. By then, any trace evidence had been destroyed along with Natalie’s young life which all family and authorities have given up hope of ever finding alive.
So what is Natalie’s legacy? What has she left us all to think about? A great lesson and a horrible reminder that girls can not go out to bars and drink with strangers, nor should any woman get in to a car with anyone other than someone well known to her.
I’m not saying don’t go out with friends, but bars are dangerous; the country club, local town’s tea room and quiet little café’s are not. Bars have a terrible legacy of attracting dangerous men in search of sex any way they can obtain the act.
Natalie Holloway’s legacy will never be what she was to accomplish as a doctor, nor will it be children and grandchildren; her legacy is: girls can get raped and murdered no matter how well brought-up, intelligent and good if they allow a strange man into their life whom they met in a bar, club, party, etc. Girls can not go off with strangers; they always wind up dead or vanished without a trace when they do so.
I have written about Natalie before in a column boycotting Aruba for their lack of care in handling the disappearance of a U.S. citizen. Had Aruban authorities checked Van Der Sloot’s car the night Beth Twitty demanded to inspect the property and car; maybe they would have found Natalie or evidence of how to find her body. Aruba has completely neglected Natalie’s disappearance in lieu of tourism money that might have been lost during the past year had an American body been found raped and murdered.
There is the other lesson Natalie has left us; don’t let your daughters travel to foreign countries alone. And if they go, there should be an adult male and female with the teens at all times watching, making sure no stranger gets near.
Friends must and have a duty to travel in pacts at all times for safety sake; even to the bathroom.
Another horrible lesson learned here is; why did Natalie’s friends allow her to go off with three strange men? Just because she claimed to be fine and safe to go did not mean she was. She obviously wasn’t.
Natalie’s friends should have forbidden her to go. I know what you’re all thinking; you can’t stop an 18-year-old, she’s legal, she has a will of her own, she can go where she wants and isn’t going to listen to her friends.
You people haven’t partied with me. When I was Natalie’s age, I was always the designated driver because I could never acquire a taste for alcohol. I thought it tasted like Chanel No. 5. Nevertheless, my friends and I were so-called “goody two-shoes” because all of us were too serious to go off with any stranger. Even for a dance. We had our little group of trustworthy friends; who needed a stranger to dance with when the guys and girls I hung out with were real and fun friends.
My friends would never have let me go off with a stranger and vice versa. We were a pack and stuck like glue. There were four of us girls and two guys who, although were never boyfriends, were protective about weird guys trying to buy drinks or ask for a dance. It pays to have a couple of guy friends who keep the jerks away. Today that’s considered lame, 25 years ago that was kool and smart. None of us ever got hurt and we all can look back with fond memories.
Natalie can not, neither can her friends. So I ask; why did her friends let her go off with Van Der Sloot? He was a stranger. I don’t care what kind of line of bull he threw; I’ve heard them all; they’re all repulsive and psychotically underhanded.
Van Der Sloot was a stranger and you never allow your friend to wind up in that situation. Believe me; you can stop a friend from getting into a strange guy’s car. I did it once, the girl called me a “bitchy nun,” a “goody two-shoes,” “who are you to tell me I can’t find a boyfriend? “I’m old enough to do what I want even if your mother won’t allow you!” I physically dragged the girl away from the guy I called a “low-life pimping axe-murderer who should have been drown at birth,” and told the girl it was my duty as her friend who would be responsible if she were raped or killed by the stranger.
25 years later, we’re happy, safe, and close and trying to tell younger women; don’t do that!
I’m not blaming Natalie’s friends. It’s not their fault Natalie is gone; it’s Van Der sloot, his father and friends who keep changing their story to suit their prerequisite need to stay out of the reach of Greta Van Susteren. I’m simply acknowledging lessons we sadly learn from stories like Natalee Holloway’s vanishing.
Natalee might be alive today and starting her second year in pre-med had her friends walked over to the car and pulled the 18-year-old away from Van Der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers.
Maybe Natalie would have been pissed off; maybe she was drugged and had no idea and would thank the other girls after the high wore off; maybe she was tipsy and the only thing suffered would have been a hangover the next morning had she been pulled from Van Der Sloot’s arm. We’ll never know because no one attempted to drag Natalie Holloway away from the three suspected killers.
We all have to examine and contemplate this horrible chronicle and read between the painful lines as a reminder of what can transpire if we don’t do what our parents always advised us; never talk to strangers, Never get into a car with a strange man, never believe strangers, and never go off with strange men.
I’m positive Natalee was taught those important things by her loving parents; nonetheless, something went horribly wrong the evening of May 30, 2005 and Natalee got into a strangers car, disappearing without any trace as though she never existed.
No girl deserves to be raped and murdered as suspected to be young Natalee’s final moments of life since Joran Van Der Sloot admitted rape and murder were involved before retracting that statement. And no parent, decent or stupid should ever endure what Beth Holloway-Twitty and her ex-husband are going to live with the rest of their lives—life without their beautiful, full-of-hope daughter. They lost everything the moment their daughter entered a stranger’s car and vanished.
If we have learned anything from the year plus search for Natalee’s body, which Van Der Sloot and cohorts will not give up, it is this; no matter how old you are, your parents were right when they said talking to a stranger can get you killed. Don’t do it.
Rapists and Murderers are no respecters of age; they prey on all women. All women must travel in packs, keeping watch over each other, not letting one member of the pack stray off alone no matter what.
Natalee Holloway was not the first. Other American girls older than Natalee vanished without a trace while taking an afternoon walk in Jamaica and other Caribbean and Bahamian nations. Those women too stayed at resorts; and like Natalee’s case, those resorts and islanders refuse to help or tell the truth they are hiding in order to keep tourism dollars.
Keep your children under watchful eye at all times. Women, keep your friends under the same parental watch and if one friend decides to go off alone for any reason, go with her. You’ll never regret keeping each other safe and alive.
I still refuse to ever visit Aruba. They don’t deserve American tourism and dollars. If Americans would refuse to holiday on these islands for the foreseeable future pending the resorts and authorities telling the truth; the nonexistence of tourism would crash island economies and islanders would crash homes of police and anyone knowing the truth in order to restore the island’s capitol income.
I don’t care if parents have to tie their daughters to their sides until they are safely married to a decent man; do whatever you must to protect and defend your children from all harm at any cost. They are your greatest treasure, the utmost and supreme gift God bestowed upon you next to your own life. Safeguard your children with your very lives. They are your life.
Natalee Holloway had a life; now she has a legacy of what can happen to all women if we are not careful and wise to strange men.
