Holloway investigation enters new phase

ORANJESTAD, Aruba, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- Aruba's chief prosecutor said the case examining the disappearance of Natalee Holloway entered a new phase as detectives continued to search for new clues.

The court in Aruba dropped charges against key suspects in the case, Joran van der Sloot and brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, because the chief prosecutor, Hans Mos, said he wasn't sure of a conviction, CNN reported Friday.

Mos said evidence on an Internet chat shortly after May 30, 2005, suggested Holloway was dead and prosecutors used the chat messages to rearrest the three key suspects in the case, CNN reported Friday.

Mos told CNN that one of the chat messages read, "The fact that she's dead is not good."

Mos told the news channel that one female witness said she suspected the three acted unusual shortly after Holloway's disappearance, which a second witness supported.

The three suspects were released from detention and the Aruba Court of Appeals wrote that no evidence surfaced to suggest Holloway died from a violent crime against her.

Holloway, 18, vanished May 30, 2005, while vacationing in Aruba with her graduating classmates from Mountain Brook High School in Alabama.