Five years ago on May 30, 2005, Natalee Holloway disappeared.
She was on a high school graduation field trip to an island in Aruba. No traces of her body were found except possible skeletal remains seen in a photo by two scuba divers that captured the image at the bottom on of the ocean, which turned out to be a false alarm.
Along with the underwater mystery, there was a jaw bone found along the beach of Aruba by another couple. According to AOL.com, Dutch forensic experts are testing this bone to see if it belongs to Holloway.
As a cautionary tale, as young teens already planning senior week, they should be aware that this could happen to them.
For example, in 2002, three Manheim Township graduates were charged with sexual assault of an intoxicated 16 year old girl at senior week.
Now, being five years later, another similar murder has occurred. Police chief Gen. Cesar Guardia stated that Stephany Flores, 21, was found face down in the hotel she was last seen in with Jordan Van Der Sloot.
According to Lancaster New Era, the Dutch government said Interpol, an organization based in Paris that coordinates investigations made by the police forces of member countries into crimes with an international dimension, had issued an international arrest warrant for Sloot.
Guardia then stated that Flores and Sloot were last seen entering the Lima Hotel around 5 a.m., and Sloot exited the hotel alone about four hours later.
“We have an interview with a worker at the hotel who says she saw this foreigner with the victim enter his room,” Guardia said.
When Flores’s body was found fully clothed, they discovered multiple abrasions to her face and body with signs of trauma, the police general stated.
Some wonder what took so long for the hotel staff to check the room.
Autopsy results are still being waited on.
Guardia said that Sloot left Peru by land and his exit registered at the Santa Rosa border crossing. Sloot had been staying at the hotel since May 14 after entering the country on a flight from Columbia.
Stated in the Lancaster New Era, Sloot was found in a taxi Thursday, June 3, several days drive and a country away, and was arrested for the murder of Stephany Flores.
He put up no fight when he was detained about half way to the Pacific coast from Santiago, stated deputy Chilean investigative police spokesman Fernando Ovalle.
According to CBS News, Sloot’s Dutch lawyer said Sloot was intending on turning himself in shortly before he was found.
After the arrest and quickly into questioning, he confessed to killing Stephany Flores.
According to ABC News, Sloot grabbed Flores by the neck when he saw her looking up information about his previous case [Holloway] and then continued by hitting her.
“I confronted her,” Sloot told investigators, according to La Republic. “She was frightened, we argued and she wanted to get away. I grabbed her by the neck and I hit her.”
“I did not want to do it. The girl intruded into my private life,” said Sloot. “She had no right.”
According to Al.com, Sloot did confess but later tried to deny the whole thing. He claimed that the only reason
he confessed was because he was intimidated and thought he would be extradited to the Netherlands. His request to have his confession retracted was denied.
Joran van der Sloot was previously arrested twice but with little to no evidence connecting him to Holloway’s disappearance during a high school graduation trip, he was let go in 2005.
According to a Dutch television crime reporter, a hidden camera they set up captured secret footage of Sloot saying he was with Holloway when she collapsed on a beach, drunk.
After Sloot was found, he told investigators that he left Holloway on the beach drunk which implied that that was the last time he saw her.
A Dutch Newspaper reports that Sloot took money from the Holloway family in order for them to receive the location of her body. Sloot took the money but gave no address.
Natalee’s mom sent Sloot $10,000 through an FBI agent and later transferred $15,000 into his bank account. He then caught a flight to Latin America with the money.
“I wanted to get back at Natalee’s family — her parents have been making my life tough for five years,” the Dutch Newspaper quoted him as saying from prison in Peru. “When they offered to pay for the girl’s location, I thought: ‘Why not’?”
He also publicly confessed to murdering Holloway and then retracted the statements may times.
Being a law enforcement officer and Penn Manor’s resource officer, Jason Hottenstein knows all the details about safe drinking and the dangers of being with strangers.
“You have to be extremely cautious with people you don’t know,” said Hottenstein. “Trust no one that you don’t know.”
There was also a website created to petition against senior week.
The website titled Stop Senior Week claims that the results of senior week are deaths, movies that glorify underage drinking, sex
and drugs, public intoxication and drug use and hundreds of car accidents and hospital visits.
According to CBS News, Tim Miller, founder Texas Equusearch, a non-profit organization that searches for missing persons, has assisted with the search for Holloway from the beginning and has become very close friends of the family.
Miller stated that Holloway’s father, David Holloway, sends his sympathies to the Flores’ family in Peru.
“(David is) talking about what a senseless death that was, that we feel as though the cover-up that went on in Aruba, with Joran van der Sloot never being arrested, that we need to hold a lot of people accountable for Stephany’s death in Peru. I mean, a very, very sad time for everybody. And now Dave is just trying to, I think, just digest what’s really happening in his life again right now. And of course it brings it all back to Dave and Beth, I’m sure that it’s like it happened yesterday. So there’s disappointment, there’s anger, there’s frustrations. And, again, Stephany, there’s no reason she should be dead today. Somebody made some huge mistakes over there,” said Miller.
Joran van der Sloot is being held in a seventh-floor cell with a bunk bed and blanket with three meals a day while he is being further questioned of the death of 21 year old Stephany Flores and the disappearance of Natalee Holloway.
By Sarah Garner