Portrait of a Monster: Joran Van Der Sloot, a Murder in Peru, and the Natalee Holloway Mystery (18 page)

The escapade of Jennifer Wilbanks, the runaway bride who then reappeared a few days later with a fabricated kidnapping tale, had been the splashy headline only a month earlier. Now, Natalee’s case, with no body and no bloody crime scene, let imaginations run wild about her fate—from a voluntary runaway to a sex-slave captive to a victim of murder. Her beauty and her mother’s persistent wrenching pleas made her story stay in the spotlight.

Aruba’s deputy police chief, Gerold Dompig, later claimed that Beth’s decision to go before the media so early in the investigation pressured him, and under intense media scrutiny he made hasty decisions that he wouldn’t have normally made, including the premature arrests of people who shouldn’t have been suspects.

Natalee had been missing for six days when Dompig, a well-groomed black man with close-cropped hair and a neatly combed mustache, stood before the cameras and delivered a cryptic message.

“We are working diligently,” he said of his department’s investigators. “I want everybody to hold his breath for the next twenty-four hours. There will be developments after this weekend.”

Without mentioning any names, Dompig, the police department’s second-in-command under police chief Jan van der Straten, told reporters that two Surinamese men and a Dutchman were the investigation’s three most important leads. They admitted they had dropped Natalee at the hotel the night she went missing. He stopped short of calling the men suspects, instead referring to the three as “persons of interest.”

In response to questions, the deputy police chief spelled out his department’s three theories. “One is, as you all know, that these persons of interest might have done something wrong to Natalee. That’s one area. The other area is that Natalee is just missing, in terms of being somewhere else for whatever reason. And the last theory is, of course, kidnapping.”

Beth Twitty had seen the videotape from the lobby of the Holiday Inn. She knew that her daughter had not come back to the hotel as Joran had explained. She also did not believe the boys’ story about the black security guard. Imagine her overwhelming dismay when she awoke on the morning of June 6 and learned that two dark-skinned security guards had been arrested—and not Joran and the Kalpoe brothers.

In a predawn raid, Aruban police had stormed the homes of two black men who, until recently, had worked as security guards at the Allegro Aruba Grand about a mile down the beach from the Holiday Inn.

Security guard Antonius “Mickey” John was asleep in his bed when a police tactical team knocked on the door of his cream-colored house with a pink tile roof on Van Speyk Street. The house was next to a drive-in Burger King in a nearly all-black neighborhood in Sint Nicolaas, Aruba’s second largest city. Sint Nicolaas was on the south side of the island. Many of its residents were former citizens of the British Caribbean islands but had come to Aruba in search of jobs. Mickey John and his family lived just off Bernard Street, the city’s main road, in a poor area where many of the rectangular cement houses were run-down and in varying states of disrepair.

The house was so close to the Sint Nicolaas Police Station that the Johns could see a corner of the blue-and-white stucco façade from their front porch. The Valero Oil Refinery Company, then owned by American oil giant Valero, operated a plant several miles south.

Before sunrise, John was dragged from his bed, handcuffed in front of his mother, and led to an awaiting unmarked police vehicle. The arresting officers, including Dennis Jacobs, were in plainclothes. They dismissively ignored John’s hysterical mother, Amy, and refused to tell her why her son was being taken into custody. Someone had tipped off the media and cameras captured the arrest.

Although fluent in English, John spoke little Dutch. He was ten when he moved with his mother to Aruba from their native Grenada. He had attended English schools on Grenada and Trinidad, and completed his secondary studies in English on Aruba. Standing five feet ten, with broad shoulders, and deep-set brown eyes, John was a self-described “Rasta man” who liked to quote from the Bible. Around his neck, the twenty-one-year-old wore a heavy gold chain with a sizable marijuana leaf–shaped medallion and he wore a gold hoop earring in each ear.

He had never been in trouble with the law, and had no idea why police had come for him. John knew he had done nothing wrong and grew concerned when police started asking questions about the missing American woman. By then, everyone on Aruba was familiar with the case. John had seen the posters of the pretty blond teen on buildings and in windows of stores and bars everywhere he went.

There was something about the demeanor of the investigators, however, that seemed sympathetic. He would later recall that he was treated well by the arresting officers and sensed it was because they knew he was not guilty of any crime. He hoped he was not being framed. He was a black man living on a Dutch colony and knew that racial inequality was a serious problem.

During the first of two interviews police conducted with John, he explained that he had worked at the Allegro Grand Hotel on Palm Beach up until May 31, 2005. Specifically, he was employed by the A.S.I.S. Guarding Company and his assignment had been as a security guard at the Allegro Grand. The luxury hotel, a gorgeous four-hundred-room, nine-story resort, was undergoing a $25 million makeover and had been closed to overnight guests for nearly a month; only the casino had remained open until May 31. At that time, the casino was also closing for renovations. The contract for security services between the Allegro Grand and A.S.I.S. Guarding expired at midnight May 31, and would not be renegotiated until the hotel reopened. Therefore, John found himself temporarily unemployed, awaiting a new post from A.S.I.S. The prime slice of oceanfront real estate was two blocks from the Holiday Inn.

“What hours did you work on the night of May 29 into May 30?” asked Sergeant Clyde Burke.

“I worked from 6:00
A.M.
until two o’clock in the afternoon,” John said in a smooth Caribbean accent. “I remember this clearly because there was a festival on the beach of the Holiday Inn. The Soul Beach Music Festival.” The Memorial Day weekend event had been a boon for tourism and had featured Grammy winners Lauryn Hill, Boyz II Men, and Wyclef Jean. Tickets for the festival had been included in the five-day vacation package purchased by the Mountain Brook students.

“On Monday, May 30, I worked from 6:00
A.M.
until 2:00
P.M.
That same evening I worked from 11:00
P.M.
to 7:00
A.M.
the morning of May 31.”

When asked about his uniform, John described the dark blue trousers and white vest provided by his employer. “I generally wear a black windbreaker when I’m working the night shift,” he explained.

The dark-colored slacks and black jacket matched the outfit that Deepak and Satish Kalpoe had described to police.

John said that during his two-year assignment at the Allegro Hotel he worked as a casino monitor during the day and as a security guard outside the hotel in the evenings, a time when the tourists were more likely to begin to get rowdy. When not stationed directly in front of the Allegro Hotel, John was on foot patrol along J. E. Irausquin Boulevard.

“Do you ever go to other hotels when you are working?” Burke asked.

“I sometimes walk to the Radisson and the Holiday Inn,” John replied.

“When was the last time you were at the Holiday Inn?”

“On Sunday, May 29, around noon I went to the hotel for the celebration on the beach. I also went on Sunday, May 29, around 9:00
P.M.
,” John said, explaining that his girlfriend from Boston had been in town and that was where they had agreed to meet. The two had spent several hours at the sports bar in the Holiday Inn, the same bar where Joran had run into Natalee and her group. He and his date remained there until midnight before heading home.

John recalled seeing a group of young people at the bar that night, but said they left before he did.

“I’m not the only guard who wears a black jacket,” John maintained, venting bewilderment over his arrest.

“Did you kill Natalee Holloway?” Burke asked.

“I have not kidnapped or murdered anybody. I would never do that. I know that tourism is important to Aruba and I would never do anything to jeopardize this, it brings in money and also jobs,” John declared. “I have lived here ten years and I work hard for my money.

“I know that at the Holiday Inn many of the so-called beach-bums hang around and sleep there at night. You should question them.”

John pointed out that he had to be back at the Allegro Hotel at 6:00
A.M.
the next morning. “I’m not going to be out partying if I have to be back at work at 6:00
A.M.
”

As John sat across the table from detectives, anxious, nervous, and mystified, police officers were being dispatched to conduct a room-by-room search of the Allegro Grand. It was an active construction site with hundreds of empty rooms, making it an ideal place to stash a body.

Searches were also commencing on other parts of the island. Some groups were scouring the barren, cactus-strewn areas that surrounded John’s house and neighborhood. Hundreds of people had volunteered to comb the sixty-nine miles of Aruba’s beaches, especially the beach in the vicinity of the California Lighthouse where Van der Sloot and his friends claimed to have driven with Natalee on the night she disappeared.

While the police continued to interview Mickey John, his friend and fellow security guard, Abraham Alfred Jones, was led into an adjacent room for questioning. Jones, a gregarious man with a slight beard and a penchant for baseball caps, had also been roused from his bed and taken into custody by undercover officers that morning. He told police his story. He was twenty-nine, born and raised in Aruba. His friends called him “Maca.” He lived with his common-law wife, Cynthia de Graaf, and their young daughter on Vuyst Street, a few blocks from the Johns family in Sint Nicolaas.

Jones gave his statement in English, not in either official language, Dutch or Papiamento. In his security guard position at the hotels, he often conversed with tourists, who were overwhelmingly Americans, and his English was strong.

Jones told detectives that he began working as a security guard in 2002 and, like John, wore dark-blue trousers and a white shirt when on the job. In the evenings, he donned a black Adidas jacket with three white stripes. He carried a walkie-talkie while patrolling the grounds of the hotel. He claimed that on May 30, he worked the day shift alongside “Bolo,” his nickname for Mickey John, and another Aruban guard.

“I worked the shift from 7:00
A.M.
to 3:00
P.M.
then 3:00
P.M.
to 11:00
P.M.
then 11:00
P.M.
to 7:00
A.M.
,” he said, describing what essentially was a twenty-four-hour workday. “After my shift, I sometimes go to the Holiday Inn to enjoy the live bands.”

“Do you ever leave your post at the Allegro Hotel in the evenings?” Detective Jacobs wanted to know.

Jones explained that his employer provided security to other hotels in the area and like Mickey John he often walked up and down the entire strip, always alone. “The three of us can never be gone at the same time while on night duty.”

Jones told the investigators that the previous Thursday he and John had shared a couple of drinks at the sports bar at the Holiday Inn. He and John thought this bar was one of the better spots to find some action.

“Did you ever meet or speak with the girl on the posters?” Burke asked, referring to the American teen, Natalee Holloway.

“I read in the newspaper about the girl being missing, but I have never met nor spoken with her.”

“Do you sell or use drugs?”

“No.”

“How about John, is he a dealer?”

“John smokes marijuana, but I do not believe he is a drug dealer.”

“Do you punch a clock at the hotel?” Jacobs asked.

“Yes, the punch clock is in the timekeeper’s office.”

“Does John have a car?”

“He has a gray Suzuki Vitara, but it is broken. Lately he has been driving a red four-door Toyota Tercel that belongs to his mother.”

After the interrogations, Mickey John and Abraham Jones remained in custody in separate facilities. Neither man was told why he was being held, or what charges might be filed against him. Meanwhile, the press was reporting that both men were being detained on suspicion of kidnapping and murder.

Mickey John was transported to the Sint Nicolaas Police Station within sight of his house, but he was not permitted to have any visitors, family or otherwise. For nine days, he was locked in a small cell, where his bed was a slab of poured concrete. His meals consisted of dry chicken and fish, mashed potatoes, and lettuce. Despite his chronic acid reflux, he was denied his medication.

“You’re in a cage like chickens,” he said of his extremely difficult incarceration.

To relieve his isolation, he sang reggae songs endlessly and tried to stay calm using meditation.

Abraham Jones was taken to a different police facility in Noord. Jones’s mother publicly denounced her son’s detention, insisting there was no evidence linking him to Natalee Holloway’s disappearance. His wife agreed. Cynthia was sure her husband was being framed.

Under Aruban law, the men could be held for up to 116 days without being formally charged—but a lucky break prevented this from happening.

*   *   *

Four days after John’s detention in cramped, cheerless Cell 20 of the Sint Nicolaas Police Station holding area, a new inmate arrived. He was delivered unseen to the adjacent stall, Cell 22. John welcomed the detainee’s arrival. He had been held in all the trappings of solitary confinement for four days. Since the first twenty-four hours after his arrest, when he’d spoken to investigators twice, he had been completely alone.

Mickey was lying on the cement block bed meditating when he heard the clank of the cell door on the other side of the wall.