Natalie Holloway

**theworm**[$] · #1 06-10-2005, 10:53 AM

3 Arrested in Missing Teen Case in Aruba

The radio reported this morning that officials in Aruba have hope that she is still alive, and alluded to talk of her being sold into slavery in S. America. I can not find anything about this on the web. What are you hearing?

I think this case is odd. I pray that they find her and that she's ok, but I have a hard time believing that she's alive. I'll be very very happy to be wrong. Aruba is an island - she could have been dumped in the water easily.

Are you hearing things that make hope for her return more likely?

Redlass · #2 06-10-2005, 11:47 AM

There were 124 kids and only 7 chaperones? I guess since they were high school students, it was felt they didn't need many, but man. I wouldn't have wanted to be responsible for 17-18 high school seniors.

I do hope they find her alive and well.

*emeleel* · #3 06-10-2005, 11:50 AM

I've been following it since it's an Alabama story, and I must say I'm quite puzzled by it all. Some of the charges against the men include murder, but nobody has really said they think she's dead. I hope she's alive.

From what I read the other day, Aruba is usually very safe for tourists, which may be why there were only a few chaperones.

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #4 06-10-2005, 11:55 AM

I read about it a while ago but honestly, can't wrap my head around a high school trip to Aruba. I can see an expensive trip to someplace known for cultural/language benefits, but sending high school kids to Aruba is to me akin to sending them to Cancun or Mardi Gras or Club Med.

**theworm**[$] · #5 06-10-2005, 11:57 AM

I'm confused by the conflicting reports. The article says that suspects can be held for 116 days (or something like that) without being charged. So they're holding these men in case there was a murder, but telling the stepfather that they have a lot of hope of finding her alive and the possiblity that she was wisked off the island to S. America. I pray that she's alive, and they don't seem to have any real evidence of murder. I guess in any crime investigation they can't reveal all that they know. I just really hope they find her!

Redlass · #6 06-10-2005, 12:02 PM

Quote:

mjfrombuffalo said

I read about it a while ago but honestly, can't wrap my head around a high school trip to Aruba. I can see an expensive trip to someplace known for cultural/language benefits, but sending high school kids to Aruba is to me akin to sending them to Cancun or Mardi Gras or Club Med.

Between my junior and senior year in high school we went to St. Lucia. But it was a mission trip taken with the church. My husband teased me about it when we were seniors saying it was suspect going to a vacation hotspot, but we really did work hard while we were there and only had a few days that were pure vacation.

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #7 06-10-2005, 12:08 PM

In Jr. High we went to Quebec City as a trip for French class. In college we went to Florida to view Hailey's Comet (not visible very much up north) and stopped at Disney World and NASA en route. But to me sending high school KIDS to a tropical/resort island for fun is a) expensive and b) silly - let them go later when they're more mature and don't need chaperones, etc. After you've given a kid a trip to ARUBA for high school, what will you give for college - a trip to the moon?!

mj the curmudgeon

**lynnzop**[$] · #8 06-10-2005, 12:14 PM

The trip was for the graduates - heck, we took Bree's spanish club to Mexico City and Acapulco when she graduated, and I don't know much about the school Natalee went to, but I would have to assume it's fairly affluent.

Aruba is well known for it's low rate of violence and crime. This is unprecedented for them. I sincerely hope she is alive and being held somewhere and will be safely found and returned to her family, but the outlook is fairly bleak. I think it's commendable that the island gave time off to employees to help search, and speaks to their committment to maintain a safe environment.

**theworm**[$] · #9 06-10-2005, 12:19 PM

Whether or not its appropriate for high school kids to go on this sort of trip isn't really the issue. They went, and most of them are fine and had a great time.
What happened to Natalie? This really is a mystery because what I hear more and more lately is that there is higher hope for her being alive. I haven't heard of them extending the search to other places, though. This must be so unbearable for her family and friends.

*emeleel* · #10 06-10-2005, 12:55 PM

These kids are from Mountain Brook, which is a very high-standard-of-living area in Birmingham. They've all got beaucoups of money and I'm sure a trip to Aruba is par for the course for them.

realtraveller · #11 06-10-2005, 01:03 PM

What happened to this girl can only be speculation but you know as surely as the sun rises in the east that if (when) she is found dead, the finger pointing will start. The school will be blamed and probably sued for not requiring stricter chaperoning.

My sister chaperoned a school sponsored trip with the school orchestra to Vienna for an orchestra competition. The group also went to some other European cities after the performance. The rules were strict. Chaperones had to check beds to make sure that the kids were in them by 10 or 11 pm. No drinking was tolerated or they'd be sent home.

**MrsNormanMaine**[$] · #12 06-10-2005, 02:33 PM

This was not a school sponsored trip. This was a post graduation trip, put together by parents, as a congratulatory offering. Mountain Brook High is the high school for an extremely affluent suburb of Birmingham (don't even think of finding a house there for under $350K and many are upwards of $1M). It's very much a subculture of conspicuous consumption and outdoing the neighbors. These are the kids of privlege who have been rewarded with catered birthday parties, European family vacations, $2000 prom dresses and the like throughout their lives and a caribbean idyll would be considered almost a right.

Chaperonage was fairly minimal as these were not, by our rules and laws, kids anymore but young adults. Most, including the missing girl, were eighteen, they had graduated from high school and would be off to college within a couple of months. I'm sure drinking and the like was involved as in most countries, drinking age is eighteen, and may be as young as fourteen for beer and wine.

Something I've noticed, children of affluence are portrayed as being young by the media well up into their twenties (think the Menendez brothers, for instance) while children of poverty, especially if crime is involved, are always portrayed as adult, often when they are relatively young teenagers.

MNM !queen

realtraveller · #13 06-10-2005, 02:45 PM

Well, if it was not a school sponsored trip, that takes them off the hook. But I wonder what the parents were told about what the chaperones would be doing? Why have chaperones at all if the kids are 'adults'? Were the chaperones there just so kids could hit their parents up for the money to go and be able to say "But Mom, there will be 7 or 8 chaperones". Or were the chaperones only there to monitor the kids who were still 17?

**theworm**[$] · #14 06-10-2005, 02:59 PM

It sounds like we (in this thread) are looking to place blame on the parents, school, kids/young adults. Maybe Natalie is guilty of poor judgement. Maybe her parents are guilty of poor judegement, but the only people that may be guilty of a crime here are however kidnapped/murdered or otherwise hurt her. Unless she is pulling of her own run-away bride story - which NOBODY has suggested, why waste time looking to blame the chaperones, the school, the parents, etc?

**pippadaisy**[$] · #15 06-10-2005, 03:08 PM

I dunno. I remember my sister's senior year in high school; I was a junior in college. She and her girlfriends wanted to go to whatever Florida spot was hot at the time. Some of her friends were already 18, but my sister was still 17. My parents said she could go if *I* thought it was a good idea. I said "Hell, no."

She didn't go, and one of her girlfriends was nearly raped. There is something about kids that age, mixed with enough money and alcohol that's a bad combination. Add in a few older people and it can get out of hand VERY quickly. Kids that age think that they are invincible. So yes, it was probably the fault of all involved. And we will probably never really know what happened, unless they do find her alive.

**theworm**[$] · #16 06-10-2005, 03:34 PM

I have a problem with the word fault. Perhaps she is young and used poor judgement, but saying that she and her parents were at "fault" is like blaming the rape victim for wearing a mini-skirt.

**pippadaisy**[$] · #17 06-10-2005, 04:05 PM

I dunno. I certainly remember being that age, and looking back on it, and some of the absolutely STUPID things that I did, I'm able to say I'm lucky that nothing ever happened to me. This wasn't someone getting raped; this was someone getting into the car with a stranger or strangers, in a foreign country, without even her passport on her.

**theworm**[$] · #18 06-10-2005, 04:17 PM

Stupid thing to do, but not deserving of whatever happened to her.

realtraveller · #19 06-10-2005, 04:32 PM

Quote:

theworm said

It sounds like we (in this thread) are looking to place blame on the parents, school, kids/young adults. Maybe Natalie is guilty of poor judgement. Maybe her parents are guilty of poor judegement, but the only people that may be guilty of a crime here are however kidnapped/murdered or otherwise hurt her. Unless she is pulling of her own run-away bride story - which NOBODY has suggested, why waste time looking to blame the chaperones, the school, the parents, etc?

Because we don't know what happened to her, but we do know that she is missing...that there weren't very many chaperones...that he parents let her go on a virtually unsupervised trip...

Of course if she was murdered the murderers are fully to blame. But human nature is this: We ask ourselves what would we have done in a similar situation. (Recognizing that none of us are ever going to be murderers), we look to those elements of the story that could happen to us. What could we control? What would we do?

Would we let our 18 year old daughters go on such a trip? Did we ever do such stuff when we were 18 and escape similar results by the grace of God? If we were chaperones on such a trip what would we do etc?

**pippadaisy**[$] · #20 06-10-2005, 04:40 PM

Quote:

theworm said

Stupid thing to do, but not deserving of whatever happened to her.

I didn't say she was deserving of it, but yes, there is some fault to be assigned. It's like kids who are killed in car wrecks speeding or drinking. Do they deserve it? No. But did they contribute to it? Yes.

**mrisch**[$] · #21 06-10-2005, 06:10 PM

Blame the chaperones? Forget it. She's 18. She could have bought a ticket and flown there on her own. The fact that there were any chaperones at all is a bonus, not something you blame if something awful happens to an 18 year old.

mtbat · #22 06-10-2005, 06:29 PM

I hope, but doubt that she'll be found alive. She was 18 and NOT a child, but that doesn't make whatever happened her fault.