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The Prosecutor’s Office
Ann Angela
PR department
521-4135/592-8481
May 19, 2015
2
Prosecutor’s Office reaches conclusion about claims Jurriën de Jong
in Holloway-case
In the last couple of weeks and months, several publications and newspaper articles have
appeared in the local and international news media, regarding the disappearance of Natalee
Holloway in May 2005 in Aruba.
The main reason for these publications were the statements made by a supposed witness in this
case, Mr. Jurriën de Jong.
Mr. De Jong claims to be an eye witness to the disappearance of Natalee Holloway on the 30th of
May 2005, and says that he was present at the moment that, in his opinion, Joran van der Sloot
buried Ms. Holloway in the crawl space under the staircase of the Spyglass Tower of the
Marriott Hotel in Aruba.
In light of the allegations made to the press in the Netherlands by Mr. De Jong as a supposed eye
witness, and of a notarized statement of De Jong’s, the current chief prosecutor Eric Olthof
studied the Holloway-dossier.
Even though Mr. De Jong has not presented more plausible proof of his claims (his current
testimony is identical to the one he gave in 2013 to the Prosecutor’s Office), Chief Prosecutor
Olthof commissioned the Police to contact the management of the Marriott -considering the type
of case, the importance of the case and the long duration of the disappearance of Natalee
Holloway- with the request to supply information about the state of the construction site of the
Spyglass Tower of the Marriott hotel on the 30th of May 2015.
In short: what was built and what was not yet built on that 30th of May 2015, the night of the
disappearance of Natalee?
Recently the Prosecutor’s Office received the requested information from the management of the
Marriott in the U.S. (Orlando, Florida).
From this information, it becomes indisputably clear that on the 30th of May 2005, no
construction or building activities were started at the location that Mr. De Jong has specifically
pointed out as the spot where Natalee Holloway would have been hidden and/or buried. More
concretely: the foundation of the Spyglass Tower (that still had to be built at the time) and of the
staircase of the Spyglass Tower was not in place. This means that Natalee Holloway could never
have been hidden and/or buried there.
This leads to the conclusion that the claims made by Mr. De Jong of what he saw on the night of
30th of May 2005, cannot be correct, and that his testimony, considering the afore-mentioned,
does not add to the solving of this case. Further investigation (in any manner whatsoever) under
the staircase of the Spyglass Tower will not lead to finding the body of Natalee Holloway.
If new tips and leads, that are sufficiently concrete and well-founded surface in the (near) future,
they will be investigated by the Police and Prosecutor’s Office in the hope to finally conclude
this case and bring the suspect(s) to justice.
At the moment however, the Police and the Prosecutor’s Office unfortunately do not have any
new tips or leads in this case.