Natalee Holloway’s father has found human remains in Aruba that are now being tested for a DNA match to the teen, who has been missing since she vanished on a trip to Aruba 12 years ago.
Dave Holloway worked with private investigator T.J. Ward for 18 months to investigate Natalee's disappearance before finding the remains behind a house in Aruba, according to "Today." Their investigation led them to an informant known as “Gabriel” who claimed he helped Joran van der Sloot dispose of Natalee’s remains.
Van der Sloot was seen outside a popular tourist bar with Natalee and was the last person she was seen with before she disappeared. He is serving a 28-year prison sentence in Peru for the murder of business student Stephany Flores exactly five years after Natalee’s disappearance.
The informant Gabriel said he lived with van der Sloot’s best friend John and that van der Sloot told John he drugged Natalee with GHB and that she choked to death on her own vomit, according to the Daily Mail. Van der Sloot’s father, who died in 2010, also was involved in disposing of the remains, Gabriel told the investigators.
The DNA test is expected to take several weeks, and Dave Holloway admits it “could be someone else,” Hollywood Life reported. If it is Natalee’s DNA, however, it would give closure to the family after 12 long years of wondering what happened to her.
A docu-series about Holloway and Ward’s investigation called “The Disappearance of Natalee Holloway” begins airing Aug. 19 at 9 p.m. ET on Oxygen.
Some on Twitter saw the revelations as a ploy for attention for the TV show, while others hoped the parents would find closure.