Natalee Holloway's dad defends controversial Oxygen series following ex-wife's $35M lawsuit

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Natalee Holloway's dad follows new lead in Aruba

Eyewitness claims he saw Joran van der Sloot carrying missing teen's body 10 years ago

Natalee Holloway’s father is denying his ex-wife’s claims that a TV show he participated in about their missing daughter was scripted.

Dave Holloway, an insurance agent in Meridian, Mississippi, was involved in last year’s six-part docu-series titled “The Disappearance of Natalee Holloway” that aired on Oxygen Media.

The show, produced by Los Angeles-based Brian Graden Media, aimed to present an accurate representation of the Alabama-based teen’s journey to Aruba to check a possible lead about her disappearance, claimed Dave.

However, his ex-wife Beth Holloway filed a $35 million federal lawsuit earlier this week against Oxygen Media and Brian Graden Media, calling the show a fake documentary. Beth claimed the series wrongly raised her hopes about finding out what happened during Holloway's ill-fated trip.

For the series, Dave traveled to Aruba with private investigator T.J. Ward for 18 months to search for Holloway’s remains.

Holloway went missing in Aruba in 2005 during a senior trip to the island. A judge declared her dead in 2012. Beth and Dave Holloway divorced in 1993, long before their daughter vanished.

“I am proud of the work and depiction of the show, and even though it wasn’t the outcome we had all hoped for, I am glad the world was able to get an inside look of what any father would do if there was even the slightest chance of finding his missing child,” Holloway said in a release Friday.

Beth also added in the lawsuit she believed the show had found her daughter’s remains and therefore gave Oxygen a saliva sample. However, the skeletal remains did not end up belonging to Natalee.

In fact, only one out of the four bone samples found and tested were human remains.

A rep for Oxygen told Fox News they were "disappointed to learn of the complaint and its inaccurate depiction of how the series was produced, and we want to reiterate our deep compassion and sympathy for all members of the Holloway family."

Their statement continued, "The documentary series was developed by a production company in close collaboration with Dave Holloway and his long-time private investigator. The show followed his continued search to find answers about his daughter Natalee from a lead he had received. We had hoped, along with Mr. Holloway, that the information was going to provide closure."

Dave spoke to Fox News in August 2017 while awaiting the DNA test results. Dave admitted at the time he was not optimistic it would yield answers.

"We’ve chased a lot of leads and you have your hopes up, but when they fall through, you basically go to a funeral. Over and over again," he explained. "So you have a wall built up, which I do, and so you just wait and see and try not to think about it. And that’s the only way I can cope with it. I’m sure when that day comes very soon I’ll probably be disappointed once again, if it’s not [Natalee's]."

Joran Van der Sloot, a Dutch national, has long been considered a suspect in the case.
In the Oxygen series, Dave met with “an informant who was friends with an individual who had personal knowledge from Joran van der Sloot."

Van der Sloot is currently in a Peruvian prison serving a 28-year sentence for killing business student Stephany Flores. Flores was killed just five years after Natalee Holloway vanished.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.