Natalee's Mom: A Turning Point

(CBS)  Natalee Holloway's mother has backed away from previous hints of dissatisfaction with the investigation into her daughter's fate.

The effort to find out what happened to Holloway, the teenage Alabama honors student missing in Aruba for two weeks, has reached "a huge moment," Beth Holloway Twitty

told

The Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm Tuesday.

In Aruba, two hotel security guards who had been detained in connection with Holloway's disappearance have been set free, but three men who spent time with her on the night she disappeared remain in custody.

The security guards were released a day after Twitty said she believed they were innocent.

"This isn't from any evidence or source," Twitty told Storm. "This is just from being Natalee's mother. I just never felt they were involved in…our daughter's disappearance."

Twitty also has said the three men still being held know what happened to her daughter.

"I am absolutely convinced of that," she remarked to Storm. "And there again, I don't have an answer to why. I'm not getting any specific pieces of information. But this is just what I know."

Asked about reports that she's met with at least two of the suspects still behind bars, Twitty responded, "I don't know if I could say that we've actually met. I think that it is safe to say that they have approached me. And I really wouldn't say that we've exchanged any type of conversation."

Twitty says, all in all, the probe is at a critical juncture: "This is a huge moment. I can't erase or change my feelings about the past two weeks, but I can say where I feel that we are now.

"And I think that the family and the Aruban government and the United States government and the FBI and the local authorities, I truly feel that now, we're in a collaborative effort and we are beginning to proceed forward. That's what will help us find our daughter."

As for concerns she'd expressed about the father of one of the three still in custody being in a high judicial position in Aruba, which might compromise the investigation, Twitty said, "I can't help that he's in the position that he's in. But I feel comfortable today, and in this morning hour, that we are proceeding forward in a collaborative effort. And I feel that everything is being done with the utmost integrity. So I have to judge each day or even each morning or afternoon at a time. I can just speak for right now."

Twitty expressed extreme gratitude to all who have shown her and her family support.

"That is the hugest part of this, my faith and trust in God," she says. "I also have right beside me, the most amazing and incredible letters and cards and e-mails. And I am reading each one. And they give me the most amazing strength.

"And it's just incredible. Natalee's community in Mountain Brook, Ala., and Birmingham, Ala., and friends and supporters from all over the United States and the Aruban citizens. This is why I'm able to do what I'm doing. God has given me the support I need, and the endurance."