Natalee Holloway (AP)
ORANJESTAD, Aruba – The father of missing American teenager Natalee Holloway said Monday that a U.S. private investigator has begun scouring a pond in Aruba for signs of his daughter and the search may take up to two weeks.
Dave Holloway said the Aruba Prosecutors' Office has asked the investigator, Fred Golba of Chicopee, Massachusetts, to not speak to reporters during his search for evidence into Natalee Holloway's May 2005 disappearance.
Holloway said the tracker dog specialist will comply with the request.
Golba will be searching the pond for "10 days to two weeks maximum" in search of any answers that have eluded the family, Holloway said from his home in Meridian, Mississippi.
Click here for photos from the case.
Golba has searched for her eight times before on the Dutch Caribbean island. Sections of the pond area have been searched previously and no evidence was ever found.
Natalee Holloway, from Mountain Brook, Alabama, was 18 when she was last seen leaving a bar in the Aruban capital on the final night of a high school graduation trip. No trace of her has turned up despite recurrent searches and extensive publicity.
Dave Holloway said a witness last year alleged that he saw the only remaining suspect, Joran van der Sloot, coming out of the brackish pond in northwest Aruba with only one sneaker on after Natalee's disappearance.
On Monday, telephone calls to the prosecutor's office went unanswered.
Aruban police referred calls regarding the Holloway case to their office.
In early January, Chief Prosecutor Hans Mos said his office was "approaching the end of this lengthy investigation" and appealed to the public for help
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