Natalee Holloway Development? Dad Says Dental Records Requested
share this story
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Dutch authorities are reviewing the dental records of missing U.S. teen Natalee Holloway as they analyze a jawbone with a tooth in it that was found in Aruba last week, the FBI told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The girl's father, Dave Holloway, said earlier that he provided the records but added that he had received no new official information on the investigation on the Dutch island in the Caribbean.
"The authorities haven't confirmed anything with me," he told the AP in a telephone interview. "It's pretty much total silence."
Paul Daymond, an FBI spokesman in Birmingham, Alabama, said the agency sent some records electronically Wednesday and shipped the remaining dental impressions. It is unclear when those would arrive.
A tourist found a jawbone last Friday and took it to the front desk of the Phoenix Hotel, said Ann Angela, spokeswoman for the Aruba prosecutor's office. It was then sent to the Netherlands for analysis, though there has been no announcement on whether the bone is human.
"If it turns out to be a human bone, the investigation will continue," Angela said. "We cannot say when the results will be in."
A forensic scientist in Aruba, however, has said that the bone is from a human female, Dave Holloway told the AP.
Holloway said he received the information from a friend who spoke to the scientist. He did not identify either the friend or the scientist, and did not say whether the scientist is involved in the investigation or otherwise is in a position to know details of the case.
Natalee Holloway, of Mountain Brook, Alabama, was 18 when she disappeared while on a high school graduation trip to Aruba in 2005.
She was last seen leaving a bar with Dutchman Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect in her disappearance, on the final night of her trip.
Aruba prosecutors have repeatedly said they lack evidence to charge Van der Sloot, who is currently in jail in Peru acused of killing a 21-year-old woman last May 30 – five years to the day after Holloway's disappearance.
The search for Holloway has seen numerous possible leads that turned into dead ends.
Earlier this year, police conducted an underwater search expedition after a couple from Pennsylvania took a picture of what they thought might have been a skull and bones. Divers found nothing but rocks and coral.
___
Associated Press writer Kendal Weaver in Montgomery, Alabama, contributed to this report.
Loading comments… 
DANICA COTO 11/18/10 11:42 PM ET Associated Press