American Media Shares Blame in Aruba

[Berzerker]

The Aruban chief of police is blaming the media here and the mother of Natalee Holloway for disrupting the investigation making it harder to gather evidence. Here is the logic: the pressure they put on the investigators made it impossible to keep the suspects under surveillance. Pressure was put on Aruban authorities internally and from the US to arrest the suspects without enough evidence to convict. This was why the suspects were free, they were being watched.

Not that the media will learn a lesson from this, the logic is sound IMO and it shows just one consequence of an overbearing media. The wrong people were initially arrested in the rush to solve the case, then the people more likely involved with the disappearance of Natalee Holloway were hauled in before enough evidence could be gathered.

[DRoseDARs]

US mainstream media motto:
"Anything to distract from the nation's real problems..."

[DinoDoc]

Of course, he's not just an incompetent with no real idea on how to run an investigation.

[KrazyHorse]

Murder isn't always an easy case to solve, DD.

Baltimore City homicide "clearance" rate (in which at least one suspect is charged) floats somewhere south of 40% in recent years.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by DRoseDARs
US mainstream media motto:
"Anything to make us a little cash ..."

Corrected for accuracy.

[Sava]

Originally posted by snoopy369


Corrected for accuracy.

So are you saying that it would be in the public's best interest if news services were not businesses? i.e. not for profit?

[germanos]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Murder isn't always an easy case to solve, DD.

AFAIK Natalie is still 'missing'.

[Gatekeeper]

Instead of blaming "the media," you might be better off focusing your attacks on the parts therein that have 24-hour news cycles to fill. In other words, television. And even then, only certain TV stations like Fox News, CNN, et al.

I've got more pressing use for the space I'm allotted than a missing (and, presumably, dead) teenager in Aruba. Should they find her (alive or dead), then a story will get in. Not until then, though.

Gatekeeper

[Q Classic]

Natalie Holloway? Tell me again, why should I give a **** about some well-off white princess when we have missing non-whites in America, hundreds dying in Africa and the Middle East, and thousands starving in North Korea?

[Timexwatch]

This case should've been a slam dunk. They're blaming the media for what should've been been an open and shut case. Girl gets drunk, goes off with guys, goes to beach, gets raped, girl disappears, guys go back home. Seems pretty simple to solve.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by germanos



AFAIK Natalie is still 'missing'.

That ***** is gone, man.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Timexwatch
This case should've been a slam dunk. They're blaming the media for what should've been been an open and shut case. Girl gets drunk, goes off with guys, goes to beach, gets raped, girl disappears, guys go back home. Seems pretty simple to solve.

Except you've got no witnesses to your supposed rape other than coconspirators. You have a bunch of drunks at a club who sort of saw the girl with these dudes over the course of the night. Then everybody leaves, and nobody saw particularly who she went with. You've got no body, no physical evidence, nothing. You've got suspects who lawyered up from minute one and who aren't opening their traps. You've got nothing, other than a reasonably strong suspicion about what happened.

I do wonder where they put the body that it's been so hard to find, though. If they dumped it in the ocean they might have gotten lucky and had it get torn up by sharks or something.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Timexwatch
This case should've been a slam dunk. They're blaming the media for what should've been been an open and shut case. Girl gets drunk, goes off with guys, goes to beach, gets raped, girl disappears, guys go back home. Seems pretty simple to solve.

a bit of a corpus delecti problem, but should be surmountable with circumstantial evidence, one would think, but perhaps Aruban-Dutch laws are a bit more stringent on these things. I'm quite suprised that one of the brothers didn't rat out the fratboy, but maybe they dont actually know what he did to her.

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by germanos
AFAIK Natalie is still 'missing'.

So's Jimmy Hoffa. What's your point?

[Timexwatch]

asleep:

It would be interesting to see if someone with some Dutch legal knowledge would chime in and tell us what the Dutch criminal procedures are.