New Natalee Holloway Search Pleases Family

Police Resume Investigation Into Alabama Teen's Disappearance In Aruba

(CBS/AP)  An Aruban attorney for Natalee Holloway's father said Monday that her client was happy to see Dutch police renew the investigation into his daughter's disappearance, but the family has not been told why they searched the home of a one-time suspect.

About 20 investigators from the Netherlands dug up earth outside the house Friday and Saturday, reviving a case that had seemed to grow cold since the American teenager vanished during a school trip to the Dutch Caribbean island nearly two years ago.

"Of course they are happy that new or extended investigations are taking place," said Vinda de Sousa, a lawyer for Dave Holloway and his wife, of Meridian, Miss.

The local prosecutors' office said last week a team of Dutch investigators assigned in November to review the case had "indications" that justified another search of the walled property of the family of Joran van der Sloot, the last known person to see Holloway alive.

Calls to local police and the prosecutors' office Monday were not returned.

Holloway, an 18-year-old from Mountain Brook, Ala., disappeared in the early hours of May 30, 2005, the last day of a five-day vacation to celebrate her high school graduation with 124 other students.

She was seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot, then 17, and two Surinamese brothers. Van der Sloot, a Dutch citizen who was jailed for about three months, has said he left Holloway alone on a beach after they kissed. He is currently attending college in the Netherlands.

Paul van der Sloot, Joran's father, told the Nova program on Dutch television that investigators found nothing suspicious and "they have been reassured."

"You can hardly believe it, but they must have seriously been looking for Natalee in our garden. It's incomprehensible," he said in the interview Saturday.

He said that investigators seized diary notes and letters from him and his wife, as well as a personal computer that was returned later Saturday. He felt his privacy had been invaded.

"In that sense I am angry, and I hope this will be the end of it," he told Nova.

Paul van der Sloot declined to comment Monday when reached at home by The Associated Press.

Last Friday, police and forensic investigators churned up the earth outside Joran van der Sloot's home.

"The investigation has never stopped and the Dutch authorities are completely reviewing the case for new indications," Vivian van der Biezen, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office, told reporters gathered outside the home Friday.

The Dutch marines, the local coast guard, the FBI, hundreds of volunteers and others have scoured the island's dunes, beaches and trash dumps for Holloway. Scuba divers and sonar-equipped coast guard ships have also examined the seabed.

[bryangl-2009]

From the first day, this story has been a real tragedy in the sense that Natalie's family and friends still don't really know what became of her.

Was the van der Sloot kid responsible? Nobody really knows at this point with any kind of definitiveness. That's the problem. There's nothing to go on really.

Still, for their family, and of course for Natalie, we hope there is some resolution at some time in the future. Sooner better than later.

The despair that Natalie's family must feel is incomprehensible to me. Certainly, nothing Natalie could have done, or any place she could have gone, or with anyone she was with, would merit her demise. The investigation should be ongoing newly, thoroughly, and, indefinitely.

[bitkit9]

I am happy to hear the VDS premises are finally being thoroughly searched. It infuriates me that it has taken this long, two years, to do this very reasonable thing. It was the reasonable thing to do two years ago. This investigation has been nothing short of a "cluster-freak" since the beginning. All the cover-ups are so outrageous. These cover-ups show what history has always proved. Money, power and politics can get anyone out of anything or buy them enough time to "clean up."

I am so sorry for Natalee, her family and friends - prayers to all of them.

Kev