The search for Natalee Holloway

Less than 12 hours after her daughter Natalee was reported missing, Beth Holloway Twitty's plane touched down in Aruba.

She was joined by her then-husband Jug and a few friends from home, and the group wasted no time tracking down clues about what had happened to Natalee.

Their first stop: the Holiday Inn -- where Natalee had stayed --- and where they began asking questions about that Dutch tourist named Joran.

He was the same young man who'd been seen with Natalee at the hotel's casino, and later, at Carlos ‘n Charlie’s.

Beth Holloway: So, all I did was give this little bit of information to the nighttime manager and she knew instantly who he was.

Chris Hansen: And who was he?

Beth Holloway: She said, "Oh, that's Joran Van der Sloot and he's -- 17. No, he's a local here. No, he hangs out here.

Now that they knew his full name Beth wanted to put a face on it.

She asked to see the casino security videotape.

And as she watched it play, she was on the phone with her step-nephew, who had been on the trip, and had sat next to Joran in the casino the night before.

Beth Holloway: Then he guided us. He said “Now he's seated to my left."And then we're able to see what he looked like. And then as we were coming from the video surveillance room down the stairs, we almost collided with the-- two of the Aruba handlers because they were coming up at the same time. And they were like, "We've got the car. And we've got the address."

Joran Van der Sloot's address.

Minutes later the group from Alabama was arriving at his family's home.

While Beth sat in the car her friends from home grilled Joran, pressing him for details about what happened after he and Natalee left the bar.

Beth Holloway: The words that he uses are sexually explicit and graphically detailed of what he is engaging in. The conduct he's engaging in with Natalee in the backseat of the car.

Chris Hansen: And if I’m one of these guys--

Beth Holloway: Oh, yeah.

Chris Hansen: --that's going to be enough to make me come unhinged.

Beth Holloway: They were-- yeah, that's when--

Chris Hansen: I mean, like grab him by the--

Beth Holloway: You got it.

Chris Hansen: --throat. And say, "look--"

Beth Holloway: You got it.

Chris Hansen: Where is she?

Beth Holloway: ...it was about to just explode.

Video   ‘Sexually explicit and graphically detailed’ Feb. 22: After discovering Natalee Holloway was missing, the teen’s mother and friends confronted Joran van der Sloot. Dateline NBC

By now police had arrived at the house and Paulus van der Sloot, a politically-connected legal official, hovered as police questioned his son, Joran.

And when it came to the key question -- when did Joran last see Natalee -- he said that he and two friends, brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe -- had dropped her off at her hotel around 2 am. End of story.

Beth Holloway: He wanted to go show us where he had dropped her off.

By now at least 20 people had gathered around -- Beth, her husband, their friends, and police -- and they all got in cars and headed back to the Holiday Inn.

At the Holiday Inn, Joran himself showed Beth and the group where he had supposedly left Natalee, right at the hotel's front entrance.

Beth Holloway: So, he spread his arms out. Said, "This is where I dropped her off." and he explained how she got out of the car, and she stumbled. And he said, "She fell and she hit her head."

The group tried to get some rest, and the next morning Beth went to the police station hoping to follow up on what she had learned the night before.

Beth Holloway: And the lead detective, he told me that he would have to have a shave. And he rubbed his cheeks, and his stretched his arms down to his large stomach and said he would have to have his Frosted Flakes first before he could deal with me.

And then, after two hours, he came out and said that he'd changed his mind. That he didn't need to meet with us after all.

The next day -- as Beth continued to follow up leads at bars, the beach, and hotels -- Dave Holloway arrived and says he had his own frustrating encounter with police.

Dave Holloway: He proceeded to tell us that-- and we knew then that the three boys were the last three to be seen with Natalee. And he said, "I’ve taken their statements. And they don't have anything to do with her disappearance."

Chris Hansen: So they had cleared Joran van der Sloot and the other two boys.

Dave Holloway: On June 1.

Chris Hansen: From the get go.

Dave Holloway: He said "A lot of these girls come to the island, they miss their flights. She'll show up in a few days."

Chris Hansen: In a few days.

Dave Holloway: Yeah. Says, "She's probably out just partying. A lot of them will come here and get hooked up with a drug dealer. They'll be under drugs for awhile."

Chris Hansen: How did you respond to that?

Dave Holloway: I said, "that's not my daughter."

Both parents felt nearly paralyzed with fear, but they did keep moving.

The next day Beth was back at the police station and this time the detective had questions for her.

Beth Holloway: He asked me if Natalee ever had a history of seizures or epilepsy? And I said, "No."

Chris Hansen: Did you think that was odd? At the time?

Beth Holloway: No, I just thought, "Why are you asking that?"

Beth Holloway Twitty says she didn't understand the significance of that question at the time and wouldn't for more than two years. But soon after that question was posed to her, there were arrests in the case. Just not who she thought.

A week after Natalee’s disappearance, two Holiday Inn security guards were taken into custody.

Joran van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers reportedly told police the security guards might have known something about what happened after Natalee was dropped off.

Natalee’s mother was horrified. Her own digging at the Holiday Inn left her convinced that Joran's account simply couldn't be true.

Beth Holloway: Well, it made me sick. Made me sick. And the reason why? We knew beyond the shadow of a doubt. At that point, we knew that the boys had totally fabricated this story about what they did with Natalee.

Chris Hansen: Why were you so certain that van der Sloot and the other young men were lying?

Beth Holloway: Because within 72 hours, I viewed the video footage of the interior of the Holiday Inn lobby of how the tourists can enter the lobby. And Natalee never entered the lobby.

The security guards were eventually released.

Video   Why dad can't quit search David Holloway tells Dateline's Chris Hansen how his faith is helping him deal with his daughter Natalee's disappearance. Dateline NBC

And Joran van der Sloot’s story had changed over time. He now claimed he'd left Natalee on the beach, not at the Holiday Inn. Later that month police arrested the Kalpoe brothers and Joran van der Sloot. Beth thought the case was closed.

Beth Holloway: There is not a chance in hell that they will see…

Chris Hansen: ...the light of day?

Beth Holloway: No.

Beth was wrong. To her surprise, a judge ruled that there was not enough evidence to hold the suspects and three months after their arrest, all three were back on the streets.

As the days, then weeks, passed, the Holloways had to face a horrible realization.

No matter how many police officers they talked to, or beaches they combed, it looked like Natalee wasn't coming home alive.

Dave Holloway: I had a gut feeling that-- you know, just, I guess, as a parent, you just have that feeling that she's not here anymore.

Still, they were determined to find her body and bring it home:

Chris Hansen: What would represent justice in this case, for you?

Dave Holloway: Well, my goal has always been to find my daughter. That's been my ultimate goal, from day one.

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