ORANJESTAD, Aruba (AP) – Police and volunteers picked through a landfill Saturday where a witness claimed he saw men dumping a female body two days after an Alabama teenager vanished.
The landfill is on the southern part of the Dutch Caribbean island, the opposite side from where 18-year-old Natalee Holloway was last seen in the early hours of May 30.
Crews stopped the search late Saturday without finding anything, but planned to resume Sunday, said Tim Miller, director of the volunteer Texas EquuSearch, which is coordinating the landfill search.
The witness claimed claimed to be dropping off trash when he saw the men dumping the body on the afternoon of June 1, Miller said.
“He said he saw a face, blond hair and a woman’s chest, and that the body was dumped and covered,” Miller said.
The witness could not identify the men but said they were driving a light colored jeep, said Miller.
Police spokesman Edwin Comenencia said police searched the landfill after receiving the tip in days following Holloway’s disappearance, but found nothing. He said the witness recently approached Holloway’s family, who asked for another search.
Holloway’s family has offered a $1 million reward for information leading to her safe return, and a separate $100,000 award for information that help solves the mystery. It was unclear if the witness had been seeking the reward.
On the opposite side of Aruba, police ordered crews to stop draining a pond near the Marriott hotel, Comenencia said. They found no clues to Holloway’s disappearance, he said.
Crews began draining the pond Tuesday, but it was still several feet deep Saturday. Comenencia declined to say why investigators decided to stop draining it.
Another witness had claimed he saw three young men, including a Dutch youth detained in the case, driving near it the night Holloway disappeared.
Extensive searches have found no trace of Holloway, who disappeared on the final night of a high school graduation trip.
No one has been charged in the case and 17-year-old Joran van der Sloot is the only person detained as a suspect.
AP-ES-07-30-05 2100EDT
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