Third Anniversary in the Natalee Holloway Disappearance
Friday, May 30, 2008 – 06:38 PM
By Jon Paepcke
MOUNTAIN BROOK, Ala. — Charlotte Botsford is a Mountain Brook youth pastor.
She said Natalie Holloway’s senior trip disappearance has forced parents to scale down the annual tradition.
“From what I can tell it has changed significantly. A lot of students are going to the beach or the lake and they are taking a lot parents with them,” Botsford recalled.
Today we reached Holloway’s father by phone at his Meridian, Mississippi office.
He said the last three years have felt like a heartbreaking dream which won’t end.
“I never would have thought that we would be here three years later talking about it and we’re really not any further along than we were in the first few weeks,” Holloway remembered.
Holloway does have hope that recent sonar searches off the Aruban coast could solve the mystery.
Meanwhile back in Mountain Brook, today’s anniversary came as a surprise to two women at the English Village.
“Oh wow, it has been three years. Three years exactly. She and i were in classes together when I was in mountain brook. It was a complete shock, but i didn’t realize it had been exactly three years”, Holloway classmate Katherine Ford said.
Ford remembered the day she saw her classmate’s picture on the news and said ever since she decided to reinforce her self awareness.
“You have to vigilant at all times especially as a woman it’s very important, be cautious in the world we’re in. No place is perfectly safe. Not even Mountain Brook,” Ford pointed out.
Dave Holloway says ocean floor sonar searches off the coast of Aruba found about 170 targets.
Due to bad weather and technological limitations, they were only able to examine a handful of those targets.
Holloway hopes to resume the searches as soon as possible.
