Alabama Judge Declares Missing Teen Natalee Holloway Dead

Alabama Judge Declares Missing Teen Natalee Holloway Dead : Alabama judge signed an order Thursday to announce Natalie Holloway died, more than six years after the American teenager disappeared on the Caribbean island of Aruba.

Judge Alan King signed the order at the end of the hearing in a courtroom in Birmingham which was attended by women of divorced parents is absent, David and Beth Holloway.

David Holloway, the judge said in September he believed that his daughter died and he wanted to stop payments to its health insurance and use her $ 2,000 college fund to help his younger brother. Hearing on Thursday was scheduled to question a suspect in the disappearance of Holloway, the Dutchman Joran van der Sloot, pleaded guilty Wednesday in Peru in 2010 murder of women in Lima.

Natalie Holloway disappeared on a high school graduation trip to Aruba on May 30, 2005.18-year-old was last seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot early in the day. Her body was never found, and it received close scrutiny of the media and international attention.

The king was acting at the request of David Holloway to the missing 18-year-old pronounced dead.

Mother teenagers, initially objected, but her lawyer, Charlie DeBardeleben, said she changed her mind later when she realized her husband's intentions. Natalie Holloway's parents divorced in 1993, Beth Holloway was sitting in the back row of the courtroom, mostly looking at her hands in her lap in the afternoon hearing on Thursday.

She declined to comment, but her lawyer said: "She is ready to move from that."

Mark White, Attorney Dave Holoway, told the judge before announced his decision that there was no evidence that Holloway was still alive.

"Despite all that there was no evidence has been found Natalie Holloway alive," he told the judge, noting that additional research, the blanket of the international media and even offer rewards have been proved to be something new.

The king ruled in September that Dave Holloway met the legal presumption of his daughter's death, and it was for someone to prove that she did not die at a high school graduation trip. He set a hearing today to a few months for those who come forward.

Dave Holloway said he expected to hear the judge pronounce his daughter is dead, because he had no doubt.

"We have been dealing with her death in the last six and a half years," he said.

He added that the goal judge closes a chapter in a long history, but added: "We still have a long way to achieve justice.

The authorities have long worked with the assumption that the young woman was dead, Aruba, where the case was officially classified as a homicide investigation.

The investigation remains open, although no recent activity, said Solicitor General Taco Stein, an official of the prosecutor's office in the Dutch Caribbean Island.

"The team that operated in that investigation is still functioning as a team, and they come together when there is information or things necessary in the case, or a new tip arrives," Stein said in a telephone interview Thursday.

In Peru, Van der Sloot, 24, pleaded guilty on Wednesday of killing 21-year-old woman, whom he met in the casino in Lima. Stephanie Flores was killed five years to the day after Natalie Holloway, the 18-year-old girl from a wealthy suburb of Birmingham, a mountain stream, disappeared. She was last seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot.

Shortly after the death of Flores' May 30, 2010, van der Sloot told police he killed a woman in Peru in a fit of rage after she found on his laptop, he has to do with the disappearance of Holloway. Police forensic experts disputed the claim.

Dave Holloway said he hoped van der Sloot gets 30-year sentence sought Peruvian prosecutors.

"Everyone knows his identity. I believe that he is beyond rehabilitation," said Holloway.

The lawyers said both parents said they hope the next stop of van der Sloot is Birmingham; where he faces federal charges accusing him of extorting $ 25,000 from Beth Holloway reveal the whereabouts of her daughter's body. Prosecutors said the money was paid, but nothing was disclosed the whereabouts of missing women.

"I expect to see him in Birmingham," said Dave Holloway.