The Natalee Holloway case: is it worth all the attention?
A 19-year old man, Geoffrey van Cromvoirt, who was arrested for possible criminal offenses concerning the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, appeared in court today. The hearing was closed and authorities refused to reveal the outcome, but the Associated Press says that the prosecutor appeared to be satisfied with the hearing.
The chief Aruban prosecutor was smiling as she emerged from a police station on Tuesday, but refused to say whether the judge had agreed to her request to keep the man in custody for at least eight days while authorities continue their investigation of him in Natalee Holloway’s disappearance.
But the prosecutor, Karin Janssen, signaled her agreement with the outcome of the hearing, telling reporters, “I never smile when I’m angry.”
For those who haven’t watched cable television for the past 11 months, Natalee Holloway was an 18-year Alabama woman who went missing while on a high school graduation trip to Aruba, which is a Dutch colony. She was last seen leaving a bar with Dutch teen Joran van der Sloot and two brothers from Surinam on May 30, 2005. Van der Sloot and the two brothers were jailed and later released after a judge ruled that there was not enough evidence to hold them. The brothers said that they dropped Holloway and van der Sloot off on a beach. Van der Sloot claims that he spent time with her on the beach but left her there because she wanted to stay and he wanted to go because he had to go to school the next day.
Natalee’s friends said she had been drinking the entire day of her disappearance. Aruban Deputy Chief Dompig stated recently that the police have evidence of heavy drinking by Natalee that day, and some evidence that she was using drugs or possessed drugs.
Witnesses have come forward who say the then 18-year-old Holloway had drugs in her possession and was drinking heavily on May 30, the day she disappeared, Gerald Dompig, deputy chief of police for Aruba, told CBS television’s “48 Hours Mystery” program, which released a partial transcript of the interview on Thursday.
“…what bothers me the most is the time that the mainstream media, especially FOX and CNN, have devoted to her case. Holloway was pretty, white, young, and middle- to upper-class. What if she had been black, homely, fat, and poor — would the networks have devoted this much time to her? I think not.”“We feel strongly that she probably went into shock or something happened to her system with all the alcohol — maybe on top of that, other drugs, which either she took or they gave her — and that she … just collapsed,” he said in the interview, scheduled for broadcast on Saturday.
A cover-up may have ensued after the death, he said. Dompig specified that witnesses did not see Holloway taking drugs, only that she had them in her possession.
I, for one, will be glad when the Natalee Holloway case is closed. It’s a sad story, and one that should teach a lesson to parents and kids alike about the dangers of high school and college trips. It’s a cruel world out there and hooking up with strangers in a bar is a dangerous thing.
Natalee Holloway
“It isn’t that I don’t care about Natalee Holloway, only that I believe the media is focusing too much on her case while ignoring much more significant stories.”
However, what bothers me the most is the time that the mainstream media, especially FOX and CNN, have devoted to her case. Nobody watches MSNBC but I’m pretty sure that they’re doing the same thing. Holloway was pretty, white, young, and middle- to upper-class. What if she had been black, homely, fat, and poor — would the networks have devoted this much time to her? I think not. Eugene Robertson in the Washington Post published an excellent column on this called (White) Women we Love.
A damsel must be white. This requirement is nonnegotiable. It helps if her frame is of dimensions that breathless cable television reporters can credibly describe as “petite,” and it also helps if she’s the kind of woman who wouldn’t really mind being called “petite,” a woman with a good deal of princess in her personality. She must be attractive — also nonnegotiable. Her economic status should be middle class or higher, but an exception can be made in the case of wartime (see: [Jessica] Lynch).
Put all this together, and you get 24-7 coverage. The disappearance of a man, or of a woman of color, can generate a brief flurry, but never the full damsel treatment.
Every year in the United States, more than a million people are reported missing, most of them minors, While the majority of those cases are runaway teens, there are also numerous abductions by both relatives and strangers. You don’t hear much about them and I believe that it is because most of them don’t fit the “pretty, young, white girl” profile of Natalee Holloway and Laci Peterson. It isn’t that I don’t care about Natalee Holloway, only that I believe the media is focusing too much on her case while ignoring much more significant stories.
Greta van Susteren, are you listening?
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