FIRST ON FOX – PUNTA CANA, Dominican Republic – The mother of an American teenager who was murdered while on vacation in Aruba in 2005 is speaking out on the search for missing American college student Sudiksha Konanki.
“The family is so fortunate to have an American embassy there to work with. I did not have that in Aruba,” Beth Holloway, mother of Natalee Holloway, told Fox News Digital exclusively about the search for Konanki in the Dominican Republic.
“Surely they are checking cameras from hotel, gas stations, traffic lights, store fronts and wherever they had dinner, any casinos they visited, the beach areas,” Holloway continued.
Natalee Holloway, 18, was murdered during a Mountain Brook High School, Alabama, senior trip in Aruba in 2005.
AMERICAN COLLEGE STUDENT SUDIKSHA KONANKI’S DISAPPEARANCE IN DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: TIMELINE
Beth Holloway fights back tears as she participates in the launch of the Natalee Holloway Resource Center on June 8, 2010 in Washington, DC. The resource center was founded by Holloway and the National Museum of Crime & Punishment and was created to assist families of missing persons. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Natalee Holloway’s body was never found. Joran van der Sloot is the prime suspect in her disappearance. In January 2012 he pleaded guilty to killing a different woman, Stephany Flores, and Natalee Holloway was legally declared dead that month.
Since her daughter’s murder, Beth Holloway has been advocating on her behalf and said that the disappearance of Konanki, 20, should be a warning for travelers.
“I have created the full-circle safety plan for travelers and citizens of all ages to remind them to spend as much time planning the end of their outing as they do planning where to go, what to wear and who they are going with,” Holloway said.
MISSING AMERICAN COLLEGE STUDENT’S SPRING BREAK DISAPPEARANCE ‘TOO EARLY’ TO RULE DROWNING: VIRGINIA SHERIFF
Jacki Curry holds her daughter, Jessica Curry, 19, during a prayer vigil at Poplar Springs Drive Baptist Church for missing teen Natalie Holloway, who disappeared on a senior trip to Aruba, June 6, 2005. (Photo by Marianne Todd/Getty Images)
“By planning the end of the outing, this brings everything full circle. They can decide where and what time to meet, how to leave together and make a conscious and deliberate plan to stay safe.”
Natalee Holloway was last seen alive on May 30, 2005, leaving a bar with van der Sloot. He was the prime suspect in her disappearance for the following 18 years and finally admitted to killing her in an Oct. 3, 2023 confession made public after he pleaded guilty to the extortion case.
The plea deal required van der Sloot to submit to a polygraph test – which he did.
He accepted the deal, confessed to killing Holloway on the beach after she refused his sexual advances, and later passed a polygraph test. And he might have got away with it if the Holloway family, supporters, the FBI and an international team of investigators didn’t doggedly pursue the case for nearly two decades.
Joran van der Sloot is the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway. He is serving a prison sentence in Peru for murdering a 21-year-old woman named Stephany Flores in 2010. (Getty Images, AP)
Van der Sloot has also offered shifting explanations over the years for Holloway’s final hours over the years, including that he shoved her into a rock, causing a head injury. He has also claimed that his father, a prominent judge who died in 2010, helped hide the body.
“After 18 years, Natalee’s case has been solved,” Holloway’s mother previously told reporters outside the courthouse immediately following the 2023 hearing. “Joran van der Sloot is the killer.”
Decades later, another family is going through what could potentially be an eerily similar situation to the Holloway’s.
Konanki, a University of Pittsburgh student from Loudoun County, Virginia, was last seen walking on a beach outside the five-star RIU Republica Resort in the early morning hours of March 6. She has yet to be located.
Konanki was seen for the last time after 4 a.m. walking on the beach outside the RIU Republica Resort, according to a flyer being circulated online.
SUDIKSHA KONANKI DISAPPEARANCE: DOMINICAN REPUBLIC TRAVELER CLAIMS RESORT DIDN’T GIVE INFO ON BEACH SAFETY
A sign of Natalee Holloway, an Alabama high school graduate who disappeared while on a graduation trip to Aruba, is seen on Palm Beach, in front of her hotel in Aruba, Friday, June 10, 2005, as a ribbon in her memory blows in the breeze. The government of Peru on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, issued an executive order allowing the temporary extradition to the United States of Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the unsolved 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway. (AP Photo/Leslie Mazoch)
La Policia Nacional, the country’s national police force, said a male friend who was with Konanki around the time of her disappearance is under investigation.
It is unclear who the “young man” is, but police said he was in the water at the same beach, and they are questioning him in an attempt to corroborate his version of events, according to a translation of a Spanish-language statement.
When asked about a Monday report that Konanki may have drowned, a spokesperson for the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office told Fox News Digital authorities “have heard this and have seen no evidence presented at this time.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“As of last night, investigators were still actively interviewing persons who may have seen or been with her last Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, as well as reviewing surveillance video and phone records to help ascertain what happened and why,” spokesperson Thomas Julia said.
Fox News’ Michael Dorgan, Greg Norman, Lorraine Taylor and Audrey Conklin contributed to this report.
Stepheny Price is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business. She covers topics including missing persons, homicides, national crime cases, illegal immigration, and more. Story tips and ideas can be sent to [email protected]
