Judge Tosses Wrongful Death Lawsuit in Holloway Case

LOS ANGELES – A judge dismissed a wrongful-death lawsuit Friday against two Aruba brothers filed by the parents of a teenager who vanished during a vacation there.

The parents of Natalee Holloway cannot sue in Los Angeles because the case has no California connection and the courts lack jurisdiction over the brothers, Superior Court Judge Charles C. Lee said in granting a motion to toss out the lawsuit.

Elizabeth Ann Twitty of Alabama and Dave E. Holloway of Mississippi will decide whether to appeal, said their attorney, John Q. Kelly.

"There are all kinds of promising issues," Kelly said after the ruling.

A similar lawsuit filed in a New York court against another Aruba man, Joran van der Sloot, was thrown out by a judge last summer.

Natalee Holloway, 18, of Alabama was vacationing with friends on the Caribbean resort island when she disappeared the night of May 30, 2005. She was never found.

She was last seen getting into a car with Deepak and Satish Kalpoe and van der Sloot. They were arrested but later released.

The three have maintained that they were not involved in her disappearance.

In December, the brothers filed a defamation and fraud suit in a California court against TV psychologist "Dr. Phil" McGraw, an investigator and CBS Television Distribution Group.

The suit contends that the "Dr. Phil" talk show altered portions of a secretly recorded conversation between Deepak Kalpoe and a private investigator to "create false, incriminating, and defamatory statements that the plaintiffs engaged in criminal activity against Natalee Holloway."

That case is pending.

Holloway's parents sued in the same California court a day after the brothers filed their legal action.

A lawyer for the Kalpoes said he was pleased that the parents' suit was dismissed.

"It was what we anticipated," William Cremer said. "The only reason it was filed was to detract attention from the 'Dr. Phil' case."

The parents could file a wrongful-death suit against the Kalpoes in Aruba, but "they don't have a shred of evidence against them," he said.