It has been nearly a year since Natalee Holloway disappeared during a school trip to Aruba. Her body has never been found yet three individuals, known to have spent time with Natalee the evening of her disappearance, have remained under suspicion but have never been formally charged with a crime. That may be changing.
David Kock, the attorney for two of the suspects, Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, told Rita Cosby in an exclusive interview that he expects his clients, as well as the third suspect, Joran Van Der Sloot, will soon be brought to trial, possibly for murder charges, perhaps as early as this summer.
Mr. Kock said in that interview, "From the information that we are getting, it seems like, you know, they know, too, they have to round this up. I won’t be surprised if summer, June, July, the case will be presented."
For the first time, Natalee Holloway’s mom, Beth Holloway Twitty, is responding to these new developments. She joined Rita Cosby to react to the possibility of this major development.
RITA COSBY, HOST, 'LIVE & DIRECT': Beth, what do you think about the news?
BETH HOLLOWAY TWITTY, MOTHER OF NATALEE HOLLOWAY: It's kind of frightening, Rita, when I think about them now having these suspects go before a judge of instruction. I think we have known all along that there had to be more evidence brought forward.
I just don’t know what has come forward to proceed with the trial. It's just really frightening, because it’s one chance. We don’t get a second chance at this. Once they go before the judge of instruction for the charges, that’s it.
COSBY: You bring up a good point because last night we had Joran’s attorney, Joe Tacopina, on the show. He even said, look, if it happens today, he believes his client would be acquitted. He also believes maybe it’s a way to sort of “get the monkey off the back. Are you worried that maybe the Aruban government is just trying to rush this through now and then make it case closed?
TWITTY: It is a concern. It is kind of frightening to think about, that this is our one chance. I just don’t know what new evidence has been brought forward in order for us to go to trial.
I heard Dave speak last night that. We have never pressured them to proceed forward to a trial. We knew that the evidence had to be collected. We haven’t even been able to thoroughly exhaust some of the searches on the island of Aruba.
COSBY: You bring up some great points. We were surprised about the timing, too, Beth.
Are you concerned also about the Aruban justice system? In this particular case, it’s obviously different than our system. There’s no jury. It goes before this panel of judges. They can bring up different charges, too. You can start with the higher-up charge and then go to lower charges. Are you concerned at the way the system is going to work?
TWITTY: Well, I am concerned. Because, you know, if we look at our track record on filing for motions of appeal we have not done very well. We've never been successful there.
I just hope they have all the evidence that they need and they’re prepared to move forward and press charges against these suspects.
COSBY: Do you think there is enough to charge these boys, convict them even, with murder or something, even a lesser charge?
TWITTY: I just don’t know. I knew that when we were speaking with the officials during the summer, that they were saying they could bring forth sexual charges. But as far as anything further than that we were just not given any information.
COSBY: I hope justice is served for you. Thank you so much, Beth.
Watch 'Rita Cosby Live & Direct' each night at 9 p.m. ET on MSNBC.