Natalee Holloway's Dad To Search Deep Seas
The father of missing American teenager Natalee Holloway says he and a team of experts will search for his daughter's body in waters off Aruba following the recent re-arrest of three suspects in her 2005 disappearance.
While authorities searched the sea to depths of 330 feet, Dave Holloway told The Associated Press that he believes his 18-year-old daughter was thrown into deeper waters - a belief based on talks with a police official and a private forensic expert.
Holloway said a private boat owner is providing divers, sonar equipment and the ability to map the ocean floor.
"It's like this: we've searched all the land areas ... It's common knowledge on the island that if someone were to dispose of the body, it would be out in the ocean," he said by telephone
Holloway said he would alert police on the Dutch Caribbean island if anything is found.
Authorities announced Wednesday they had found "new incriminating evidence" and re-arrested three men - Dutch student Joran van der Sloot and brothers Satish and Deepak Kalpoe of Suriname - on suspicion of involvement in voluntary manslaughter and causing serious bodily harm that resulted in Holloway's death.
Holloway said the re-arrest of three suspects in the case has renewed some hopes that he might finally find out what happened to his daughter
"It just gives us hope that they're still involved, and maybe we'll finally get some answers," Dave Holloway told CBS News Correspondent Kelly Cobiella.
The 18-year-old from Mountain Brook, Ala., was last seen leaving a bar with the three men on May 30, 2005, hours before she was scheduled to fly home with high school classmates celebrating their graduation.
A search by hundreds of volunteers, soldiers, police and FBI agents - even Dutch air force planes - turned up no trace of her.
Holloway's father, Dave Holloway, is a graduate of Jonesboro Westside High School in Arkansas who now lives in Meridian, Miss. The teenager has other family members living in the Jonesboro area, a grandmother in Pine Bluff, Ark., and an aunt in El Dorado, Ark.
Van der Sloot, 20, was re-arrested in the Netherlands, where he was attending a university. The Kalpoe brothers - Deepak is 24, Satish, 21 - were taken into custody in Aruba.
Van der Sloot's lawyer, Rosemarie Arnold, played down the arrest during an interview with the CBS Early Show's Maggie Rodriguez.
"We heard that there was new evidence. We don't know what the evidence is. We know that it's not a body, and we don't even know if it has anything to do with Joran." Arnold told Rodriguez. "When they arrest somebody in Aruba they could just doing it to detain them and question them and in this case that's what we expect to happen."
Arnold said that the statute of limitations on the case will expire at the end of this year, adding "they're just making a last ditch effort to get some more information."
Van der Sloot admits that he was alone with Holloway that night, and that he kissed her, but he insists that he never hurt her, CBS Newsreports. But Holloway's mother is convinced he's lying.
On Thursday, a Dutch judge cleared the way for van der Sloot's transfer to Aruba within days, prosecutor Dop Kruimel said in a telephone interview.
Van der Sloot's parents told CBS News their son's arrest came as a complete surprise, and that prosecutors are keeping them in the dark. According to his lawyers, Yoran is being brought back to Aruba to reconstruct the day Holloway disappeared yet again, this time with investigators from Holland.
Van der Sloot's mother, Anita, said by telephone that investigators had recently questioned her family and that of the Kalpoe brothers.
"The questions they asked were so obvious: things like, 'Why did Joran leave his shoes on the beach?"' she said, referring to the place where her son said he kissed Holloway alone before her disappearance. "I think it's ridiculous after two-and-a-half years to be doing this."
The brothers were expected to make an initial appearance in an Aruba court Friday, when prosecutors were expected to present the new evidence to a judge.
They are being held in separate jails, and Aruba's chief prosecutor Hans Mos said prosecutors believe they should be represented by separate attorneys to prevent a conflict of interest.
The Kalpoes' attorney, David Kock, did not return a call for comment Thursday, but he told a local radio station that the arrests were "an action of despair."
"There was no reason for their arrest now," he said. "We will take all kinds of measures to give our clients their freedom as soon as possible."
In April, investigators from the Netherlands dug around the home of van der Sloot's family for two days without revealing what prompted the search. Then in May, Dutch and Aruban investigators visited the home where Deepak and Satish Kalpoe live with their parents for what authorities called an "inspection."