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Natalee Holloway 14

I don't intend to make a habit of this, but...

Some specific responses

New: 11/2/07
Edits, addendum: 13/02/07
Edit: 14/2/07
Addendum: 20/2/07, 25/3/07

Some questions have been asked by posters on Refugees Unleashed and Freedom of Blog about some specific points on this site.

One user rated this site in the top three for case information, and I acknowledge the kind remarks posted at Scrux. These would be high praise if it were not for the fact that the majority of sites and posts dealing with this case are so appallingly bad. (Page 11a)

“...cyber-cliques where the initiated preach to the paranoid in a closed and unfalsifiable system of proof”. - Dr Leslie Cannold, Monash University (see page 13)

So I thank those who recognise the work that has gone into this site, but when I ask “compared to what?” I don't think it will be going to my head.

In return “I dips me lid” to Roger who established Scrux and the unknown people who have now taken Scrux up, and in no particular order the sysops and posters at Refugees Unleashed, Freedom of Blog and The Bushy Haired Stranger. (see also Page 11)

From http://www.refugeesunleashed.net/about8229.html

iwabwu Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 6:49 pm

apodixis wrote:
From page 8 of the website featured in this thread : “Comparing the frequency of beach accidents to rape, the odds favor accident, misadventure, over crime”

How do you rate the respective probabilities of accidental drowning, runaway or foul play ?

Do you see a reference link or source for the 'odds' - I did not see one.

Every statistic has its exceptions. But most of HMI are also silently applying their own metric of probability based on their personal perception of crime risk. And it's a simple fact that most exposed to TV tend to grossly over-estimate the chances of being a victim of crime. You may be the victim of a crime on a beach, but the water is a clear and constant danger. Aussie beach police (crime) are far outnumbered by lifesavers (drowning).

FloridaPatty wrote in RWV that she would be fearful in Aruba. The statistical reality is that she is three-times more likely to be murdered, and nine-times more likely to be raped in Florida than Aruba. She is also more likely to drown or be attacked by a shark at her local beach. It turns out that even Disneyland Ca. is more dangerous than Aruba.

I have had guns stuck up my nose during my world travels, but my personal perception of risk is that South East Asia and Latin America are actually safer than mainland USA. You can get shot anywhere, but it seems a whole lot easier in the United States. Australia now has strict gun controls. The more I learn about Aruba, the better it sounds.

“Bodies don't just vanish” many have asserted. But minimal research will turn up many such cases in both crime and accident. I'll allude to two local cases, one where a man was being tried for the murder of a girl who turned up living in her boyfriend's wardrobe. The severe drought here has exposed many things, including a car containing the body of a man who vanished over a decade ago, still presumed a suicide. And then of course there's Harold Holt.

We basically still have a four-way matrix here.

-AliveDead
CrimeAbductedMurdered
No crimeAbscondedMisadventure

There is more than ample evidence now that Natalee was far removed from Beth's “emphatic” ... “didn't drink” (VF ibid, see also page 5)

Quite apart from any other medications she should have been taking (pseudofed with her Z-pack antibiots) or recreational drugs - she was helped back to her room drunk the night before, and continued drinking “Red Fires” from 10am the next day, through dinner, after dinner, and later C&C's. Even in my misspent youth I would have considered this a pretty heavy binge.

There is enough data to safely conclude that Natalee had a BAC of at least 0.2 by the time she left C&C's. Typical driving limits are between 0.05 and 0.08 BAC and in this context Natalee would have been a “high range” drunk.

Her actual BAC may have been even higher because the on-line calculators I used tended to suggest levels such as 0.6 which is lethal. Several statements (e.g. Ruth, Lee, Joran, Deepak) are concordant on this issue and indicate that Natalee was very drunk, consistant with nodding off in the car (page 7).

[13/02/07] Wabbi asks how it is possible to estimate Natalee's BAC. The other girls have stated that Natalee started drinking “Red-Fires” about 10am. But even of we ignore that we are told she had at least one “Red-Fire” with dinner; we have a pic of her and Lee enjoying another after dinner; Natalee has a drink in front of her in the casino pic with Joran; then the drinking at C&C's, the inducement to do body-shots is generally a free shot for the girl.

We can get a good estimate of the strength of each drink (assuming singles, not doubles, and ignoring the fact that “151” is already double-strength). We know the time span accurately, and we know Natalee's body weight from her bio. We plug these into one of the many on-line BAC calculators and discover that Natalee wasn't drunk, she wasn't comotose, she was already dead with a BAC of 0.6. So the assumption of 0.2 BAC is actually very conservative. It could have been no less that this. She was, as we say, rat-faced drunk. Technically Ruth was correct, off your face is the next stage.

In this state she was at much greater risk of being a victim, either of a crime OR of an accident.

Her friends have all agreed that she was an organised person, and much as I would wish it were so, I can't see Natalee organising to abscond, then getting shitfaced drunk - I credit her with more sense. It's not impossible, but like burial I now give absconding very low odds indeed.

The total lack of any physical trace on the island is an absence of evidence where you would reasonable expect to find some and, after the extensive and fruitless on-land searching, strongly suggestive of departure by sea.

This leaves murder and sea disposal; a swim and drowning misadventure; or alcohol-induced depression and swim-out suicide. On this basis I estimate crime to be something less than 50%.

Moreover, when we look to crime in this case we must recognise that there is no material evidence whatsoever of a crime, and that J2K have continuously denied causing Natalee harm.

We must also recognise that there has been a torrent of rampant speculation, of misrepresentation, of outright lies, and as we can now so clearly see with the Skeeters tape, stooping to fabrication of incriminating evidence, all designed to convict J2K in the court of public opinion in a trial by media.

Links to stats Wabbi?

This site came into being following a period of intense research. This did not consist of posting an endless loop of the same rhetorical and loaded questions to a blog or two and never reading any answers.

As an investigator Wabbi seem to have the same two basic problems as most of HMI; firstly sources that are too narrow and crap, National Garbage and the aptly named Scared Monkees blog; secondly that you are stuck in the logical loop that I warn of on page 3 - “Joran lied, therefore...”. The questions you ask do not actually test any of your assumptions. Try a different starting point like “Beth tried to frame J2K, therefore...”.

The links page 11 and 11a gives an idea how wide a net I cast, as will the many links scattered through the text that allow the reader to check my veracity, and follow your own interests. You may care to check the veracity of the HMI sources you quote - for example Deech has Skeeterised what Dompig clearly stated in a TV interview about admissions of sexual assault. The Monkees with an “Aruban” drug bust that was actually elsewhere. They simply make shit up and publish it, and one can only guess at their motivations to slander, abuse, and threaten.

BTW: the cellphone records are material evidence, and these clearly show that Joran walked home. Until new material evidence shows otherwise, Joran walked home. Material evidence trumps a statement every time.

iwabwu Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 7:09 pm

Does this guy have any other web sites? Cases solved?

This is so ironic. Here is a self-professed “investigator” who obviously hasn't the faintest clue how to go about finding answers to such simple questions. I'd explain, but it's a trade secret.

Do I know what I'm talking about as a forensic investigator (one who presents evidence to a Court)? Read page 3 and judge for yourself if it makes commonsense and sounds experienced. Does it matter if I dropped in from outer space if my quotes have veracity and my logic seems reasonable (if a little literal and Mr Spockian)?

K_Meine Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 9:50 am

I just don't understand how a person can simply disappear like that with out foulplay being involved.

If she were in the water, I would have thought they would have found her but you never know.

[re: crime, see above] In fact I could cite a large number of cases where people have vanished and no remains have yet been found, or remained hidden for many years, crime, misadventure, and suicide. Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt is simply one of the more notable because of the intensity of the search.

In roughly 25-30% of all drownings remains are never recovered. The proportion is higher for sea drownings. The body of the boy who fell off a jet-ski off Eagle Beach the previous year has not been found. If there is a conspiracy of Aruban silence here it is to downplay the risks of the current that sweeps past the island called the Caribbean Express.

pcgyresmall.gif

[there is a CSIRO study of currents around a Barrier Reef island that shows examples of the down-stream vortex shedding mentioned elsewhere, occasions where a strong current can sweep inshore, but thought it too inconclusive to post. This scenario is discussed on page 8 and in the archives at Hyscience.

These small-scale circulations will occur off Palm Beach, driven in exactly the same way as the Panama-Columbia Gyre shown above. Often this circulation will bring entrained objects back in, but unlike the fixed Gyre they also periodically shed off the coast into the main current, while a new one forms going in the opposite direction.]

K_Meine: I've had my suspicions of the boys all along, but even an accomplished criminal(s) would need more time than was shown to create the perfect crime scene that doesn't exist. It just doesn't seem feasible.

It would be unreasonable not to attach some suspicion to J2K, however the time constraints are real. You can see (page 2, page 3) I've learned to take statements with a very large grain of salt. Material evidence must have supremacy, and you need to follow the inconsistancies, the bits that don't fit.

In this case there has been almost zero material evidence (that isn't a red herring or an outright fabrication down to HMI). That alone should tell us that people weren't rushing around digging up a body, reburying it, cremating it, or whatever. I could make a similar observation about smuggling Natalee out on the MedJet.

[but to comfort the zoom-zoom crew; if anyone at the airport or MedJet knew a truth they should also know that speaking it would make the million-dollar reward simply evaporate.]

The very lack of any landward trace indicates the sea. How she got into it, and in what state or condition we don't know, but we do know there were serious time constraints on any scenario with J2K.

What has been confounding in this case is that there are also a whole mess of “bits that don't fit” surrounding the Family/HMI/tripmates, when it is normal to presume they are generally “innocent”.

I got royally flamed for writing on RWV that the Fab-7 had “trampled their own crime scene” in Joran's driveway. I am still of the view that this “family investigation” is where any real investigation went hopelessly off the rails. In Dompig's place I'd be itching to lock the Fab-7 up as major pests.

This has evolved, firstly to the release of Lee Broughton's statement.

The second evolution is the new attention on the Skeeters tape. Beth's own interviews from the following week are now totally incriminating.

What perports to be the version the Twitty's were watching was supplied to Scrux last year. This is a “no, we didn't” (denial) version, not the version that went to air. What is curious is that it was presented as proof of a confession/admission (see Scrux archives). It is now reposted to YouTube with better definition (link at Scrux).

On page 13 I conclude that Beth was a willing party to the Skeeterisation of Deepak. For me the continuing mystery in this case, the bit that doesn't fit big-time is Beth Twitty herself. If she had been in Aruba at the time I would consider her to be the prime suspect. As it is it still seems that Beth played some as yet unknown role in the disappearence of Natalee, perhaps as simple as an argument over the phone. This might at least explain the obvious Fab-7 first assumption of a runaway - “call me Hootie”.

I am puzzled by Beth's high-risk, low-profit tactics such as the boycott, fabricating previous date-rape victims, the New York suit, and the fabricated Skeeters tape to name only a few. She has been very active, but her actions from the driveway onward have been self-defeating and counter-productive.

The boycott was a stunningly stupid idea that alienated Aruba by seriously upping the anti, it was certain to destroy working relationships, and it did. It also demonstrated the limits to HMI influence - big in Alabama maybe, but nothing much in Washington.

After reading yards of Beth-speak I know I couldn't live with her, and I would imagine she would be a trial for most people. At this distance she appears to be suffering from some sort of disorder. Her unfounded gang rape claims suggest a sexual phobia, and there are signs consistant with obsessive-compulsive, while others have suggested bi-polar disorder. Certainly the lies she has now been caught-out in suggest more mad than bad.

K_Meine: If NH was as drunk as speculated, she certainly wouldn't be able to hide herself and not be found. My guess is her remains are still somewhere on or in the island. Underground cavern, manhole, septic tank, etc.

This is no longer speculation - Natalee was certainly drunk. The only question is “how drunk?”. The fact that she got into a car with three guys she didn't know, refusing to get out when a concerned friend told her to, is sufficient indication that she was drunk enough to place herself at risk. Was Natalee drunk enough to have lost circumspection? As Beth would say, “absolutely”. See also addendum, page 7.

Arubans contend the whole island is sewered, so is there actually a septic tank or similar on the vdS property?

The question again carries the implication that the Arubans (and the FBI, TechniSearch, et al) are too stupid to search properly while the evidence suggests that they bust a gut trying to find her. The unspoken premis is that J2K and company could hide Natalee well enough to defeat one of the most intense searches ever. It's unspoken because it's now clearly very improbable.

Yet being carried off with the current removes the need for anyone to hide anything, and is a very simple answer to why no remains have been found.

A key point that is willfully ignored by HMI is that Natalee herself was an actor in this drama, and could easily have been the sole cause of her vanishing without trace.

Source: Hyscience
Subject: Just Try it!
On May 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 2006 I was in front of the Marriott. I went out about 10 yards and floated. The current took me out toward Columbia. There is no way that all of a sudden I was going to float back to Aruba unless I was dragged.

Nothing against all the experts but I try it! All so if you are at the beach and have to get rid of a body you put it in the water. This is common knowledge in Aruba!

# Posted by the Rib at 05/29/2006 02:31 pm

K_Meine: Question: Was anyone searching for her between the morning she was reported missing and when the Twits arrived and what were the boys doing during that time? Joran was at schoool, yes?

1. No. The MB'ers say they searched the hotel area but there is little sign of a wider search that day. There was no effective search for at least 24 hours. But even if it had been known to mount an air search at dawn it wouldn't have saved her (a 20 mile pie-wedge of around 300 sq miles and rapidly growing). When the Twitty's finally do arrive they ignore authorities and hospitals, most parents first port of call, and conduct their own search for the first week or so based on the false premis that Natalee has run away and is hiding from them.

2. Carrying on quite normally as if nothing special had happened.

3. It appears he was.

So on one hand Joran is hanging out in Casinos as if nothing has happened, while at the same time running around burying and digging up a body on a tourist island without anybody noticing. Stated directly it sounds as fantastic as it is - a flight of overheated imagination.

Joran has been quite unreasonably lambasted for not participating in the search. Given his suspect position he would have been very ill-advised to participate and open himself to certain accusations of evidence-tampering by HMI.

These days I'm inclined to think that Natalee drowned while Joran was walking home, Deepak was on-line, and Satish was asleep - a simple, tragic, and commonplace misadventure.

Her roomates were out and about and have persisted for over a year with their own lies about it. There is a real chance they may have even seen, or even left, her swimming. They were all quite likely out-of-it in various ways, and the penny didn't drop until the next morning. By that time it was already far too late.

They didn't freak because Natalee was reliable, but because the last time they saw her she was at risk. And I don't mean Joran because he would have been the very first to think of, seek out, or mention to authorities, even if they only thought Natalee had over-slept with him. They didn't think of him first because the ones who missed her first did so because they knew of her movements after Joran left.

[Just for Wabbi: J2K lied, but there is still no evidence that their lies were materially different from the truth given the proximity of the Hut's to her hotel. By contrast, almost two years later seeing Lee's FBI statement we can be sure that Natalee's roommates persist in un-truth about their movements that morning and the real possibility that they encountered Natalee after she parted with Joran. In other words there is reason to think that Ruth and Lee may have actually been the last people to see Natalee alive. Why did they lie about going to bed early? I suggest that they were induced to supress information that would show J2K innocent, and that with the divorce some of their constraints are dissolving and the truth will soon leak out of MB.]

Aruba has been pummeled dry. There are a lot of good reasons to now conclude that Natalee left Aruba around 3am that morning. Even some Monkees have been for a search.

But the central enigma for me at the moment is Beth. Even by her own statements, her actions don't make sense.

tulsad Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 6:48 pm

isn't “hater” and “tolerance” in the description of the same entity an oxymoron?

In the context “Natalee-hater” is a noun, not a verb. Of course the paradox is that this name was invented and applied by exactly those voices so filled with mindless bile and venom.

Wabbi tries so transparently to de-rail and deflect interest in this site, but if she had bothered to look would have found her worldJOURNIER link already referenced here on page 5 and page 7. This is only of interest as a typical example of disruptive HMI Troll tactics.

Addendum 12/02/07

apodixis Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 12:15 pm

In the NH case the simplest explanation is that she went swimming, drowned, and her body washed out to sea.

The foul play theory involves the complication of explaining how a body can be made to completely disappear in such a short time. Arranging for a boat for disposal, elaborate cover-up conspiracies, etc. - The more complicated the circumstances, the more likely that evidence of it will be revealed. Of course anything is possible.

I have quoted this post because it's one of those special ones I mention elsewhere (see Splat! addendum, page 2).

Apodixis has summarised this entire site, and the point distlled in bold needs to be absorbed by HMI supporters.

Fantastic as it may sound, you can't even walk through a room in a few seconds without leaving a trace that can be detected these days - we all leave a trail of DNA-laden shed skin, dandruff, hair, behind us.

Since there is a lack of material evidence in this case HMI soon shifted to asserting that there was evidence but that it has been “lost” as part of a cover-up. This pathway has led to Deech, for example, asserting that the cover-up extends to the United States and by implication the FBI. Deech doesn't explain why the FBI would want to risk being part of such a cover-up.

“You can't prove a negative”, so J2K can never meet the burden of proof required of them by HMI, to prove they didn't harm Natalee. In fact the entire case against J2K rests on Beth Twitty's intuition as a mother.

The facts of the cellphone calls and keycard swipes represent a few points of light in a field of black, but as more points of light appear we can start to make out the shape of an object against this background.

Lee Broughton's statement to the FBI made only the following day makes it clear that she went to bed between 0300 and 0400 that morning, in contradiction to “directly to bed” as she claimed in TV interview. The more that is said, the more we see by default what is not being said.

Lee's statement now confirms what I deduced from the keyswipes, that at least one of Natalee's roommates was out-and-about at the time she vanished, and not innocently tucked up in bed as claimed.

I may have named the wrong one on page 13, but the keycard deduction I orginally posted to RWV is now confirmed by Lee's statement. I'm now willing to bet that Ruth McVey's FBI statement will contain a similar admission, that both were still out partying.

But even before it does, Lee's statement already highlights the information vacuume around the MB'ers during the critical hours. As a statement it is notable for what was not asked, the lack of detail about movements over the critical time.

Despite the establishment of a unified front early in the case, now known as “HMI”, a raft of photos appeared that gave lie to Beth's angelic version of Natalee. The source is very unlikely to be Beth herself, and given the content of the pictures (page 5) it's most likely one of Natalee's peers. And the subjects of those photos will know who was behind the camera.

So there is at least one person, a young MB'er, who wants the truth to come out. And having already leaked once Mountain Brook will leak again. It may not solve the case but we will eventually find out what Natalee's friends aren't talking about. It's only a matter of when.

So we come back to Apodixis' point - the more complicated the circumstances, the more likely that evidence of it will be revealed. This is a two-edged banana that cuts equally for Beth and the MB'ers as it does for J2K.

And it also means that a simple scenario such as drowning alone by accident is unlikely to have left any significant evidence to find. Swipe cards are generally serialised, and sink; so if she was carrying one that night this may be the only thing left to mark Natalee's final resting place.

For some reason Wabbi's red-herring tactics are particularly obtrusive in this thread. I can't say if it's because the thread relates to this site; or because Apodixis keeps wrenching it back to heel by topping posts with;

One of the more interesting things about the website which is the topic of this thread ( http://blah ) is . . .

...(but I applaud it as a counter-measure ;) or because Wabbi is getting particularly off-topic, but I'll take it as a back-handed compliment.

For the record, herewith we have an HMI “troll” at work.

WordsofWisdom and Heli are discussing “The more complicated the circumstances...” and Wabbi interjects the following (quote stack removed);

iwabwu Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 2:46 pm

Why does it have to involve half the island of Aruba? Was the van der Sloot compund fully searched? Was the stone and cement work done around the pool fully investigated? Who installed that patio?

From what I recall reading, it was installed within the days after Natalee's disappearance. It was installed just days before the limited search of Joran's living space. It could be as simple as Natalee being buried under the stone and cement. JMHO

Was ground penetrating radar used to rule out the patio? Who installed that patio? When? When was the order placed? The uncommon troll!

“... and amid the sometimes insightful and occasionally amusing commentary are a significant number of contributions in contention for the totally-missed-the-point, ... award.” - Dr Leslie Cannold (ibid page 13)

Spin alarm: “the limited search of Joran's living space” is a misrepresentation. The search of the vdS property was limited - to a full search of Joran's detached flat, or living space; something Wabbi is well aware.

[I keep reading patio as “piano” - possibly because it makes more sense. So, did they search the piano?]

The short answer is to see Was Aruba properly searched? page 8.

But the basic point here is that any form of landward disposal would leave traces.

The other logical objection is the assumption of stupidity. Paulis is at least smart enough to be a Judge in training, Joran we understand is an A student, Deepak runs a webshop. Whatever else Wabbi's question implies (i.e the HMI cant of a huge conspiracy and cover-up, drugged-rape-pornvids-Paulis-purées-pussy-in-the-well), we cannot safely assume the boggling stupidity that would be required.

Faced with disposing of a body, a 25 mile long tourist island with constant development (digging), and an endless sea with a known strong current, what are you going to do? Cold and calculating, or in a flap and panic, do you start digging a hole, or do you throw your problem in the sea? Burial is a novel idea - straight out of a novel.

There are a number of ways of “viewing” under the ground.

Ground resistance - an ohm-meter used to measure the resistance of the ground between the points of a grid, say 1m sq, then plotted to form a resistance membrane that shows anomalies such as historic foundations, graves, and even earth disturbed many years before.

Metal detector - this can be useful if the body still has metalic objects associated, purse clip, money, rings, earrings, necklace, belt buckles, bra fittings. Not all of these things represent good targets.

Proton magnetometer - simpler than it sounds, measures the magnetic field above the search area, works somewhat like a metal detector but will show up discontinuities from old excavations or foundations, and burial grounds. Not very accurate but covers a large area quickly.

Imaging - various optical imaging techniques, mainly Infra-red thermography which shows up something like a grave as a different temperature, not because of body decay heat, but because disturbed earth has a different thermal conductivity to the surrounding compacted earth. In this context this is one of the things I assume the air force fly-overs did.

Teraherz radar - is the other. This is your actual “ground radar”. It is very accurate at short range, that is on the ground, but similar to optical when airborn. Will produce a return from just about anything, but may be subject to blinding in highly conductive soil.

The ground resistance (a.k.a. ground conductivity) survey is so simple and cheap even a trained monkee could do it. It would only take a couple of days to do a wide survey around the Fisherman's Huts and I'm sure ALE did something similar.

What depresses me are 100 pre-Dawinian monkeys with keyboards who's only exercise is jumping up and down on the spot. Even the ones that actually managed to get themselves to their “crime” scene wasted their whole time chasing their own red-herrings. In this case the assumption of stupidity is well-founded.

Researcher's Trade Secret; stick “Natalee Holloway” (with quotes) into Google Images, and browse. Between a zillion idential shots of Natalee you will find various scans of documents, off-Broadway news and blog items, and even shots of search dogs. One of these was a US volunteer with a certified cadaver dog (i.e. dead-body specific, not drugs)with a link to a web site with a satisfactory write up of the dog and it's cases.

I'd like to think that the Wabbi/HMI fishmarket is because there is something I've touched on in these pages that HMI particularly wants kept dark, the “this” in “if this gets out we all go down”. Or it could be just contrarian. (Irregardless, Wabbi should look up “Malaprop”).

The key (in my not-so-humble opinion), is still the events of that morning. The critical part starts with the departure from C&C's, and ends with the room search at 8am. This includes the cell calls and net log-ins, and the room keycard swipes. Most of what follows is the fog of war - and Beth's driving at “110 miles an hour” (VF ibid) was only the first of many warning signs.

These digital traces carry special meaning for a tech; they are hard to expunge and even harder to Skeeterise. When “xxx” on RWV introduces a fifth card as a non-explanation it seems HMI has no developed answer for these swipes.

Contrary views now have the burden of not only producing compelling material counter-evidence (such as a time-stamped security video showing Joran elsewhere), but also have to explain why the cellcall evidence is not as it appears. This applies particularly to “never at the beach”, “buried in the compound”, and “didn't walk home”.


Note the still unexplained key activity at 0322 and 0336.

Critical Path Method timeline

One hour for the perfect crime?
(see page 7 for key and discussion)

Addendum 20/2/07

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it think.

all10suspects Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 12:42 pm

Natalee gets back to the hotel at 1:26am to use key swip.
Natalee is seen on video at 2:38am and 3:10am.
Natalee uses key again at 3:22am and 3:26am.

But the 1:26am amd 2:38am does not match what Joran has said.
So is it Natalee all of those times?
If so the question then becomes what happen to Natalee at after 3:26am?

It isn't Natalee any of those times, so the following questions becomes redundant.

All10suspects is another of those posters bending over backwards to find some way of blaming Joran for Natalee's disappearance. I can only suppose that recognising the following would lead to a painful collapse of a carefully built house of cards.

Put simply, 1.26am is about the same time Natalee is yelling “Woo Woo Aruba!” outside C&C's, some miles away.

This should make it crystal clear that Natalee was not holding “Natalee's” room keycard that night.

Of course the real point that HMI won't face up to is that until the leaking of Lee Broughton's FBI statement (302) none of the girls had admitted to coming and going around 3am.

Lee's statement at least partially validates my logic posted here, at Hyscience, and RWV - one of her roommates (at least) was lying about going to bed after C&C's. Lee's FBI statement made the next day clearly shows that she was lying in her America's Most Wanted interview about going directly to bed.

Since HMI has made such a song and dance that Joran not telling the truth makes him guilty, they now have the problem that Natalee's closest friends and roommates are now tarred with exactly the same brush.

The most obvious reason for them lying about being out and about is that they know more of what happened to Natalee than they are saying - that they know Natalee was still okay after she parted with Joran.

Cell phone location

All10suspects:
Make me think Natalee was never at the beach!

[elsewhere]
Do we have any proof that Joran and Natalee were at the beach or are we just going to beleive the words of suspects?

In psychology, the principle of cognitive dissonance states that when people are absorbing new information conflicting with what they already know, they integrate it into pre-existing attitudes and beliefs.
http://www.berkeley.edu/

Since a number of people still express similar doubts, and it is a very significant point, it is worthwhile going into some detail about how we know where Joran made his calls from.

We may not know where Joran's shoes were, but we do know where Joran's cell-phone was when the 2.40am call was placed, and that is quite consistant with him calling Deepak from the Fisherman's Huts. It is a fair assumption that it was Joran using it, and that Natalee was nearby.

Moreover the timing and position of his three calls to Deepak that morning are difficult to reconsile with anything other than he walked home. An obdurate “I don't buy that” is no longer a sufficient response.

Many of the comments relating to the cellphone location talk of “triangulation”, some even assume positioning is by raw signal strength, and is therefore allows a wide interpretation.

This is not correct, and to understand why we need to understand a bit about how cellphone technology works.

One major problem that had to be solved was callers moving from cell to cell during a call, and how the system hands-off calls from one cell to another seamlessly without dropouts.

To do this each cell has to have a method of knowing where each phone is within the cell, and this is done using a time of arrival (ToA) or hyperbolic system.

Radio waves travel at the speed of light, 300,000Km/sec or 300m per microsecond. In fact timing to one tenth of that (100 nanoseconds) giving an error of less than 100 feet has been trivial for at least the last three decades.

Long before cellphones a number of navigation systems used time-of-arrival of signals to provide location information (strictly the difference in ToA). The earliest, dating from c.1940, was the British Gee system, followed by the very popular LORAN (A, B and C), then Decca, and the last before GPS was Omega. These are generically known as hyperbolic systems because the locus of constant time difference between two points is a hyperbola.

GSM localization - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM_localization
Multilateration - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilateration
GSM only, no GPS required - http://www.world-tracker.com/products/lbs/
Cell phone forensics - http://insidedateline.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/01/23/39096.aspx

Please note carefully that this is not a GPS feature. The latest phones equipped with GPS can be located to about 10 feet, depending on local conditions.

It needs to be clearly understood that the cell phone system stores information (by law in the US and Europe) that allows the position of a handset to be determined with a typical error of between 50 and 200 metres.

Where micro-cells are used for shadow fill in, such as around buildings like the Palm Beach high-rises, a typical circle of uncertainty is around 100 feet.

The is more than good enough to tell the difference between the front door of the HI and the Fisherman's Huts.

The mystery fishermen may not have seen Joran and Natalee, but the cell phone system could clearly see Joran's cellphone. It supports his story that he was at the Huts, but it also contradicts his story about being driven home (unless he was driven at walking speed).

Once the facts above are understood those who suggest scenarios that don't inculde Joran being at Palm Beach at 2:40am have the additional burden of showing why these three cell calls give a false picture of Joran's movements.

While we must remain open to alternative scenarios, armed with this understanding we can safely dismiss any proposed scenario that fails to deal with these cellphone position records.

Apparently ScubaJap either lives on Aruba or has an intimate knowledge of the island and has therefore been a valuable source of information throughout this case.

ScubaJap Posted: Sun Aug 6th, 2006 12:11 am
Obviously a Harry Tho fan.

Several posters have made similar remarks, so I must accept that I have given that impression, and now is as good a time as any to correct it.

I am not a fan of Harry Tho (Hyscience), particularly since he once called this a “pro-HMI” site (huh?) when I discovered HMI dirty cyber games (page 4a). But I do try to give credit where it is due.

Harry did post a drowning scenario some time before this work was posted, however I did not encounter his theory until this work was nearing completion and I had already come to a similar conclusion.

I have to observe that Harry has advanced so many different theories he has bought almost all the tickets in the lottery, so he is certain to be at least partially right whatever the truth turns out to be.

While I give Harry credit, my personal opinion of Hyscience is that it reflects the ravings of an intellegent but deranged Islamophobe and rabid Right-Wing ratbag. Despite that his many thoughtful musings on this case are among the minority worth reading.

[Ratbag (Aussie slang) a person with eccentric or nonconforming ideas or behaviour - Macquarie Dictionary.]

By contrast, I have nailed my colours to the mast with my accidental drowning theory and I am willing to stand or fall by that.

Concerning beach conditions and drifting out.

lila Posted: Tue Dec 12th, 2006 09:44 am

It is very shallow in that area. This person went crazy trying to analyze the conditions.

Freedom of Blog

I was actually crazy long before Natalee Holloway went for a last swim. ;))

medleyrelay wrote:

It was said to me that it would be 50 50 that a body would come back to the shore and i guess I am willing to say that 50% she went out to see never to return.

Freedom of Blog

If you fell in just upstream of Niagra Falls there would be little doubt what happened to you.

In this case the so-called “dummy tests” have been presented as just as certain and definitive, but they aren't - there is a considerable degree of chance (page 8).

If the tests were conducted during that time the downstream vortex was still attached to the coast then anything entrained would circulate with it, returning to the beach.

But anything entrained during the shedding phase would be carried off to the west, albeit in a cycloid track, and not returned to shore.

Salinity

You can't win 'em all Dept.

Splat Posted: Sat May 27, 2006 5:34 pm to Scrux
...
2. The problem is the unusual high salt content and buoyancy
...
The salt and buoyancy even with a couple liters of water in the lungs would not allow for sinking.

Firstly, I specifically call into question the assertion that the sea around Aruba is significantly more saline than the ocean generally.


Source: http://www.windows.ucar.edu/

Secondly, I call into question the implication that drowning is less likely in more saline waters.

I have personal experience swimming in Lake Eyre when the water was three-times more saline than seawater, and later when it was about five times more saline. There is a very obvious difference in the ability to float, but the body still tends to roll over face-down without constant compensation.

Thirdly, the constant string of tragic ferry sinkings around Indonesia demonstrate that people who drown in seawater, sink. This is in contrast to people who are already dead, and therefore not breathing, before they hit the water and tend to float face down. This is typical of air disasters such as the Iranian Airbus shoot-down where the aircraft breaks up before hitting the water. Lungs full of air, or water, makes all the difference.

Lastly, even a floating body will quickly lose boyancy once attacked by fish, such as barracouda, that are common around Aruba.

(Splat)
If she did drown she didn't submerge and recollection is they started search the water 3 or 4 days afterwards. Depending on how fast “it” floated out to diluted waters, the chances are she'd have been sighted on the surface if this in fact did happen at all. [my emph.]
Scrux

“...the chances are...” Really?

Okay, let's make some conservative assumptions.

  1. She is in a life raft.
  2. The current is only 3 knots (normally given as 5).
  3. The search started only 3 days later.
  4. Only a 45 degree search segment.

3 days by 24 hours by 3 knots equals 200-odd miles radius.

Conservatively that's a search area of more than 8,000 square miles.

In fact “the chances are” practically speaking nil even given this set of unrealistically conservative assumptions.

On more realistic assumptions the search segment would be almost 500 miles long and almost 50,000 square miles of ocean.

Only last week [20/2/07] the up-turned canoe of an adventurer attempting to paddle across the Tasman was spotted by a passing ship. Despite his wearing a bright orange flotation suit the air search for his body was abandoned after three days. You will note from the map above that the salinity in the Tasman is the same as around Aruba.

Right of Reply

Addendum: 24/3/07

Recently I visited a blog by an “ex-naval Commander” who reviewed this work as “prejudiced” - this from someone who has already found Joran and the Kalpoe's guilty of the gang rape and murder of Natalee, “we know they did” he simply asserts.

I can only say that I find the willingness of otherwise of apparently intelligent and responsible people, such as the Commander, to suspend their critical faculties when it comes to the media, disappointing and worrying - I can't help remembering babies tipped out of humidcribs, WMD's, and Nurse Cavel. This work as a whole demonstrates that the known facts do not support that construction, but you can't argue with bullshit and I don't intend to.

In contrast, it was Splat's encapsulation of the initial lies by J2K posted on Scrux - that they were unplanned and showed no sign of anticipation, but rather were a reaction to unfolding events (page 2, addendum) - which is consistant with and supported by the apparent normality and lack of trauma, or opportunity for body disposal, the following day.

Whatever else, apparently not being totally open and telling the whole truth from the first police interview will leave a lifelong stain on Joran and the Kalpoe brothers, and it has got them into an incredible mess of trouble.

But in honesty the same also has to be said for Beth Holloway Twitty and the entire Alabama crew including tripmates and so-called “chaparones” who have been a lot less than forthright themselves - it's been the proverbial three-ring circus, an unrestrained slander-fest, with all manner of shadowy figures in the mix, an alphabet soup of government departments and carpetbaggers.

Me? I'm just an ambulance-chaser who would like to be reincarnated as B.B King, or failing that an air-accident investigator, but who has had to be content with industrial accidents and disasters, and studying hundreds of all types in detail.

initial phase, Coode Island bulk chemical storage fire, Port of Melbourne 21/22 Aug 1991
Details: HAZMAG

Be that as it may, the circus continues to be a distraction from the primary question of “what happened to Natalee?”

The answer can only be found by concentrating our attention on the actual scene and events around the Hut's (as marked by Joran's 2:40am cellphone call). The “fog of war” decended on Aruba with the arrival of the Fab-7 in the McWain private jet (see Flight of Fantasy, page 15).

At this point we have particularly identified three MB tripmates who may be either eye or material witnesses to Natalee's disposition, what really happened on idyllic Palm Beach in the small hours of that morning;

The answers may lie in Mountain Brook, but the key is currently the room card swipes - they stubbornly persist in refusing to conform to the statements. (Tripmates timeline, page 15)

Sink or Float?

Splat isn't convinced by my points above and has presented some thoughtful points on Freedom of Blog that are worth discussing.

(Splat wrote...)
Okay. I must argue against his saline sink/float analysis: [page14.htm]

1. Aruba does have a higher than usual salt water content. This is normal for hot regions with little rain, dry and high winds allows for evaporation. One of the reason of raising ostriches and exporting mined salt from salt ponds.

2. Proper maps confirm this:

large: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wiki_plot_04.png
larger: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Wiki_plot_04.png

[Extract]
Extract of larger map, above

You'll note the top of SA is in the yellow. Which is almost half way between 36 PSU and 37 PSU and above the average of 35 PSU. A side: Indonesia as remarkably low salt content which probably explains why they do drop and sink from the ferries almost immediately.

3. Practical testing in Aruba's waters as already discussed requires zero effort to maintain buoyancy. To the point exhalation still maintains buoyancy (that you can try at home in your pool).

4. As to the search rate analysis. Without the actual data handy where dilution takes place, width of the actual current, we should still be able to chart a course if the body is caught in the current and moving in one direction. Not search an 'in any direction' wide surface area.

Response

The short answer is that the body of the boy who drowned at Eagle Beach the previous year has never been found.

The Wiki salinity map that Splat links are valuable because it is much more detailed than the NOAA map reproduced above (see detail).

Of particular note are the points to the west of Aruba where the Orinoco (blue) and Amazon rivers (violet) enter the ocean. These maps give an indication of the north-westerly flow of the current (towards Aruba) by the plumes of less saline water mixing into it.

Some of us are fortunate enough to live where we have the choice of swimming in the placid local fresh-water river, or enjoying the energy of the surf and salt of the sea. There is certainly a noticable difference in boyancy.

However, while it is generally accepted that it is somewhat easier to drown in fresh water than saline people still manage to drown in salt water. In the more detailed view we can see that the range of salinity between the east coast of Australia, the north coast of Indonesia (where most of the tragic ferry sinkings mentioned continue to occur with the loss of hundreds of lives each time), and Aruba is small, only 34 to 36.5 PSU.

I mention above swimming in Lake Eyre in water several times more saline than the sea, and specifically testing if truly effortless, e.g. unconscious, floating was possible. The problem we found was not lack of boyancy, but rolling face-down.

Another significant factor is personal boyancy. The average human body is around boyancy-neutral, but bathers know that either side of this average people divide into “sinkies” and “floaties”.

The body is mainly made up of bone that sinks and fat that floats. It is this ratio that determines if you are a sinkie or floatie. For her height and weight Natalee could be fairly called “thin”, and therefore down the sinkie end of the scale.

Lungs flooded or not is another significant factor that could tip the scales either way. If she drowned in a conscious struggle it is likely her lungs would be flooded, but if she simply lost consciousness she may not have initially asperated water.

My own feeling is that she floated for some period, then for various reasons given above, sank.

At this point we need to look at the revised Beach Conditions (page 8)

In my model there is a mild drift current along Palm Beach towards the northern tip of Aruba, together with a moderate 15mph breeze blowing seaward away from the beach.

Let us place ourselves in the water, about 100 meters off the Hut's, just off the edge of the shelf beach and now out of our depth.

In the distance to the right are the lights of the hotel strip, directly ahead and upwind is the half moon risen above the dark dunes, to the left a few distant lights of Westpunt across the salt pond, and finally the California lighthouse.

Attempting to swim back towards the hotel lights means swimming against both wind and current and takes longer to get back to shallow water, while the smart thing to do is to strike out across the current drift, directly into the wind, towards the moon and dark dunes area; in this case the direct path back to shallow water and the beach.

Now - remember that you have been drinking rum and vodka pretty solidly for the last few days, and maybe a line or two of ego-boost powder for good measure.

Even in the assumed light drift current at this point you are at serious risk and the clock is ticking down against you to a point of no-return. Joran has departed, the moon is illuminating the scene from behind any observer making you harder to see, and your frantic cries for help are being carried away to seaward by the breeze and getting no obvious response from the beach.

If you don't get yourself out of this situation fairly quickly you are going to find yourself waving bye bye to the lighthouse to your east before dawn.

With the initial assumptions above the likely track passes along the line of shipwrecks and over the Arashi Underwater Park in a north-westerly arc. These areas are frequented by divers and are my last hope for the discovery of Natalee's remains. After this we might expect the track to follow a cycloid to the west-nor-west in a shed eddy (page 8) hence the need for a wide search segment.

But really, this conjecture is into a crystal ball darkly; her body could have sunk anywhere from just off the beach to many miles west-nor-west of Aruba, in any case quickly becoming part of the food chain.

Call me morbid or romantic, but I think that becoming part of a colourful living tropical reef is a more fitting resting place for a girl who loved the Wizard of Oz, than any dank graveyard.

Search

As to Splat's point 4; salinity and dilution have nothing to do with the rapid geometric expansion of the required search area in the hours following Natalee's disappearence - assuming a life raft so we can eliminate sinking or getting eaten as variables.

Even assuming she (or her inert body) would stay afloat, there are degrees of uncertainty about the precise speed, direction, and duration of drift that would already have expanded to a significant search area by daylight that morning. New Scientist has just reported a finding from the Great Rubber Duck Spill that some of the 12,000 ducks had drifted at rates double that of the currents they were in.

We need to understand that even for the highly experienced observers of a fully SAR-equipped Orion finding a single person or body is a daunting task, the moreso when the body is dressed in the colours Natalee was that night, blues and greens. No smoke flare, no orange dye marker or mirror, no sparkling tiara, perhaps only her room keycard if she was quick-thinking enough and still able.

The areas quoted above are not “in any direction” but for a very reasonable eighth-circle 45 degree segment centered down-current from Aruba. The assumptions quoted above are actually quite conservative, yet still illustrate the problem of rapidly growing potential search area against time.

You can certainly limit the search area by increasing the risk of missing the target, and for the first few days at least the search seems to have been confined to Aruba itself.

This constraint flowed almost entirely from the initial assumptions of the Alabama crew, firstly that she had absconded, then kidnapped; but was still on Aruba. There is plenty of mention of searching Chollar houses and other island sites, but I can find no sign that any consideration at all was given to her having gone into the sea, other than to search boats.

But whatever J2K said, front door or beach, half of the potential search circle, the half we call “sea”, was effectively ignored until it was far too late.

Apart from the McWain jet itself, the Alabama crew had ample means and opportunity to charter light aircraft and commence a sea search at first light the following day.

They instead opted for the DIY “family investigation” which is now an object lesson in how not to go about it.

If they had commenced a properly organised search centered on Natalee's room that included the sea, based on J2K's “front door” lie, it would have made no significant difference at all to centering it on the Hut's.

But instead they decided to follow their now obvious pre-conception that Natalee had decamped, absconded, shot-through, eloped, done a runner, was on a bender, and was hiding from them somewhere. This would grow into a fixated delusion that the van der Sloots were hiding her. When they didn't produce her they became psychopaths, rapists and “child” pornographers.

As it was, the Fab-7 took on a task they were not equipped for, and in the process managed to obstruct anybody who was.

Even if Splat is right and she was still alive and afloat, what Natalee needed at 8:30 that morning was a responsible adult whos brain wasn't pickled mush to take Lee Broughton's panic seriously, realise what might have happened and the urgency of the situation, and act accordingly - not a pre-occupation with scandal prevention.

Suicide

New: 26/3/07

lovejust Posted: Sat Mar 24th, 2007 08:38 am [my emph.]

It also does not factor in what IMO is a very possible scenario: that Natalee drowned on purpose. Natalee had several major risk factors for acute depression and increased risk for suicidal behavior. To name some: she was going to have major changes in her life; she was on a drinking binge (I won't factor in the drugs, but I am convinced she used them too); she had 3 suicides[*] in her direct circle the year before.

If Joran ever tells the full converstation of that night I am pretty convinced it will be something like this:

No I don't want to go to the hotel, I don't want to go home.

I don't want to study there, my mother made me. I hate my mother, she is Hitler's sister's daughter. She is a dictator who planned my whole life, I am fed up with it, I rather kill myself.

I think I'm lesbian, but she will never accept that.

No I am NOT going home, stay with me here, I am so sad. Stay, or I'll kill myself.

I'd rather drown than go back, can't you take care of me here?

I know, all pure fantasy, but I think something like that was going on and that was the reason for Satish's “screw her” and for Joran not wanting to go back to get his shoes. I have from very early on believed in the drowning scenario. I have not seen any reliable proof that that was impossible. Personally I also believe that the drowning was intentional.

Freedom of Blog

[* two suicides and a car accident actually (page 1) but the point is still quite valid.]

Elsewhere in this work, and twice on this page above, I have included suicide as a possibility, if only because it can't be eliminated. I have never ruled it out (page 6, page 8).

It is true that I have not given suicide the same consideration as misadventure, and I hope lovejust's post will go some way to correcting that.

My only excuse is that I have been touched by suicide a few times in my life, one of them a teen Natalee's age already making a mark in the local fashion industry and marked for greater things.

Successful suicides are those, almost by definition, that are unexpected.

When I have read the logics advanced in blogs as to why suicide was impossible or can be totally discounted, I can only manage a sad smile at the certititude.

The last risk factor mentioned by lovejust - prior cohort suicide - is well known as a serious risk factor, particularly for teens. One suicide makes the concept real and brings it into the “realms of the possible”. Mention of such a cause of death is one of the few remaining media taboos because it can act as a trigger for imitation.

In Australia at least youth suicide and Clinical Depression have come out of the closet in the past decade, highlighted by the suicide of a well-known business man, the attempted suicide of a Senator, and an ex-Premier of Victoria taking up the issue of Depression leading a number of prominant people from actors to footballers to “come out”.

This is another area where my opinion has changed a lot since first reading the article in Vanity Fair. By the time I wrote the orginal draft of My Script (page 9) I had gained some insight into Beth and could see how Natalee's home environment could have been stressful, Beth controlling and infantalising, hi-jacking her peer friends who she should be having private relationships with, being “one of the girls” while casting Natalee as a four-year-old, Jug coaching and demanding, step siblings, and a second divorce in the air.

The only real reason against suicide is that it requires an extra assumption that accidental drowning does not. But it does provide an explanation as to why Natalee may have propelled herself out far enough to become entrained in the current (and those darned shoes). But does anybody really still think that Satish drove Joran home at four miles per hour? (then see The Dots - times and distances page 7)

If indeed suicide was suspected or even known early on, then the silence from Mountain Brook, the alledged coaching of tripmates, “if this gets out”, some of the spin, and “no-one is to blame” all take on a less sinister context of trying to prevent a suicide cluster occuring among tripmates and associates. It may also explain how Beth got caught up in denial and her misdirected and mindless hounding of Joran and the Kalpoes. Explain perhaps, but not excuse.

Today I consider the scenario outlined above by lovejust to be quite possible and consistant with what we know; and that Joran, Kissle, FEB, and particularly Lee Broughton, may not have actually witnessed the event, but using what they knew and learned quickly surmised what had most likely happened.

Lee alone has mentioned suffering a physical reaction consistant with PTSD on at least two occasions in interview. As her reaction seems the strongest, and she has lied about being out in the area and very likely line-of-sight to the Hut's around 3:20am, so I suspect that she knows the most.

Suicide has to remain a serious consideration because it provides plausable answers to several mysteries without creating others in the process. We can surmise however from the lack of panic until the following morning, it is unlikely anybody present really knows the full story for sure, and therefore we will never know for sure either.

Enflaneration

MoonShadows Posted: Fri Mar 23rd, 2007 03:57 pm

... If there is anyone I'd like to see become a panel commentator for (what I predict will be more Greta segments as we come closer to May 30th), it's HIM!

Greta, Grace, Phil, et al - I'll do it!
(Now where did I put my megaphone and those custard flans? ;)

Timeline

(New: 22/2/07)

Still Missing The Point Dept.

Although we know that the three guys were back at their respective homes from about three onward, no answers have been uncovered to confirm where they went or what they did during the approximately two and a half hours which are unaccounted for by any evidence
http://zqv.com/ramblings/

iwabwu (Wabbi)
There would be plenty of time, if they didn't travel around the island. Were there any witnesses to the journey?

all10suspects
If 50 minutes is not than how about 1 hour and 40 minutes. From the time they leave C&C at 1pm until the 2:40am Joran cell phone.
...
All those people on the beach and know one remebers Joran and Natalee walking on the beach for more than an hour.

Two points.

Firstly those of like mind need to re-read page 7 and absorb the clear implications of the timed cellphone calls and the computer log-ins. At one end we have the departure from C&C's post 0100, at the other Deepak's 0200 login, and even Joran's 0240 cellphone call (zqv, above).

Those who are trying to follow Beth's lead by stretching the available time are doing so by ignoring the travelling time between locations and/or known time markers, and need to revisit page 3. Blank denial is not refutation.

My alternative scenarios on page 9 demonstrates that the limited time available does not rule out a crime, but it does place serious constraints on actions such as burial of a body, even on a sandy beach.

Secondly, absence of proof is not proof of absence. Just because nobody has come forward to say they saw them does not mean they weren't there. That would require someone credible to have see them somewhere else at that time.

In fact we do have a witness who claims to have seen Joran kill Natalee at the lighthouse, CumpaII of the frozen condom. When even the most rabid HMI fanatics would rather forget about these embarrassing claims advanced by Jossy we are again left with a vacuume of about 50 minutes.

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