Authorities have requested the dental records of missing U.S. teen Natalee Holloway, her father said Thursday, as Dutch investigators analyze a jawbone with a tooth in it that was found last week in Aruba.
Dave Holloway told The Associated Press he is in the process of providing the records and added that he has received no new official information on the case.
"The authorities haven't confirmed anything with me," he said in a telephone interview. "It's pretty much total silence."
He did not specify which authorities asked for the records.
A tourist found the bone last Friday and brought it to the front desk of the Phoenix Hotel, according to Ann Angela, spokeswoman for the Aruba prosecutor's office. It was then sent to the Netherlands for analysis, though there has been no announcement on whether the bone is human.
"If it turns out to be a human bone, the investigation will continue," Angela said. "We cannot say when the results will be in."
A forensic scientist in Aruba, however, has said that the bone is from a human female, Dave Holloway told the AP. Holloway said he received the information from a friend who spoke to the scientist. He did not identify either the friend or the scientist, and did not say whether the scientist is involved in the investigation or how he or she is otherwise in a position to know details of the case.
Natalee Holloway, of Mountain Brook, Alabama, was 18 when she disappeared while on a high school graduation trip to Aruba in 2005.
She was last seen leaving a bar with Dutchman Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect in her disappearance, on the final night of her trip.
Aruba prosecutors have repeatedly said they lack evidence to charge Van der Sloot, who is currently in jail in Peru acused of killing a 21-year-old woman on May 30 — five years to the day after Holloway's disappearance.
The search for Holloway has seen numerous possible leads that turned into dead-ends.
Earlier this year, police launched an underwater search expedition after a couple from Pennsylvania took a picture of what they thought might have been a skull and bones.
Divers found nothing but rocks and coral.