The mother of an Natalee Holloway, the Alabama teen who disappeared in Arubu in 2005, has started a missing persons resource center in the District of Columbia.
Beth Holloway opened the Natalee Holloway Resource Center last week at the National Museum of Crime & Punishment at 575 Seventh St. NW.
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“I feel confident that it will serve as a point of light for all missing,” Beth Holloway told reporters at the center’s opening on Tuesday.
Holloway said she hopes the center will prevent more missing person cases like her daughter’s. But if someone disappears, Holloway said she wants to support families with resources to make their search easier, especially within the first 48 hours.
The center offers a 24-hour hot line for parents in the United States whose children go missing overseas. The NHRC will provide families with missing person poster templates, contacts, resources and will offer outreach to the media.
Natalee Holloway vanished on May 30, 2005, while vacationing in Aruba with her high school graduating class.
The opening of the center named after Natalee came the day after the prime suspect in the teen’s death, Joran van der Sloot, allegedly confessed to murdering a 21-year-old woman in Peru.
Beth Holloway did not speak about the latest developments in van der Sloot’s case.
Van der Sloot was arrested twice in Holloway’s case — and gave a number of conflicting confessions, some in TV interviews — but was freed for lack of evidence.
He is charged in the United States with trying to extort $250,000 from Holloway’s family in exchange for information about the case, including where Natalee Holloway’s body is buried.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
