FloridaDoug wrote:
2) The best way to deal with the press is to use it to your advantage by searching for Natalee and being televised. They knew it was a waste of time, and they were not smart enough to see the advantages of good publicity.
fear of nut cases.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,460125,00.html
VAN SUSTEREN: After you met with Van der Sloot, did there come a time when you went to the International school? I mean Van Der Straaten.
DEBARDELEBEN: Yes, Greta. We actually went there the next day.
VAN SUSTEREN: Why did you go to that school?
DEBARDELEBEN: We were looking for Joran. We wanted to talk to him and try to find out where he went, what school he attended, and just help in any way we possibly could to find Natalee.
VAN SUSTEREN: Mitch, when you got to the school, did you talk to anybody?
ENNIS: Yes. We were told there was a school he went to. And we went to that school, and they said "No, he's not here." We had carried some of the posters we had that said "Missing" with Natalee's photograph on it to pass out to try to aid in the search for her.
And the chief of the school, he was the headmaster there, said he doesn't go to school here, and if you would, please don't put any more of these around my school. We said certainly, we won't do that.
On leaving we went across the street and got into a car. He came across the street, he actually jaywalked, and he said, "I wouldn't want my name used, to say that I told you this, but he goes to the International School, and he is there now, and I under he is sleeping over there, and possibly in a sleeping bag."
So we went to the International School straight from there. The headmaster at one of the other schools.
VAN SUSTEREN: Charlie, you then went to the International School. What happened when you got there?
DEBARDELEBEN: When we got there, we met the headmaster of the International School, myself and a couple other friends that were with us, and Mitch and another friend who stayed out in the lobby. And we spoke with the head master asking if he know the whereabouts of Joran or anything about Natalee's disappearance.
VAN SUSTEREN: What did he tell you, Charlie?
DEBARDELEBEN: He told us some quite interesting facts, as a matter of fact, that Paulus and Joran had been there a day or two before, that Paulus was trying to explain with his son what had happened, and that he was trying to explain that his son had taken Natalee out to the light house, that she wanted to see sharks, that at some point she had fallen.
And he was just volunteering information, but also saying what a good boy Joran was and how the father was about to be a judge, and he was a very upstanding citizen of Aruba. And it was really apparent to us that he was doing the best he could to cover for him.
VAN SUSTEREN: Mitch, what was your impression of the headmaster. Did you get the sense that he was straight talking, or were you suspicious of him?
ENNIS: I was very suspicious because the first thing he said was she may have drowned, and the way these currents are they would carry her out to sea and we would never find the body.
He mentioned that the night she went missing, probably they could not tell that she came back to the hotel because the cameras were not working. How would he know these things unless he was coached into it?
And I was suspicious of what he had to say, because from day one this thing appeared to be a cover up. The police, it seems their main objective was to protect Joran, and the heck with finding Natalee.
VAN SUSTEREN: Why do you say that, Mitch?
ENNIS: Van der Straaten told us, he said "I don't think I could arrest my best friend's son. I am his godfather, and I honestly don't think that he's guilty. He is a witness."
And I said this is strange. That is the last person who saw her. And he said, "We are working on another angle on that." And that angle was the two black men that were security guards, they were going to try to blame it on them.
I felt like from day one we could tell that they did not want us there. They were very uncomfortable with us being around them because they were trying to cover it up.
VAN SUSTEREN: Is there anybody else in the investigation that you met that you have a thought about whether the person was doing his job or her job or not, or that you're suspicious of?
ENNIS: One of the things that was really strange about it, Greta, to me was we had a meeting with them, and we had 25 questions to ask them. They would not answer a single one of them.
VAN SUSTEREN: Who are they, the police? Do you the police?
ENNIS: This is really the odd thing. The police are supposed to be investigating Natalee's disappearance. But they told us in the meeting that the investigation, the people in charge of it, was the Aruban tourism department, which I thought was a little bit strange.
It appeared to me that they were not trying to investigate anything. It was damage control. They were worried about tourism, not finding Natalee.
