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Nancy Grace
Holloway Parents Pursue Suspect; VCU Student Still Missing
Aired October 03, 2005 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Tonight, after an Aruban judge let all three suspects walk free in the Natalee Holloway case, including a fellow judge`s son, the chief suspect, Joran Van Der Sloot, court watchers thought the case was over. But tonight, Natalee`s parents say, no way.
And the latest in the search for Virginia Commonwealth University student, 17-year-old Taylor Behl.
And tonight, breaking news in the story we brought you Friday night about a 4-year-old little girl wandering the streets of New York City.
Good evening, everybody, I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us tonight.
Tonight, a summer of incredible pain and frustration to the point of pure exhaustion for the parents of missing 18-year-old Alabama girl Natalee Holloway. Natalee went missing off her senior trip to Aruba. And tonight, her family back in the U.S. in our HEADLINE NEWS studio.
Now even though they`re here, the battle to find out what happened to Natalee still rages. The Kalpoe brothers and chief suspect, judge`s son Joran Van Der Sloot, walked free.
And tonight, Taylor Behl vanishes off the Virginia Commonwealth University campus just a few weeks into freshman year. Tonight, the search is desperate.
But first, to tonight`s "Case Alert," police charge Cesar Ascarrunz with murdering the mother of Valerie Lozada. Valerie, the 4-year-old who was found wandering the New York City streets alone last Sunday. We told you about it Friday night. Police solved the mystery of Valerie`s identity, but they are now searching for the body of her mother. They believe Monica`s live-in boyfriend, Cesar, dumped her body in a pile of trash on a Queens street corner.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I ran out on the street, actually my wife walked me out (INAUDIBLE) telling me to check out what the kid is crying out. And when I looked out the window from our bedroom, I see a little girl in pajamas, barefoot, running on the sidewalk and crying.
And I grabbed my pants, I ran out and I saw her knocking on neighbors` doors. And then two other ladies came out from the neighborhood and my wife behind me. And for the first two or three minutes, she was just crying, looking for her mom. And she was all in stress and fear.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
GRACE: But first tonight, we go to the story of missing 17-year-old Taylor Behl. Right off the top, let me go straight out to Adriana Gardella, the senior editor of Justice magazine.
Welcome, Adriana. What`s the latest?
ADRIANA GARDELLA, SENIOR EDITOR, JUSTICE MAGAZINE: Well, the latest is, as you know, Taylor disappeared on September 5th. Her car was subsequently found with Ohio -- stolen Ohio license plates on it. And a person of interest -- well, he`s no longer being called a person of interest, but one of the last people to see her before she disappeared, Ben Fawley, has been arrested and is now in jail on child pornography charges that are apparently unrelated to this case.
And the latest is that over the weekend on Sunday, a benefit concert was held at Jammin Java, a coffee house in Vienna, Virginia. And over $8,000 was raised toward the reward for finding Taylor.
GRACE: You know, I want to go straight out to Robert Johnson, he is a friend of Taylor Behl.
Robert, when you take a look at this, how do you think police are responding to the search for Taylor?
ROBERT JOHNSON, FRIEND OF TAYLOR BEHL: I think now the police are doing well. Initially, I was not happy with the way police were handling it. I was in Richmond on the Wednesday after the Monday that she was reported missing, and they did not seem to think that it was something that was very important to do. They felt that maybe she was just out partying or something.
GRACE: You`re kidding?
JOHNSON: Yes. They didn`t seem too enthused. I mean, they did -- they took us around. I did ride-alongs with the police and Taylor`s mother, but.
GRACE: Robert, be blunt. What do you mean, police did not seem enthused?
JOHNSON: I sat around in the police station with the VCU police and they did -- they seemed sympathetic, but they did not contact the Richmond Police initially. I put 500 fliers up around the campus. The fliers were taken down, because it wasn`t campus approved. It seemed that they felt that she was just out, hanging out and that she would be back soon.
GRACE: Whoa, whoa. Hold on. To Matt Behl, Taylor`s father.
Matt, did you know that this guy, a friend of Taylor Behl, Robert Johnson, put up 500 fliers for your daughter and they made him take them down because they were not approved?
MATT BEHL, TAYLOR BEHL`S FATHER: No. That`s the first I`ve heard of that, Nancy.
GRACE: You know, another thing, Matt, I`ve seen this prosecuting and representing victims when a young female goes missing, or a woman, in general, they`re like, oh, she`s out, spending the night at a motel somewhere. She`ll pop up in 24 hours. You`ll see. There is a very nonchalant attitude, especially when young women go missing. It`s almost as if, very often, they`re automatically branded some kind of party girl and nobody takes it seriously until you`ve lost so much lead time.
BEHL: That`s correct. And I don`t know why that is, if Taylor was definitely not a party girl that would have been out for an extended period of time without letting someone know.
GRACE: Take a listen to what Mike Cino had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE CINO, FRIEND OF BENJAMIN FAWLEY`S: He said that she had wanted to do something illegal before she turned 18 so that it would be wiped away afterward. And he said that she had been talking about -- you know, she had been asking about how to steal cars. He said that he wasn`t going to give her -- wasn`t going to help her out.
Certainly, I guess if she were involved in something like stealing cars, then all bets are off. I suppose she probably would want to get away to avoid being in trouble for this. But as for just running away, I wouldn`t see any particular reason for her wanting to run away. She seemed capable of handling her own problems. She was a very strong and capable person.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: OK. Now that is Mike Cino, who is paraphrasing what he says Ben Fawley told him. As you recall, let me go to Taylor`s dad, Matt Behl. This guy, this amateur photographer, a 38-year-old man who was on disability payments, he has already told police, reportedly, that he had sex with Taylor the night she goes missing, now suddenly is adding to the story, apparently, according to Cino, he`s saying out of the blue, your girl says, oh, I want to commit a crime before I`m 18.
Now, I`m on the outside looking in, but it sounds like a crock to me. It sounds like Fawley is trying to cover something up.
BEHL: Well, Nancy, I`m not aware that Taylor had ever said something like that. I don`t think that`s within her character to do something like that. And although she does turn 18 in a couple of weeks, I can`t imagine that that would have been something that she might have said to somebody.
GRACE: And Lisa Wayne, as a defense attorney, if you`re going to represent this guy, you`re in a whole heap of trouble, friend, because nobody else heard her say anything like that. Her roommate was apparently in the dormitory with her boyfriend. Taylor Behl says, I`m going to go skateboard. She didn`t say anything then about, hey, I`m almost 18, I think I`ll go commit a crime while I`m still a juvenile and that way I won`t really have a record.
I mean, your guy, if you`re the defense attorney in this case is just blah, blah, blah. He`s getting himself in a lot of trouble.
LISA WAYNE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: He is making a lot of statements that sound bad. And frankly, you don`t know if he`s pulling, and making up things, because he feels like he needs to fill in the holes because he didn`t do anything wrong or you don`t know if he`s being inconsistent to other things that he has done. I mean, it may be a very innocent explanation and maybe these things did occur.
But that`s the problem when you have to rely upon just one person`s statement without other evidence. We don`t know anything else. We don`t know where Taylor is. She hasn`t been found. So everything he says is suspect at this point.
GRACE: To Seattle Anne Bremner. You know, I just love it as a former prosecutor when everybody`s lying but the defendant.
ANNE BREMNER, TRIAL ATTORNEY: Everybody, right.
GRACE: But not the person of interest. Here, the roommate says nothing like that was ever said, the boyfriend, the other friends, the guys that were skateboarding with her. But suddenly, this guy, who has been taking pictures of her, who had his home searched and they found a box of bones, torture.
BREMNER: Right.
GRACE: Torture and bondage materials. He suddenly says he had sex with the girl that night and she was dead set on committing a felony.
BREMNER: Well, Nancy, I mean, life doesn`t always imitate art, it can imitate bad TV. I mean, box of bones, women`s underwear, his nickname is "Skulz," and the child porn, I mean, what a weird guy. But, you know, when I heard that about, I want to commit a crime before I`m 18, that happened a lot when I was a prosecutor, that people would say that. I`m not kidding. Defenders, I`m sure you heard it too.
GRACE: I never heard it in a decade...
BREMNER: I did. Maybe it`s just a Seattle thing.
GRACE: As a felony prosecutor and also as a Fed, never once. Not.
BREMNER: I did. And I even had it -- I had a murder case where when that was the defendant`s statement, I want to kill someone before I`m 18. I`m just telling you, that`s not an unusual statement. That aside, Nancy.
GRACE: Well, you know what, from what I can tell, that`s just like Taylor Behl. She was out trying to get a notch on her belt by killing somebody. No, forget it.
BREMNER: Nancy, I`m not saying that. What I`m saying is that he`s not even a person of interest right now.
GRACE: No, he`s not.
BREMNER: And maybe she said that. That maybe she said that, I`ve heard it before. It doesn`t defy logic that she said it. And the bottom line is that there`s nothing, nothing, nothing to even base probable cause on this case with this potential defendant, nothing.
GRACE: Well, we do know that he places himself with her the night she goes missing. We know that earlier she broke up with him and suddenly we are expected to believe she wanted to have consensual sex with him the night she is never seen alive again? I want to go back to a friend of Taylor Behl`s, Robert Johnson.
Now, Robert, what I didn`t understand at first is how you happened to be in the room when this photographer, who was not a suspect, when he was in the room talking to cops, I was thinking, this is totally contrary to all police procedure, all questioning, interrogation procedure I have ever heard in life. Then I found out from Ellie (ph) that this is when the campus police still had the case?
JOHNSON: Correct. I was not in the room. I was outside of his house with the campus police. I was -- at that time, it was not a criminal investigation. It was a missing person investigation.
GRACE: So what did Fawley have to say to police?
JOHNSON: He came outside. He said that he had -- he did not say that he had a relationship with her. He said he knew her. He said that she had come over to ask to borrow a skateboard and that she had come over to his house before, but he made no indication that Taylor and him had ever been romantically involved.
And he said that she walked in, asked for a skateboard. He gave it to her and that she took off. He did mention that, you know, she had said before that she had wanted to partake in illegal activity which is, to me, is strange, because I know her and I don`t see her saying that.
And he was very -- he made everybody there a little uncomfortable. He made -- Janet (ph) was there. And he made Janet so uncomfortable that she had to leave. And she got back in the car and it was just me and a female officer and Mr. Fawley.
GRACE: Everybody, when we say Janet, we`re referring to Taylor`s mom, Janet Pelasara. Wait, what did he say that made everyone so uncomfortable?
JOHNSON: He was just -- I mean, he`s 38. He`s -- you know, he looks like a sketchy guy. Now I don`t know him personally, so I can`t say. The only things I know about him is what I`ve heard. But he was nervous and not overly nervous, but nervous how anybody is, I guess, when they`re talking to the police and they`re knocking at your door.
He just seemed -- there`s something strange about him. But he never mentioned anything about him and Taylor having any sort of relationship. He just said that he knew her, he had hung out with her a few times and that she liked to party which, from what I know of her, and I`ve known her for years, that she`s not like that.
And so, to me, like later on that night, I was in the police station. And a male officer -- and I can`t remember his name, said, you know, I`ve known this guy for years. And he is a little strange, but I don`t think he`s capable of doing whatever.
GRACE: And he may be right. He may be right.
JOHNSON: He may be right, but to me, that also showed like a lack of just, whatever, this girl`s probably coming back soon.
GRACE: But on the other hand, I can`t get past -- to Taylor`s dad, Matt, I can`t get past that we know that he has placed himself with her the night, Matt, that she goes missing.
BEHL: Right. And he does make that statement. He, in fact, said he had walked her back to the dorm, that she had been there during -- or earlier in the day. So, you know, it`s kind of whatever you want to make of it, Nancy. I mean, if -- I think it`s been said more than one time, if you`re going to hide things in clear sight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Natalee Holloway went missing off her high school senior trip. Has the Aruban government totally given up on justice? Well, I don`t know about them. But we have not. Natalee`s parents are joining us here in the studios of HEADLINE NEWS.
But, first, very quickly, back to Virginia and the case of missing Taylor Behl. I want to quickly go to Dr. Robi Ludwig. We`re trying to figure out all these conflicting and various statements of not a suspect, amateur photographer Ben Fawley. He`s 38, sleeping with a 17-year-old girl. Girl. Repeat, girl. She is a minor in many jurisdictions.
Look at his statement, Robi. He`s saying I had sex with her that night. She wanted to commit a crime that night. We know that he is -- this is kooky.
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: . and the car tags. Do we have a shot of that, Elizabeth (ph)? The car tag on her car was stolen and another stolen tag was put on her car. That`s not her car tag, that is "GRN ERTH," which another car tag that apparently is playing into this case. But, Robi, all of his statements, and again, Elizabeth, I`m going to ask if you can get her car with the car tag placed on it. That`s her tag. There`s her car. A stolen Ohio plate was put on her car.
The significance, Robi, is all of this seems to fit into his statement.
ROBI LUDWIG, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: I can`t imagine why he`s not a suspect. Not only is he a strange guy, what we know about these kind of abductions, especially with high school, college girls, is that there`s an acquaintance aspect to it and that there`s a seduction abduction. So that, you know, these people very often are not strangers. And then when you look at the motives of some of these seduction abductions, very often it is an old boyfriend who is trying to stop the girl from breaking up with them.
So, I mean, again, we don`t know what happened here, but his comments sound odd. It seems like he has odd sexual to sadistic sexual fantasies.
GRACE: I want to go back to Robert Johnson, the friend joining us -- friend of Taylor Behl. Robert, is this the first time you have been interviewed?
JOHNSON: Yes.
GRACE: You know, what about -- did police take a formal statement from you?
JOHNSON: No. The VCU police did not take a formal statement from me.
GRACE: How did you meet Taylor?
JOHNSON: I met Taylor three years ago at a job that I used to work at, a coffee shop where we had the benefit yesterday. And she was a regular, her and her mother, and developed a friendship with both of them and got my job now through her mother and have been working with her. And good, good friends of mine.
GRACE: Robert, tell me about Taylor. Somehow, just instinctively, from what I`ve learned about her, I don`t believe what Fawley said about her being a hard partier and wanting to go commit a crime before she turned 18. It seems to me that he`s trying to use this story as some kind of cover.
JOHNSON: Yes. At least that`s what it seems like to me. I`ve known her for years and she`s not -- I mean, I worked at her graduation party and this is a girl, you know, supposed to be a hard drinker, hard partier. She didn`t drink at her graduation party. And I was the bartender at this graduation party.
I mean, this was the kind of girl she was. She wasn`t into that sort of lifestyle. And so it was very strange to me to hear this guy say that and to hear other people say that as well.
GRACE: You know, when you said just being around him, I`m talking about this amateur photographer who is still not an official suspect, that you, Taylor`s mom, everyone became uncomfortable, I`m interested in that. I`m interested in your instinctive response to this guy and what he was saying.
JOHNSON: There was something really strange about him. And at the time, you don`t know what it is. I mean.
GRACE: Did Taylor break up with him?
JOHNSON: I had no idea that they -- I didn`t know at all that they were even a couple. And to me, it`s strange to even think that, because that doesn`t seem at all like the kind of.
GRACE: It sounds more like a fling.
JOHNSON: Yes. I hadn`t heard of that until way later on. I didn`t - - he said that he had no romantic involvement with her at all.
GRACE: Well, there`s an inconsistency right there. Everyone, stay with us.
Thanks, Robert.
JOHNSON: Ah, no problem.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: You know what? The Aruban government may have released all three suspects in the disappearance of 18-year-old American Natalee Holloway, but the case is not over. Joran Van Der Sloot, the judge`s son from Aruba, is free to leave the island and go study in the Netherlands. He gave an interview off the cuff. We have that sound for you. Also with us tonight, two very special guests. Natalee`s mother, Beth Twitty, is with us. Her stepdad, Jug Twitty. You`ve seen them night after night leading the battle to find their girl. Very quickly to "A Current Affair" correspondent Harris Faulkner.
Harris, any updates?
HARRIS FAULKNER, "A CURRENT AFFAIR" CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, after catching up with Joran Van Der Sloot in Holland and getting that interview, that exclusive interview with him, Nancy, Holland news-gathering organizations are now asking "A Current Affair" if they can have a copy of the tape. They want to see it there. They are hearings reports that we`ve said, and I think you`ve said on your show that Beth and her husband plan to go to Holland now and plaster the area with missing posters of Natalee.
I think journalists there, citizens there are more curious than ever about the new person they have in their midst her. Of course, Joran Van Der Sloot, moving with his family, to an area of Holland where Joran is enrolled as a college student.
When you talk about that interview, one of the most and interesting things about that interview, I think, Nancy, is the fact that he begins to paint Natalee Holloway as the aggressor in every way that he talks about her. She came up to him. She held him by the hand. She wanted to drink. She wanted to party.
And getting Beth`s response to that, I think, was really key.
GRACE: You know, I read in a tabloid last week, Beth, where some young girl had spent the evening or had a date with Joran Van Der Sloot and she was photographed. And whether the tab is true or not, I just thought about another young girl going out with Joran Van Der Sloot. It`s as if he`s starting all over in another country.
BETH TWITTY, MOTHER OF NATALLE HOLLOWAY: Exactly, Nancy. And he will. And he will not stop until something is done about this.
GRACE: I have so many questions for you. But what is your immediate reaction to this interview of sorts that he gave while at school?
B. TWITTY: You know, just outrage. When I hear how he`s placing all the blame on either myself for tourism being low, if that`s the case, how everything is Natalee`s fault. It was her fault that she was drunk. It was her fault that she wanted to go with him. She initiated coming to his home. That is simply not true. None of that is true.
GRACE: Every time he speaks, his story is different.
B. TWITTY: You know, and one reporter said it beautifully. He said, when Joran tells one lie, more evolve. And that`s how this entire summer has been with Joran.
GRACE: With us here in the HEADLINE NEWS studios, Natalee`s mother, Beth, her stepfather, Jug.
We`ll all be right back.
As we go to break, you know that here at Nancy Grace, we want very much to help solve unsolved homicides, find missing people. Take a look at 31-year-old Edward Perez, shot outside his home July `95 in Earlimart, California. If you have any info on this man, Edward Perez, please call the Carole Sund Carrington Foundation toll free, 888-813-8389. Please help us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: In all the weeks that we have helped search for Natalee Holloway, this beauty from Alabama set for a full scholarship at University of Alabama, it`s almost as if she became our girl, our sister, our next door neighbor, and the fact that the Aruban government has apparently dropped the investigation into her whereabouts is a very bitter pill to swallow.
Here in the studio with me, Natalee`s mother and her stepfather. They have not given up the search even though the Aruban government has released all three of the major suspects.
I want to talk a moment about Natalee, before I get into the ins and outs of the investigation. At this moment, when you think of her, what is your most vivid memory of Natalee?
BETH HOLLOWAY TWITTY, NATALEE`S MOTHER: It`s going to have to go to her dance. I mean, that was her life, Nancy. I mean, she just -- she loved it, she excelled at it, she worked so hard. I mean, every year she spent the entire year just preparing for one try out to be on that dance team for the upcoming year. And she just was so dedicated.
Yet Natalee had a fun side too, where she loved her friends. I mean, she loved being with her friends. That was her next most favorite, if you even had to say it was her next. I mean, it was ranked right up there with her dance and her friends.
GRACE: I know my parents felt like that with me doing cheerleading all by myself in the living room over and over and over to practice for the tryouts. You know, it just never ended. I am imaging the same thing with her.
What about it, most vivid memory if you`re thinking about her right now, what comes to your mind?
JUG TWITTY, NATALEE`S STEPFATHER: I would say the same thing. Beth and I have been married now five years, but we dated about eight years, moving from Mississippi.
GRACE: Didn`t want to rush into anything, eight years.
J. TWITTY: And when we got married and they moved from Mississippi to Mountain Brook, I thought it was going to be a real culture shock, and I remember Natalee making that dance team, which is so hard. It`s hard for people to understand how hard it is to make this, especially for girls that have been trying to make this forever. And she came right in and made that dance team, and I`m sitting there, and I know my daughter has gone out for a couple of sports events and not made it, and I know how it breaks your heart, but I remember when she made it. That was quite an experience.
GRACE: When she was growing up there in the home with you, what was she like? What was her favorite thing to do? What was her favorite TV? Did she like breakfast more than dinner? What was Natalee all about?
B. TWITTY: You know, Nancy, Natalee was so independent and Natalee was so in charge of who she wanted to be and what she wanted to be, that, you know, to pin down the specifics as far as that goes, that`s just really not Natalee.
I mean, she was fun. But she was so independent and just fully in charge of her life and what she was going to do.
GRACE: When you first got to Aruba, you had received a phone call first here in the states, correct? What happened?
B. TWITTY: I received a phone call that Natalee had not shown up for the group in time to -- they were departing for the airport.
GRACE: And you --
B. TWITTY: Oh, I knew immediately. I mean, Natalee would never be late for anything, never. She would never not be on time or --
GRACE: Where were you when you got that call?
B. TWITTY: I was returning from a trip --
GRACE: You were in the car, right?
B. TWITTY: Yes, I was in the car.
GRACE: What did you do?
B. TWITTY: I immediately dialed 911. I don`t even know what that was going to accomplish, but I knew that --
GRACE: What did you say to local 911?
B. TWITTY: I can`t remember. I know it was something like, my daughter has been kidnapped in Aruba. Or -- there was something so serious that I knew this was more than just a young girl not showing up for her departure, to leave the trip.
GRACE: You knew immediately.
B. TWITTY: I knew immediately, immediately with Natalee. Something was wrong, very wrong.
GRACE: And when did you leave to go?
B. TWITTY: We left that same day. We let probably by 6:00 or 7:00 p.m., that evening, or maybe even a little bit sooner.
GRACE: So you got that phone call at one time?
B. TWITTY: I got the phone call at 12:00 p.m.
GRACE: And by 6:00 you`re on a plane to Aruba?
B. TWITTY: Oh, yes, absolutely.
GRACE: Who went with you?
B. TWITTY: Jug and several other friends that flew down.
GRACE: So you all went down. Now, the first -- I can`t imagine touching down on non-U.S. soil and trying to find someone. What was the first thing you did?
B. TWITTY: Luckily we were met at the airport by three Aruban citizens who were very helpful for us that night, and we went to the Holiday Inn.
GRACE: Where she had been. And what happened?
B. TWITTY: Well, we were met by the DEA Eric Williams (ph) and Paul Lilly (ph).
GRACE: DEA?
B. TWITTY: Yes, there was a DEA on island, Eric Williams (ph) -- that`s another story, Nancy. But, anyway, they met us there at the Holiday Inn lobby because Paul Lilly (ph) had had such a horrific time on that Monday, the 30th, just trying to get help. He had been speaking with the beach patrol, visibility team, no one seemed to know -- talk about the right hand and left hand -- no one knew how to guide him or help him begin.
GRACE: Who is Eric Lilly (ph)?
B. TWITTY: Paul Lilly (ph). He`s the chaperone for the --
GRACE: All right. So he`s frantically trying to find Natalee and get help and nobody can even say this is the first thing to do.
B. TWITTY: Yes, yes. He was working -- he was trying so desperately to find someone to help him.
GRACE: So what time did you get to the Holiday Inn?
B. TWITTY: Probably about 11:00 p.m. on the 30th.
GRACE: And what happened when you got there?
B. TWITTY: You know, we acted with such a sense of urgency. The first thing that I wanted to do with Eric Williams (ph), the DEA, was establish Natalee`s character, so they would see that this is not a missing girl, this is not someone who has just decided not to show up or is having an extended stay on her senior trip.
And, you know, I felt the best thing I could do was establish Natalee`s character, so that they could see a sense of urgency had to be --
GRACE: When was it you talked to the player in this case? I thought it was that night.
B. TWITTY: It was that night, but it took us a while to find them. We had to -- there are several things that went on, Nancy.
We reviewed video footage from the Excelsior Casino, where Joran had been playing with Jug`s nephew, Thomas Twitty (ph), at a Texas Hold `Em table, so we could lay eyes on him and see him.
GRACE: That was before Natalee went missing, that night, that`s when the video came from.
B. TWITTY: Yes.
GRACE: OK. So you saw what he looked like, and then what happened?
B. TWITTY: From there, Jug might have a better .
GRACE: What happened next?
J. TWITTY: We were watching the video and during that period of time, we split up into two or three different groups and some of the chaperones in the other group that was with us, some of my friends, had gone around to different hotels looking for Joran. We didn`t know his name. We knew he liked playing card games.
GRACE: You knew what he looked like.
J. TWITTY: We didn`t know what he looked like.
GRACE: I thought you saw him in the video.
J. TWITTY: They didn`t know what he looked like. We knew what he looked like because we were sitting there -- you can see how small a video screen is.
But anyway, they`re asking questions and also when we went to Carlos and Charlie`s, we asked questions in there, when we first got here, and one of the guys that was with us obviously asked somebody where we could find him, and they drove to the beach and they went down there and started asking some kids about him, and he ended up paying one of the kids $100 to tell him where Joran lived.
All of this time, Beth and I are up looking at videotape in the Holiday Inn. So at about 3:00 in the morning, everybody came back to the Holiday Inn --
GRACE: Let me get this straight. This is 3:00 a.m. and Natalee was last seen about 25, 26 hours before that?
J. TWITTY: Exactly.
And so one of the guys that helped us, with Universal Air, came running in and saying we`ve found him, we found the house, we found the car and everything, and Beth and I were just coming down. So we go and get two uniformed officers. We stopped at the police station.
We go in and sit there and wait about 15 minutes out in the parking lot. Finally the police officers come out. We go to his house, which is maybe a mile away from the police station. The police pull up to his house, turn the lights on, you know, shine the spotlight, and about 15 minutes later here comes a gentleman walking out to the fence.
Beth goes, "There he is." I said, "Beth, that`s not him, that`s a 45- year-old man."
GRACE: When we get back, we`re going to pick up right where we left off, where Jug and Beth meet for the first time Joran Van Der Sloot and his father, the judge, in Aruba.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JORAN VAN DER SLOOT, SUSPECT: I would have just stayed home that night. I wouldn`t have even gone out. It was Natalee who asked me to go out with her. It was her that asked me to come to the club. It was her that was yelling at me to go dance with her, and I said -- and I went to go drink something with my friends.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you that irresistible? I mean, is that what - -
VAN DER SLOOT: No, I don`t know. That`s not -- that`s absolutely not what it is about. I don`t know. When her parents showed up at my door with her picture, I didn`t even know who Natalee Holloway was. I didn`t even know her name.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Well, it`s all Natalee`s fault, I guess, that she went missing off the island of Aruba after last being seen with him, Joran Van Der Sloot, the judge`s son, the chief suspect, changes his story every time he speaks, and yet Aruban authorities have released him.
Here in the studio with me, Natalee`s mother and her stepfather.
Let`s go straight back to where you first saw Joran Van Der Sloot, the first time. He was just describing the night you showed up at his house, as if that is the crime.
J. TWITTY: We showed up at his house, as I said, at about 3:00 in the morning. His father walks out, OK, and then his father gets on his cell phone after the police talk to him for about maybe 10 minutes. Next thing I know, the police are walking back and they`re saying, "We`re going to the Wyndham Hotel. He says Joran is at the Wyndham, gambling."
This is about 3:30 in the morning, so we`re going OK, great. So we all get in cars, a big entourage, go to the Wyndham. We all go in -- she is frantic. She runs in there and he`s not there.
And then we`re searching the beach and all this kind of stuff, and we come back, his father is on the cell phone again, with the two policemen standing next to him -- he rode in the car with the policemen over there -- and he goes, well -- he calls his son. His son says, "Well, I`m back at home."
He said, "I thought you said you were at Wyndham?"
He said, "Well, you said the police were here, so I`m back at home."
GRACE: So you go back --
J. TWITTY: We go back there. It takes about eight minutes or so. We get there, pull up there --
GRACE: When you get there, what happened?
J. TWITTY: Deepak and Joran are standing there.
GRACE: So they were together the next night as well?
J. TWITTY: Oh, yeah. And they talk four different languages down there. So first of all, there is one gentleman who, if somebody would go back and get Charles Cruse (ph), who was with us that night and who spoke to them away from us for about 10 minutes with the uniformed officers, before he came over and translated what Joran said to us -- and Joran speaks all the languages too. But Charles Cruse (ph), in my mind, holds a lot of keys to what happened that night, or what Joran said.
GRACE: What was the first thing Van Der Sloot said to you?
J. TWITTY: First he looked at the picture and I said, "Don`t say you don`t know her, because we have eye witnesses who saw you get in this car with her," and he goes, "Yeah, yeah, I know who she is."
And he walks over to us and starts talking, and he says things that -- you know, he danced with her at the Holiday Inn or whatever -- I mean at the Carlos and Charlie`s. But after we talked a little bit, we asked him where she is, he says, "I don`t know, I dropped her off." Then he says, "Is anybody here with the family?"
And I said, "Yes, I`m her stepfather."
He said, "Do you mind stepping away for a minute?"
So I stepped away, went back to the van, Beth was still in the van this whole time, watching, because we had --
GRACE: Who asked you to step away?
J. TWITTY: Joran did. So he could tell my friends and he could tell the uniformed officers and all the people there what he did with Natalee that night, as far as taking her and his sexual stuff with her. In the car.
GRACE: So you know for a fact that that night he admitted to having sex with Natalee?
J. TWITTY: Yes, and we`ve got --
GRACE: Because we`ve got so many different stories.
J. TWITTY: I`ll tell you, Nancy, the thing that really upset me, and I found this out when Beth read some statements down there, is that the two uniformed officers that were there, that were standing as close as we are here, listening to him say this, they gave their statements, and they were very graphic in detail of everything that happened that night, except for one thing. Guess what they left out? The part about him saying what he did sexually to her in that car.
And I went ballistic, because I wasn`t there, and I told Beth, I said this thing is a set up. I`m telling you right now. Why would they leave that out of there?
GRACE: The most significant portion of what he admitted to.
J. TWITTY: Right, right, so --
GRACE: You know what is interesting to me -- that night -- so you finally go home with no resolution.
J. TWITTY: That`s right.
GRACE: But you know Van Der Sloot was with her that night, had sex with her that night, according to him. Is that the night he came up with the idea to blame the two black security guards?
J. TWITTY: That came like a day later, or whatever.
One of the problems I had was, the next morning -- we stayed up all night. Beth stayed up all night. And the police officer in charge came and got us the next morning and took us to his office. And it was so frustrating, because Beth is frantic. She knows something is wrong. She says, here, let me tell you my statement -- he says, wait, I haven`t had my Frosted Flakes and I haven`t shaved yet.
GRACE: Who said this?
J. TWITTY: The chief of police or whatever --
GRACE: "I haven`t had my Frosted Flakes?" Did I just hear that?
J. TWITTY: Yes.
GRACE: Hold on, hold on, let me just check this earpiece for a minute.
The mother of a missing girl says, "I need to speak to you right now," and the chief of police says, "I`ve got to have my Frosted Flakes."
J. TWITTY: That`s just one small thing that he said that was very disturbing to me because, you know, I sat back there with Beth when he was talking to her, and some of the things were so sickening to me that he was talking about, and I`ll just say it, because I had to explain -- he was talking about putas and things, and I had to explain to her what that meant.
GRACE: You mean he said the word bitch? The chief of police did? Is that who we`re still talking about?
J. TWITTY: They were just using language like this when we were sitting in there and she was trying to give her statements and stuff, and joking about it and everything. The whole thing was like it was a joke, like she`s going to show up. She`s drunk, she`ll come in -- you know, don`t worry about it.
GRACE: Is that the way you remember it, Beth?
B. TWITTY: Oh, yeah, Nancy.
GRACE: Did you understand, I know they were speaking a different language partially at that time -- did you understand what they were saying?
B. TWITTY: I understood everything they were saying, Nancy.
GRACE: Who exactly is the bitch in this scenario?
J. TWITTY: He was using language like that, you know, just graphic language like that, jokingly, and, you know, like what goes on in Aruba, this happens and this happens, and, you know, just some of the words he was using, to me, it was sickening to me to have to sit here.
GRACE: When your girl is missing.
J. TWITTY: Right.
GRACE: You`re at their mercy.
J. TWITTY: We were at their mercy, and I am sitting there saying, these guys are on our side. I have to sit here and listen to this to try to get an answer.
GRACE: With me right now, the managing director of "El Diario" magazine, a newspaper there in Aruba, Jossy Mansur.
Jossy, thank you for being with us, friend. I am glad to see that you are well.
My question is, tell me the truth, is the investigation still ongoing in Aruba? Or is it all over now that the three suspects have been released?
JOSSY MANSUR, "EL DIARIO": No, it`s still ongoing. The police are doing their work. They`re intensely continuing with their investigation.
GRACE: Like what?
MANSUR: I mean, they`re putting the whole thing together. Remember that they went back form Murder One to Sexual Assault. They had to review about 1,000 and something pages.
GRACE: A thousand pages, that should take maybe two days.
MANSUR: Maybe, but they are still intensely following the case, and so is the prosecution. They`re fine-tuning whatever case they`re going to bring up against these three suspects. The case is going on.
GRACE: Are they continuing the dive efforts?
MANSUR: They are continuing to do every single effort that they can. The police of Aruba and the prosecution.
GRACE: Are they diving? Are they diving?
MANSUR: Yes, they are diving, because they have been searching to the north in an undersea cave, to the north of the lighthouse. They`ve been searching, as I speak now, they`ve been searching.
GRACE: Beth, when you hear that they are still searching, do you believe it?
B. TWITTY: I just hope that they are searching in the proper areas. I mean, I don`t -- I think what we would like to know is, you know, what is warranting their searches in those areas. What information was coming.
GRACE: Do you believe that the statement that you gave was changed?
B. TWITTY: Absolutely it was.
GRACE: What was taken out or put in?
B. TWITTY: A lot of key elements. And, you know, just what Jug was describing a while ago. When I had the two uniformed officers` statements translated for me in English, they left off the key elements of the sexual assaults that Joran committed against Natalee.
GRACE: Here in the studio with me, Natalee`s mother and stepfather, with very disturbing revelations about the so-called investigation into their daughter`s disappearance.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: 18-year-old Natalee Holloway went away for her high school senior trip in Aruba, never seen again. The disappearance unsolved. Is that the way the Aruban authorities want to keep it?
Here in the studio with me, Natalee`s mother, Beth, and her stepfather, Jug.
You know what is amazing to me, Beth, is that the morning after your conversation with Joran Van Der Sloot, instead of him and his father, the judge, coming to help you look for Natalee the next day, they had a big powwow at the judge`s house, outside the pool, with them, their lawyers, the Kalpoe family, correct? Why weren`t they out helping you? Why were they already lawyering up?
B. TWITTY: You know, not only that, Nancy. Deepak gives a detailed statement on Paulus Van Der Sloot`s role in this, how Paulus hired the lawyers, arranged for the lawyers, called them over to his home, instructed the boys not to use their cell phone, they could be bugged. Also told them how to get their stories straight and then use their email, then begin emailing the story and use your hard drive to nail an alibi.
What was the need for all of that?
GRACE: The judge told them --
B. TWITTY: Yes.
GRACE: Was Paulus, the judge, Van Der Sloots` home ever searched? I understand that Joran Van Der Sloot`s apartment, where he says he had consensual sex with Natalee, is attached to the home?
B. TWITTY: I want to make it perfectly clear: the Van Der Sloot primary residence was never searched. Forensics were not conducted at the primary residence of the Van Der Sloots.
GRACE: What do you think at this juncture is your alternative?
B. TWITTY: You know, Nancy, we don`t know what our alternative is. I mean, we have worked so hard. The whole family, every one that has watched this with us and remained supportive with us. Everyone has worked so hard, and now look at what`s happened.
GRACE: Do you ever even have time to miss her? Or are you still so intent on finding her?
B. TWITTY: I miss her every day, but, you know, not to have to deal with anything yet, because there are still so many answers that are right there glaring at us, and nobody can get them. It`s just outrageous.
GRACE: Thank you to all of my guests, but all of us have the biggest thank you to you for being with us, letting us into your home and keeping Natalee`s case alive.
Coming up, headlines from all round the world. "Larry" is on CNN. To many of you legal eagles out there celebrating new years tonight, shana tova, happy new year. See you right here tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp, Eastern. And until then, goodnight, friend.
END
