Birmingham, Ala (WIAT) There's another link between the disappearances on Aruba of Mountain Brook teen Natalee Holloway in 2005 and of Robyn Gardner, a vacationing woman from Maryland this summer.

Gardner's travelling companion, Gary Giordano, is the prime suspect in Gardner's disappearance.  He claims she vanished while they were snorkeling in the ocean off an Aruban beach.

Giordano has hired Aruban criminal defense attorney Chris Lejuez.  Lejuez who has 17 years of experience as a criminal defense attorney on the island, represented two Aruban security guards who were arrested early in the Natalee Holloway case in 2005 and subsequently released. The guards had been implicated by Joran van der Sloot, who said he saw a security guard approach Holloway after he dropped her off at her hotel the night she vanished.

Van der Sloot is still considered the prime suspect in Natalee's disappearance but was never formally charged in connection with it.  He's been in prison in Peru for almost a year and a half waiting trial on murder charges.  The body of Stephany Flores, a 21 year old student, was found in van der Sloot's Lima hotel room after the two met in a casino.

Van der Sloot has told prosecutors he killed Flores in a fit of rage after she found material relating to Holloway on his laptop.  Peruvian investigators say that's a bogus claim...that their inspection of the hard drive shows the Holloway material was accessed the day before Flores died.

They say it was a case of murder in the course of a robbery.   That van der Sloot killed her for money because he was broke and had run out of options.