July 07, 2005

Innocent Until Proven Guilty

fountain in the Courtyard of the Crescent hotel Eureka Springs Ar

I'm asking all nations not to offer them a safe haven," Beth Holloway Twitty, mother of 18-year-old Nataile Holloway, told a news conference as her voice cracked with emotion and she struggled to hold back tears. "My greatest fear is that they will leave Aruba," she said.

A judge on Monday ordered the release of Surinamese brothers Deepak Kalpoe, 21, and Satish Kalpoe, 18, saying there was not sufficient evidence to continue holding them in the case.


"These criminals are now free to walk among the tourists of Aruba ... While I have not seen my beautiful daughter in 36 days," Holloway Twitty said.

I wasn't going to comment again on this situation but these past few days, the news coverage, the punditry, the absolute nonsense that has been spewing out of the media on both sides has got me going.

Im not going to put Mrs. Twitty's whole statement on here. We have all heard it. WE have all seen it on the 24 hour news. We all feel for the family... I wonder who is advising them, and if they are being paid the Twitty's should get their money back. This statement was horrible and is bound to reduce support from the people of Aruba for working with the family. It shows total ignorance of the law and how things operate there in that country. It impunes the honesty of the judges involved and implies that the persons of interest are tried convicted and sentenced, when they are not.

I think too, as a nation, we have a right to ask questions about a cover up and how the investigation into the disappearance of Nataile Holloway has been handled thus far. Theirs is a closed court system, where our is open, and that lack of information breeds rumor and suspicion. I want to believe that they have done all that they can, but we know that their "system" allowed critical evidence to not be collected. Still it is their country, and they do things their way and I don't think its our place to cram our justice system down the maw of a nation that is "first world", democratic, but a bit more liberal than our own.

but I want to ask a few questions.

First, are we not all tired of this case being tried in the media? I keep looking at the TV and saying "Where is the evidence?" These "Court TV" people think they can convict these persons of interest, and that is all that they are not even suspects under Dutch law, which in many way is more stringent than our law in the US. Imagine being held without charge for over three months? Happens there and in Europe all the time , but against the law here.

So if the two Kalpoe brothers are released for lack of sufficient evidence, are they criminals as Mrs. Holloway Twitty suggests? No... "Criminal" implies a conviction, which since there hasn't been any charges brought, no trial, then no criminal...Right

The same for the Van Der Sloots, father and son, they are not charged, so they are not criminals and should not be painted as such.

I was and am embarrassed for our media and our mindset. Are we not the nation that believes that one is innocent until proven guilty? Are we so closed minded that once the Media thinks that "this is how it happened" that is the way it is and it cannot be changed? I think that Ms. Nataile was taken after being left on the beach too drunk to stand, and that Joran went home and he and dad came to look for her only to find her gone. Where? We don't know? But my theory that she has been kidnapped sold into the sex trade is just as viable, could be that the Van Der Sloots, are involved in her murder...But maybe not.

What if this young man's only crime was being a cad and leaving her alone on the beach? Is that a crime? How about a adult consorting with a minor, that is illegal here in the US but no one talks about that as the perpetrator is a female and the minor is a male....

WE just don't know anything and how there can be such a rush to judgment I don't understand.

I am embarrassed that on national television I have heard commentators call for the Marines to go in, for the FBI to go in (they are there already and have found nothing) saying how stupid everyone is, and yes I think that if the world was CSI Miami maybe we would have gotten the crime solved right in 46 min 30 seconds just like a TV show, thats Hollywood people... get a grip.

The sad fact is that we may never know what happened to this girl.

Put the shoe on the other foot. Suppose that a Aruban girl went missing and an American Boy and his friends were accused in a similar manner, and were freed... Wed all be cheering over this. The fact is we are so ego centric as a people that the hypocrisy of this situation is visible for the world to see. If it fits what we want to see then its great, but if not or if justice is served then well, to hell with you.

I am saying this, we need to shut off Court TV, and all of these pundits and really look at what we know which is very little. Truth be told the evidence is nil. If the Dutch Marines, Equasearch, and a island full of people cant find here maybe she is not there.

would you want your son or husband to go on trial for a lady's disappearance with no evidence other than you were the last one with her? I think not. Paul Van Der Sloot said, " there is no case without a body", and I think that is so. There is very little circumstantial evidence even. Sadly, I think its time for the family to come home and start to face the reality that their girl may never come home...

And we in America may have to accept that.