Beth Holloway shares message at Gingerbread luncheon
Waynette Ballengee felt like Beth Holloway’s story was personal to her. If Holloway’s daughter, Natalee, had not disappeared while on her senior class trip to Aruba in 2005, she would now be the same age as Ballengee’s oldest daughter.
“Beth speaks to the mother in all of us,” Ballengee said.
As the chair of the Gingerbread House 2013 luncheon and a member of the organization’s board, Ballengee said Holloway’s message was an important one for the community to hear for three reasons. First, she is teaching young people to make sound decisions while traveling. Second, Holloway brings a message of hope to those facing similar situations, Ballengee said. And third, Holloway’s message is one of faith and strength.
Ballengee said it was important that this year’s speaker gave a different perspective than last year’s– one of the mother of a missing child. “Your mother can tell you to be careful, but it’s really different to hear it first-hand from someone like Beth.”
That is exactly Holloway’s motivation for speaking across the country since her daughter’s disappearance. “I don’t think there is anything more important than saving our children,” Holloway said. Holloway spoke to a crowd of approximately 500 Oct. 16 at the Gingerbread House 2013 luncheon about that very hope.
“There are phases of hope for all of us to seize depending on what we need in the moment,” Holloway said as she began to tell the story of Natalee’s disappearance in the summer of 2005.
Once Holloway learned of her teenage daughter’s disappearance, she immediately left Alabama to begin the search for her in Aruba. She and others searched and searched, through brothels and crack houses, restaurants and nightclubs, checking out hundreds of tips from those in Aruba who reached out to her. Holloway spoke about how the police really seemed to regard Natalee’s disappearance as unimportant.
Holloway recounted speaking to Joran van der Sloot, the person last seen with Natalee, and told the crowd of his assertion that he dropped Natalee off at her hotel at the end of the evening. But after looking through hours of security surveillance at Natalee’s hotel, and seeing no sign of Natalee returning to the hotel, Holloway searched for a place to pray. Her cab driver took her to a hill of crosses. Holloway said she knelt and prayed at each one of them:
“I prayed for God to give her back.” But by the time she reached the fifth cross, Holloway said she felt a complete peace blanket her, and she knew Natalee was with God.
While van der Sloot gave 22 different accounts to police of what happened to Natalee, Holloway’s conclusion is that her daughter was given a date rape drug, she overdosed and died, but not before being sexually assaulted. van der Sloot has been convicted of blackmailing Holloway, and he is now in jail in Peru for the murder of Stephany Flores Ramirez.
“The best way to honor Natalee is to turn my loss into positive action,” Holloway said. And that is why she has created the Full Circle Safety Plan for people to know they need to pay attention to the end of their outings as much as other details like who they are going with and what they will wear. Holloway also has worked to create the Natalee Holloway Resource Center at the Museum of Crime and Punishment in Washington, D.C., which provides resources and education for those seeking missing persons.
But Holloway did not only see a large crowd of strangers at the Wednesday luncheon, she also got to see a familiar face. Ruth Dempsey was a middle- and high-school classmate of Holloway in Pine Bluff, Ark. The two saw one another again in Shreveport, years after Dempsey and Holloway were together at a class reunion.
“It’s awesome [to see her again],” Dempsey said, “but the occasion is saddening.” As tears came to her eyes, Dempsey said, “I have to admire her strength. I can’t imagine.”
But Dempsey thought Holloway’s message at the Gingerbread House event was very fitting. “It brings the awareness of abuse and the lost children still out there,” she said. “Not everyone has someone to go and talk to. It is important to have funds for places like the Gingerbread House.”
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