So are they still holding the security guards in custody?
With the amount of time that has passed, she's probably dead.
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By MICHAEL NORTON, Associated Press Writer 34 minutes ago
ORANJESTAD, Aruba - Police investigating the disappearance of an Alabama honors student in Aruba arrested a man at dawn Saturday, hours after one of three young men already in custody admitted "something bad happened" to the woman after they took her to the beach.
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It was unclear if the 6 a.m. arrest was related to the admission. The same team of officers who arrested five others in the case during the past week went to a home just outside Oranjestad, the capital, and came out with a handcuffed man who looked to be in his 20s.
Saturday morning, police refused to comment on the arrest or say if they had discovered anything overnight that solved the mystery of what happened to Natalee Holloway, 18, who was last seen in the early hours of May 30.
Late Friday, Deputy Police Commissioner Gerold Dompig told The Associated Press that the man who made the statement was leading police to the scene. He refused to identify which of the three young men who took her to a beach the night she went missing made the statement.
The three young men arrested Thursday — two Surinamese brothers and the 17-year-old Dutch son of a high-ranking island judicial official — were expected to appear before a judge Saturday, government spokesman Ruben Trapenberg said. Authorities have refused to say on what grounds they were being held. The judge would decide whether police have sufficient grounds to continue holding them.
Police also have detained two other men — former security guards at a hotel near the one where Holloway was staying. No one has been charged in the case.
Island-wide searches by Aruban police, Dutch marines and hundreds of volunteer islanders and tourists continued Saturday, Trapenberg said.
Holloway, vanished during a five-day trip to the Dutch Caribbean island with 124 classmates and seven chaperones celebrating their graduation from Mountain Brook, Ala., High School, near Birmingham. Police found her U.S. passport and packed bags in her hotel room after she failed to show up for her return flight that day.
Holloway's family continues to believe she is alive, said Jar Twitty, the teen's step-uncle. Rumors that she is dead are "an aggressive interpretation" of what police are saying, he told The Associated Press.
Prime Minister Nelson Oduber said on national radio Friday night that if something happened to Holloway, it would damage the reputation of this island of 97,000 people, which depends on tourism and is considered one of the safest spots in the Caribbean.
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