Netflix revisits case of 18-year-old student who vanished from the same island as Amy Bradley
Netflix is set to revisit the disappearance of US school student Natalee Holloway in a new three-part documentary.
Released tomorrow (4 November), Taken: Natalee Holloway documents how the 18-year-old high school graduate travelled from her home near Birmingham, Alabama, to Aruba alongside 124 other students in May 2005.
However, Holloway would not return home with her classmates, instead vanishing in the Caribbean island's capital, Oranjestad.
Advert
The Netflix documentary will piece together Holloway's final days through her closest friends and family, as well as including interviews with investigators and exclusive access to never-before-seen footage.
Watch the trailer below:
What happened to Natalee Holloway in Aruba?
Holloway was last seen leaving a bar in Oranjestad and getting into a car with Dutch student Joran van der Sloot and his two friends, brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, in the early hours of the morning on 30 May.
She had met the pair in Carlos'n Charlie's, a bar which has since closed in the capital.
Friends became concerned about Holloway when she failed to turn up for her flight home later that day, with law enforcement carrying out a search across the island.
Holloway's mother and stepfather, Beth and George 'Jug' Twitty, were able to track down van der Sloot after arriving on the island, who claimed that he had dropped Holloway back at the Holiday Inn at 2am.
However, this was later disputed by then Police Commissioner Jan van der Straaten, who maintained that Holloway had not returned to her room.
Two security guards were later arrested on suspicion of murder and kidnapping in June but were later released.
van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers were also arrested in June 2005, but ultimately released that September, after police were unable to produce substantial evidence.
Has Natalee Holloway ever been found?
The investigation would continue for several years until May 2010, when 21-year-old business student Stephany Flores Ramírez was found dead in a hotel room registered to van der Sloot.
He later pleaded guilty to Ramírez's death in 2012 and was sentenced to 28 years in prison in 2012. Holloway was also declared legally dead that year.
van der Sloot's connection to Holloway's case would come back up in 2023, after he was extradited to the US on charges of extortion against Holloway's family.
While in the US, van der Sloot admitted to killing Holloway, telling authorities he bludgeoned her to death when she rejected his sexual advances and pushed her body into the sea.
He is yet to be tried for murder in Aruba and cannot be tried in Natalee’s home country of the United States.
Despite van der Sloot's confession, Holloway's remains have not been found.
Amy Bradley's family speaks out over Natalee Holloway case
Holloway's case has since drawn comparison to the disappearance of Amy Bradley, a US citizen who went missing while on a cruise with her family.
She was last seen while the cruise was travelling close to Aruba, with members of the ship's staff inviting her to Carlos'n Charlie's while the ship was docked in Oranjestad.
Bradley's father, Ron Bradley, has previously addressed the comparisons between his daughter and Holloway's cases, saying: "Nobody should have to go through what we've been through in the last seven years.
"I know that Natalee's family is going through the same thing. You have so many thoughts and things that come to your mind and it just doesn't leave you."
Like Holloway, Bradley was declared legally dead in 2010. However, her family has not given up hope that she will one day be found, as theories suggesting she may have been trafficked doing the rounds online over the years.
Taken: Natalee Holloway is available to stream on Netflix from 4 November.
Topics: Netflix, Documentaries, Amy Bradley, TV
Brenna Cooper
