Thaindian News

AMSTERDAM (BNO NEWS) — Aruban authorities have called off a dive team search for the remains of missing American teenager Natalee Holloway, CNN reported on Wednesday.

The search was initiated after a couple from Pennsylvania believed they had taken an underwater photo that showed the remains of Holloway, who went missing while on vacation in Aruba on May 30, 2005.

Aruban police contacted the island’s tour companies and used a dive team to search the island’s snorkeling locations, Ann Angela, a spokeswoman for the Aruba prosecutor’s office, told CNN. “It’s a dead end,” she said, adding that they assume the photo is of coral.

Natalee Holloway went missing on May 30, 2005 during a high school graduation trip to Aruba. The case received international media attention, but her body was never found.

Dutch man Joran van der Sloot, 22, has been the main suspect in the case since Holloway went missing, who has confessed to disposing her body several times in front of TV cameras - claims which prosecutors deemed not credible enough for prosecution.

In Van der Sloot’s latest confession, made in 2009, he admitted to disposing Holloway’s body in a marsh on Aruba. The confession resulted in a new investigation into the disappearance of Holloway, but eventually concluded without results. “It became clear that this statement is hold together by lies and fantasy,” Aruban Chief Prosecutor Peter Blanken said. “Times are wrong and named witnesses have denied.”

Blanken also said that, if Holloway’s body was disposed in the marsh, it would probably never be recovered. “If she was left there, the chances of finding her are extremely small,” Blanken said. “After several days, nothing would have been found except bones and maybe a plastic shoe.”

Earlier, Van der Sloot made a similar confession to an undercover operation by Dutch crime reporter Peter R. de Vries, which prosecutors said did not constitute new legal evidence. During that confession, Van der Sloot admitted that Holloway died unexpectedly while they were making out on the beach. He then said he dumped her body in the ocean. He denied his confession immediately after he found out the conversations were recorded.

Calls from BNO News to Ann Angela, a spokeswoman for the Aruban Prosecutor’s Office, were not immediately returned.