Posted 07/18/2005
Blond hair found on Aruba shore to be tested in case of missing teen
By Margaret Wever
The Associated Press
ORANJESTAD, Aruba — Investigators will conduct DNA tests on blond hair attached to duct tape that was found along the northeast coast of Aruba to see if it came from missing former Mississippian Natalee Holloway, authorities said today.
A park ranger found the duct tape while collecting trash Sunday on rocks at Boca Tortuga, an inlet in front of a series of caves, said National Park Ranger Service spokeswoman Dilma Arends.
Boca Tortuga is on the opposite side of Aruba from where Holloway, was last seen in public.
The hair will be sent to the Netherlands for DNA analysis, said police spokesman Edwin Comemencia. Aruba, a Dutch protectorate, doesn't have a lab to conduct the genetic testing.
Extensive searches by Dutch marines, Aruban police, and some 2,000 volunteers have found no trace of the 18-year-old Holloway, of Mountain Brook, Ala., who was last seen in public in the early hours of May 30 — at the end of a high school graduation trip to the Dutch Caribbean island. Holloway attended junior high in Clinton, Miss. Her father still lives in Meridian, Miss.
A volunteer group from Dickinson, Texas, that had searched for three weeks left the island on Sunday.
A 17-year-old Dutch resident of Aruba, Joran van der Sloot, has been detained in connection with Holloway's disappearance, but no charges have been filed.
On Saturday, investigators took van der Sloot, the son of a judge in training on the island, to a beach on the island's northwest coast — near Holloway's hotel — where he has said he went with her the night she disappeared. Police superintendent Jan van der Straaten declined to provide details about the trip, saying only that it was "part of the investigation."
Authorities can hold van der Sloot until Sept. 4, when he must be charged or released. Six other men detained at various times during the investigation have been
