The Natalee Holloway Case

I admit it, I'm a sucker for true crime stories. It's all my mother's fault--she gets caught up in the scandal of the moment, whether it is Watergate or the O.J. Simpson case.

I haven't been following the Natalee Holloway case too much, and maybe I am more protective of my 16-year-old daughter than most parents are. We know that Ms. Holloway was 18, and she traveled with 124 of her classmates from an upscale suburb of Birmingham, Alabama, to Aruba as part of an unofficial high school graduation trip. (I bet the school district is relieved that they did not officially sponsor the trip). 18-year-olds want to be independent and often ignore their parents. I can say that I would have been very unhappy if my daughter wanted to go on a 5-day trip to Aruba (where there would be heavy drinking, of course) and no doubt wanted me to pay for it. Sometimes parents just have to say "no," and it is hardest when the plea is that "123 of my classmates are going, and THEIR parents said it was OK."

Apparently, Ms. Holloway was drinking in a local bar (apparently drinking shots) and left with three young men, and was never heard from again. Apparently ABC will broadcast a "20/20" episode on Monday that suggests that she was murdered by one of the young men. She was probably too naive and inexperienced to know that alcohol, a group of young men, and a pretty young woman very often leads to trouble. And, of course, there is a foreign country involved, where--let me put this charitably--their law enforcement procedures are not the same as ours. It appears that they have more restrictive interrogation rules; rules on how long they can hold a suspect; and rules limiting wiretapping.