ORANJESTAD, Aruba — Authorities have closed the investigation into the disappearance of Natalee Holloway and do not have evidence to charge anyone, the prosecutors’ office said Tuesday.
The three young men who were last seen with the Alabama teenager have all been notified that they will not be charged, the Public Prosecutor’s Office said.
The three suspects — a Dutch college student and two Surinamese brothers — were seen leaving a bar with Holloway the night she disappeared in May 2005. Police re-arrested them last month in a last-ditch effort to solve the case, but prosecutors said the men did not provide any new information under interrogation.
Holloway’s mother, Beth Twitty, was “terribly disappointed” that the case was closed, said Sunny Tillman a spokeswoman for the mother.
“She was very hopeful the last couple weeks and she went down there and met with the prosecutor,” Tillman said. “He told her face to face that he had new and incriminating evidence and that made her hopeful.
An attorney for two of the suspects, brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, said prosecutors presented transcripts of online chat sessions that the suspects had with friends as new evidence.
“They tried to call it new, but it didn’t have any incriminating points against our clients,” attorney David Kock said.
In their statement, prosecutors said they still believe the three were involved in the disappearance, but cannot prove a crime was committed because Holloway’s body was never recovered.
Prosecutors said they could reopen the case “if new serious evidence were to be found.” The statute of limitations is six years for involuntary manslaughter and 12 years for homicide, they said.
Holloway, of Mountain Brook, Ala., was scheduled to return home with fellow high school classmates celebrating their graduation when she disappeared. She was 18 at the time.
One of the suspects, Joran Van der Sloot, has said he left her alone on a beach the night she vanished. No trace of Holloway has ever been found despite extensive searches.
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