By Marilyn Bardsley

April 11, 2006

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ARUBA (Crime Library) — For a missing person and probable murder case that is almost a year old, it seems like there is news almost on a daily basis. Recently, several Dutch legal experts were openly critical of the investigation into the disappearance of Natalee Holloway conducted by Aruba's Deputy Chief of Police Gerold Dompig. Dompig was removed from the case last week. Adolpho Richardson replaced him as the leader of the investigation.

Professor of criminal law Menno Dolman told the Dutch GDP news agency that he could not comprehend why there was no immediate search for Natalee after her disappearance. In a translated summary of various Dutch papers that appeared on the missing persons blog Scared Monkeys, another expert, law psychologist Peter van Koppen told reporters that it was "very peculiar that it was only after Dompig got an anonymous tip about a possible location of Natalee's body that police began to search for her. "Usually, the area gets cordoned off immediately, in order to dig and obtain samples.

The Scared Monkey's blog also quoted Leiden University's criminal law professor Hans Nijboer regarding Dompig's strange habit of talking to the media before searches were begun. "Competent detectives investigate the case first," Nijboer said.

Dompig's comments last month that he believed that Natalee died accidentally after combining alcohol and drugs and that he had a credible witness to her drug taking was almost certainly a factor in being replaced on the Holloway case. When it turned out that this "credible" witness was none other than his alleged drug dealer brother-in-law who had been questioned and discredited early in the investigation, Dompig's own credibility took a nosedive.

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