Natalee Holloway, 18, disappeared on May 30 while vacationing on the island of Aruba with her high school graduating class from Alabama.

Her father, Dave Holloway, is an insurance agent who lives in Meridian with his wife, Robin, and their family. As the one-year anniversary of Natalee’s disappearance nears, he spoke to The Meridian Star Editorial Board about the search for his daughter and the Aruban investigation, which has led nowhere.

Holloway and his former wife, Natalee’s mother, Beth Twitty, have filed a civil lawsuit against the family of Dutch national Joran Van der Sloot, considered a prime suspect in Natalee’s disappearance.

Holloway also wrote a book, published in April, called Aruba: The Tragic Untold Story of Natalee Holloway and Corruption in Paradise, which chronicles the disappearance and his concerns over what he sees as a mismanaged investigation.

He hasn’t been in Aruba since October, but he still brings attention to Natalee’s case. He recently returned from Texas, where he participated in a golf tournament to raise funds for Texas EquuSearch, a search and recovery team for missing persons who helped in the Holloway search.

“They had to have a fund-raiser and asked me to attend. I’m the kind of person, if they help me, I’m going to help them. We raised $15,000 to $20,000,” Holloway said.

He also said Natalee’s case will be featured on the television show “America’s Most Wanted” on June 7 and that an ocean search may be carried out next month in Aruba.



The Meridian Star: What are your thoughts as we approach the anniversary of Natalee’s disappearance?

Dave Holloway: A lot of people have asked me about that — what am I going to do? It’s not going to be a celebration, obviously, for me. We’re just going to spend time with family and that’s it. It’s just another day for us.

A lot of people have asked us if we are going to have a candlelight vigil or a prayer service. The answer is no because we started a lot of those, even in Aruba, prayer vigils and candlelight services — and every time it would turn into a makeshift memorial service. Everyone had good intentions, but before it would be over with, everybody got emotional and tearful. It was just one of those deals where to me it felt like a funeral.



The Star: What has sustained you through this year?

Holloway: When I got that phone call late Monday afternoon from my son who relayed the message that Natalee missed the flight in Aruba and her Mom was on her way to Aruba, I immediately tried to get some information.

I tried to call the hotel to find out what was going on because it was late in the afternoon and obviously all the students had already left the island and none of the chaperones were still there, so it was hard to find out anything. So I went ahead and booked a flight to fly out of Meridian the next morning. I asked my son to keep me posted on what was going on.

As we gathered more details, unbeknownst to me, one of the chaperones called Delta Airlines and rebooked the ticket for the following day out. So in calling airlines and all this kind of stuff, I found out her ticket had been rebooked. So in calling back and forth we thought, “Did Natalee do it? Was all of this a mistake?” He was kind of optimistic that was what happened, so I canceled the morning out.

The next morning I started calling again and found out it was a chaperone who rebooked the ticket out. I knew then it was bad for us.

So we had to start over and rebook the tickets. We couldn’t get out until the next morning. My pastor called, so to answer your question, he was out of town but we had prayer over the phone and the last thing I remember was “God help David’s family get through this situation.”

I hung on that. I still do. Every day I still remember that time I had prayer with my pastor before I left. That’s what’s gotten us through it, keeping an optimistic approach about it — that we’ll either find her or we’ll find out what happened.



The Star: When did it appear this would lead to a homicide investigation?

Holloway: At some point into this investigation, as time goes on and you don’t find her, you start realizing that things are not looking good. We got that confirmation pretty much from the FBI on June 10. They came to us and said the investigation appears to be heading toward a homicide case.

Then you get into this roller coaster ride that we’ve been on. The FBI comes to you on a Friday night, and you go through that process through the weekend and meet with the Arubans — and the spokesperson with the Aruban police denied that it was a homicide investigation. He was optimistic we were going to find Natalee alive so, now you get your hopes up.

They continued the approach that they are investigating this from a disappearance standpoint all the way up until probably October. They finally admitted that this is a homicide case.

You can imagine your feelings. Is she alive, not alive? Then you look at the investigation and all the red flags I brought up in this book and you still, deep down, have to wonder are they right or wrong or what?



The Star: What made you decide to write the book?

Holloway: I started keeping notes within about a week to 10 days because one person would say one thing and somebody else would say another. Somebody would say something and then turn around and deny saying it.

So I started taking notes on who we talked to and what they said and where the investigation was headed. Every day I kept a journal of who said what and what was going on.

Beth kept notes as well. I decided I better keep notes, too, because things weren’t working the way I thought they should work. It seemed like they were always trying to close the investigation.

I saw when they released these kids back in September they were ready for this case to be closed. I mention in the book, with all these red flags, a conversation with the lead detective who pretty much wanted to close the case down and say it’s over with, get back to tourism.

In my opinion, they thought more about tourism than they thought about Natalee’s case. In fact, they didn’t want it to tarnish their image of tourism — one happy island, no crime and everybody going their own way.

While I was down there I ran into a number of people who were journalists who were writing information. In fact, two or three people approached me to start writing a book now. I said no.

It finally got down to a situation where we saw a bunch of stuff placed on the Internet. It got down to the point where it was, “We’re going to put something together — if it’s going to be with you or without you.”

Then it got down to issues of doing it to further the investigation, doing it to document what’s happened if they close the investigation. I don’t want the money. We use the money to further the investigation on locating Natalee and whatever we’ve got left over, we’ll give it to charity.

I had a lot of people here in Meridian help me out. I want to turn around and help someone else.



The Star: Are you convinced this is a case of corruption rather than incompetence or a combination of the two?

Holloway: I think it’s a combination of both. Aruban police officers have told some of our people that they don’t know who to trust in the police department. That’s serious. A lot of weird things or strange things have happened. Even a Dutch law professor in Holland looked at this case and made the comment, just recently back in April, that this was one of the most strange and unprofessional police investigations he’d ever seen.



The Star: Do you have a sense if the travel boycotts to Aruba suggested by some states (Alabama, Arkansas and Georgia) have had any impact on the tourism?

Holloway: For the most part I think people can look at the case and make up their own mind whether or not they want to go down there and support the economy. I’ve heard tourism is down about 15 percent. So it’s had an impact.

If this had happened in a country that didn’t rely on the U.S. dollar, you would have never heard anything more about this.



The Star: Do you have any hope that there will be a serious investigation of the police in Aruba?

Holloway: We’ve asked certain people be replaced, especially the lead detective.

If you look back at some of the people who have been the spokesperson for Aruba, they’ve gone through probably five or six people who were spokespersons for the island. What happens is the American news media asks them questions and they get defensive and want to defend a position that’s indefensible — and they end up making themselves look bad.

I remember one comment as we were trying to search the landfill and we were trying to get some cooperation from individuals on renting some equipment.

One of the spokespersons said “Well it’s not like we have a bulldozer sitting on the back of the White House lawn” or whatever. He just got irritated and lost his cool. It wasn’t a good statement to make.

You’ve got two players here. The police and the prosecution who are trying to move the case forward, and you’ve got the suspect and their attorneys who are trying to counteract the investigation in my opinion. And you’ve got a small island; there are probably more people in Lauderdale County than in that whole country.



The Star: What is happening now to keep the focus on Natalee?

Holloway: “America’s Most Wanted” is going to air two weeks from now. On June the 7th that will air. We still might get up a final ocean search. That was initially the plan for two weeks ago. The expense at this point in time has kind of delayed that, so I think it will happen probably within the next month.

And then this lawsuit, I’m sure that will bring a lot of attention, whatever the verdict is on that. If it sticks, a lot of things will happen.



The Star: Will you go back to Aruba if there is a final ocean search?

Holloway: No. I was on the island for 75 days. I did all the land searching, searching with helicopters across the island. I did all I could do as far as land searching. The ocean search I leave to somebody else.

Plus, I just have a felling there are some folks down there who would like to retaliate against me over the book. I don’t hold any punches so to speak. I kind of soften some things up. I know that one of the police officers down there was upset with me for pushing this case forward and quoting him on some things he told me.



The Star: Talk about your community, Meridian, and its response to your ordeal.

Holloway: It’s been an overwhelming response. I couldn’t believe it. The whole community rallied. I was gone and seeing the signs and posters overwhelmed me when I got back. Church members mowed the grass. Some of my former agents helped out in the office. A number of things occurred that made you feel good that you are from a small town where everybody cares about you and helps you.