Birmingham, Ala (WIAT) An American tourist disappears on a vacation trip to Aruba. The man she was last seen is the prime suspect. But there's no body. Does that mean there's no legal case?
That's how it played out more than six years ago when Mountain Brook teen Natalee Holloway vanished on a graduation trip to Aruba. She was last seen leaving an Oranjestad bar with local teen Joran van der Sloot. Despite repeated questioning by Aruban authorities...and despite a variety of later-denied versions of what happened that night...van der Sloot was never charged.
An eerily similar scenario is playing out now in the case of Robyn Gardner of suburban Washington, DC. Perhaps the biggest difference is the zeal with which Aruban authorities are pursuing the investigation involving her travelling companion, Gary Giordano. His lawyers have even blamed the Holloway case for the intensity of the efforts against their client.
But, so far, those investigative efforts are reaching the same result as in Natalee's case....nothing tangible. A search of the island by cadaver dogs this week has turned up nothing. Here's the Associated Press report from Aruba.
ORANJESTAD, Aruba October 8, 2011 (AP)
A team of cadaver dogs summoned to help search for the remains of a Maryland woman reported missing by her travel companion during a trip to Aruba are leaving the island without finding any clues, officials said Friday.
Prosecutor Taco Stein said he was not concerned that the search did not yield any evidence.
"We have other lines of investigation," he said.
The dogs searched a southeastern section of the Dutch Caribbean island known as Seroe Colorado. It is near the site where Gary Giordano reported 35-year-old Robyn Gardner of Frederick, Maryland, missing on Aug. 2.
Giordano, a businessman from Gaithersburg, Maryland, said she was carried away by currents while they snorkeled in the southern tip of the island.
He has denied wrongdoing but remains jailed because police question his account of her disappearance.
A judge issued an order Aug. 31 ordering Giordano detained for 60 days while investigators seek evidence to charge him with her presumed death.
Stein has said his office will seek to extend the detention order when it expires at the end of October.
