By DAVID WRIGHT
Natalee Holloway’s mother confronted her daughter’s suspected killer, Joran van der Sloot, just minutes after he is believed to have dumped the honor student’s body at sea.
And when a frantic Beth Twitty begged a policeman to search the trunk of his pal Deepak Kalpoe’s car, the cop refused — passing up an opportunity to detect clues that could have cracked the case right then and there.
Detectives in Aruba, where Natalee vanished on May 30, have been investigating this explosive new theory.
The line of inquiry was fueled by yet another lie told by 18-year-old Joran, the prime suspect in the case, The National Enquirer has discovered.
On September 1, a judge ordered Joran to be released from jail after being held for questioning since June 9. He still remains a suspect.
Beth Twitty’s drama began when she and her husband Jug flew to Aruba after learning that Natalee, 18, had failed to make the flight home with the rest of her graduating class from Mountain Brook High School, Ala.
By the early hours of May 31, Beth had convinced a reluctant cop to help. He went with her to the Holiday Inn where Natalee and her classmates had stayed. There, they met a young man who brought up the names of Joran and Deepak and Satish Kalpoe — all later arrested on suspicion of rape and murder.
Retired U.S. Secret Service agent Arthur Wood, who has been working with Aruban investigators, said: “The kid agreed to lead the Twittys and the officer to Joran’s house. They got there around 3 am on May 31.
“Joran’s father Paulus came out and the policeman told him that the Americans were searching for their missing daughter, who’d last been seen leaving a nightclub with Joran around 1 am the previous morning.
“Paulus said he’d get Joran. Then he came back and said, ‘He’s not here.’ He called Joran’s cell phone and after speaking to him said, ‘He says he’s at the Wyndham hotel playing poker.’
“They all headed for the Wyndham. But there was no sign of Joran in the casino. Since then I’ve questioned just about everyone at the hotel, and there is no indication Joran was ever there on the 31st.
“Paulus called Joran again, then told everyone, ‘He’s home now.’ It was 4 am. The group went back to the house and found Joran and Deepak at the gate next to Deepak’s Honda — the car in which Beth knew Natalee had left the nightclub the night before.
“Beth demanded: ‘Where’s my daughter?’ Joran replied in a surly voice: ‘I dropped her at the Holiday Inn. What do you want me to do?’
“Beth then begged the boys to open the trunk of the car and let the policeman search it. Deepak didn’t respond — and the policeman wouldn’t make him do it. We’ll never know what clues police might have found inside the car or the trunk because the Honda wasn’t seized for several days.
“The belief is growing that Joran and Deepak may have just been coming back from getting rid of Natalee’s body when Beth arrived at the house the second time.
“The theory is that they didn’t have time to do it on the 30th — they needed someone with a boat, and it took them a day to arrange it. When Beth was at Joran’s house the first time and was told he wasn’t there, he may well have been disposing of her daughter’s body just a few miles away.”
The latest police theory also accounts for a fisherman’s hut being broken into on the beach near where the three suspects say they last saw Natalee. The only items missing were a knife and some rope.
Later the same day, another fisherman reported that one of his large wire mesh fish traps had been stolen — leading investigators to believe that it may have been weighted down and used as a “casket” for Natalee’s body.
Said Wood: “It would have been very easy to hide her body in the dunes for 24 hours. And until Natalee’s mom arrived in Aruba, no one was looking for her.”
