AzureStarr said:

I read that there was one chaperone for every ten kids not nearly enough.Besides the chaperones often stay in their own group and the the young people are largely on their own until something bad happens. Often the adults never know what really happens on these trips.
18 year olds don't usually consider all the consequences especially if there is alcohol involved.

My heart goes out to the family and friends of this young woman.

JoeyMFinCoco said:

In most cases, that's what happens. More than likely, someone will wind up finding her, probably at that beach or in the vicinity.

IMO, it's only a matter of time. If they haven't found her alive by now, then ya pretty much know that there was some foul play.
[Edited 6/11/05 22:23pm]

poor girl.

Dumb or smart, white or black, chaperoned or not, "short trained" or not...I hope that she is found ...either way I am sure whatever has happened to her...was not deserved, which seems to be implied by some of the comments. I hope that none of us ever find ourselves in the postion of her parents...wondering where are loved ones are...no matter the circumstance!

PiscesGlenn said:

the same sort of thing happened here in Bermuda about 8 years ago when a visiting Canadian teenager was out with her friend. they both got on the back of two seperate bikes early in the morning and the Canadian teenager was taken to a road up the way and then the two guys (her age) raped and killed her. she was later found at the side of the road.

the case against the two guys was thrown out of court becuz the police botched up all the evidence. the parents of the young girl and her local friend were horrified at the verdict. i can't imagine what the family of this young girl are feeling right now.

Astasheiks said:

are you having a joke here?

Did they find her body yet?

unlucky7 said:

No, but they did release the 2 security guards that were first being held (the Mom of Natalee said they should be released, that she felt they were innocent).
[Edited 6/14/05 12:16pm]

Astasheiks said:

Right, but unless the police has no reason to keep them in custody at that point, they won't let them go. It's not like they were released her on grounds of what the mother said.

IrresistibleB1tch said:

I love this woman.

it's just a stupid, teenaged mistake--hopefully she's alive so she'll be able to live and learn from whatever's goin on.

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

I think it's much more than that. Why didn't her friends stop her? If my friend were getting into a car with 3 dudes in another country I would punch her in the face! And this girl was an honor student? You'd think she'd know not to get into a car with strangers.

Too bad cuz she's fish food now. I bet they fed her to the sharks.

CarrieLee said:

okay--first of all i dunno all of what's happened with the girl because i don't even pay attention to the news anymore, save for the weather. so her friends were there and didn't stop her? what kinna friends are they??

CarrieLee said:

That makes no sense. Would you let her do it in the States? What if it was just one guy? This kind of shit probably happens even more often when it's one guy picking up a girl. She wanted to get her freak on and paid the ultimate price for it. Just a case of extremely bad luck.

JoeyMFinCoco said:

Dude come on. You know what I meant, no I wouldn't let her do it in the states either.

Yeah bad luck and pure stupidity.

Astasheiks said:

internet misinterpeted edit
[Edited 6/14/05 12:52pm]

gemini13 said:

she may have been too trusting and naive...but you don't have to call the girl and idiot! good god!

and I don't give a rat's ass....if my 18 year old is still in High School and living under my roof. I'm sorry but the answer is NO, you can't go. They may hate me for it for a while but..they'll get over it.

I wonder if she wasn't slipped something in her drink...
God bless her family.

Mach said:

And I wasn't saying you was, I was referring to the news that one of the police leaked out at the time one of the 3 had confessed that he killed her and he was going to take the police to the body on the island, which was later retracted on CNN.
[Edited 6/14/05 12:25pm]

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

Amen. It was very stupid of her.

I do hope this girl is found alive though and that the real perpetrators are brought to justice.

Astasheiks said:

fair enough ...

she was naive and trusting. that was her mistake. it's possible she was given the date rape drug without her knowledge, which would have impaired her judgment to the point where she didn't have any, nor any willpower to resist whatever was done to her.

it's not safe to take 'candy' from strangers. and, even from some friends. .

JoeyMFinCoco said:

My Missing Women Diary
by Steven D
Thu Jun 9th, 2005 at 10:00:40 AM PDT

We all know the case of Jennifer Wilbanks, the runaway bride. And who wasn't enthralled with the Laci Peterson case? Of course, now we have Natalee Holloway, the blond haired, blue eyed Alabama coed missing in Aruba, the news of which I'm sure you've all been following with bated breath on CNN or Fox News. So I won't bore you with the details of her case (Five suspects arrested? Really? And who saw her last?).
Instead, just for fun, I thought I'd give you a list of some missing women who haven't made a big splash on cable news or the networks. And they all share something in common (I mean, other than being unknown and missing). Can you guess what that common characteristic might be?

The answer after the break:


Did you guess? Well surprise, surprise, all these missing women are all officially Not White! That's right, no blonde haired beauties in the bunch. I'm sure that has nothing to do with them not being spotlighted for national attention however.
Nonetheless, they all went missing just like those more familiar women we've come to know and obsess about because our National Media tells us we should. So without further ado, here's

Steven D's List of Non-White Missing Women
(links courtesy of Google)

Tamika Huston
http://www.tamikahuston.com/pages/1/
http://www.amw.com/missin...m?id=27632

Willie Mae Hill
http://volusia.org/sherif...050013.htm

Patricia Lucky
http://www.lapdonline.org...r05268.htm

Irene Forester
http://www.lowcountrynow....sing.shtml

Tong Zhang
http://1010wins.com/topst...74556.html

Thelma Roofe
http://www.surrey.police....&division=

Stacy-Ann Sappleton
http://indianz.com/board/...C_ID=14257

Mamie Louise Miller
http://www.gazette.net/20...081-1.html

Dionne Renee Saulter
http://wjz.com/localstori...31510.html

Rita Harris
http://www.ci.austin.tx.u...4_0303.htm

Chau Tran Minh Nguyen
http://www.stp.uh.edu/vol...08/1c.html

Ganignunt "Felicia" Aiemsakul
http://www.gazette.net/20...434-1.html

Raquel Mojica-Morales
http://www.tennessean.com...50428/1124

Darlene Hortencia Campos
http://www.i91.ctc.edu/cr.../20030629/

Darlene Michelle Edwards
http://www.charleyproject...rlene.html
http://www.lapdonline.org...r03645.htm
http://www.nbc4.tv/news/2...etail.html

Well, hope you enjoyed my little effort at fair and balanced news coverage.

Astasheiks said:

I think another important factor to consider is age. Our society values youth, and a missing 75-year old woman, likely at the end of her life, is not going to attract as much attention and sympathy as a young woman who has not had the opportunity to live - I am not speaking on my own behalf, this is just my general understanding of how our society perceives things.

I think the Laci Peterson story was covered so much by the media because of the gruesomeness of her murder, and how they found her body and her fetus in the ocean...I only really started paying attention to that story when I read about that, because it was so startling. Also, the fact that her husband was having an affair was played up so much by the media, it felt like a Lifetime movie of the week. Sadly, these types of stories receive more attention if only because they have more drama. And as clues begin to unravel, opinions start to fly and a tragedy becomes a hot topic. Laci Peterson's murder was a mystery, but there were enough leads to offer speculation. A missing woman who doesn't leave behind a trace is naturally not going to garner as much attention, because, simply, there's little to nowhere to go from there.

The runaway bride was compelling, in a disgusting way, in the fact that she didn't have the decency to be honest with her fiance and family, and how she neglected to think about how they would feel, wondering if she was even alive. Also, her made-up story, possibly racially motivated with her use of a Hispanic man as a culprit, caused understandable offense. I hope she feels like an idiot.

And this 18-year-girl - this story is so big because she was celebrating her graduation with friends on a tropical island *known* for its extremely low crime rate. I think the fact that she was on a small island contributes to the current fascination with this story - where could she have vanished to? When you disappear on a continent as big as North America, possibilities seem endless. When you disappear off an island, an element of mystery is added.

It's as if our society transforms tragedies and murders and kidnappings into cinematic stories, unravelled article by article as if we are watching a horrible mini-series.

It's a shame, truly, that some women, particularly minorities, go missing and you don't hear a word about them. I wish our media reported, rather than exploited. The above are just my speculations on *why* those stories may have received more attention, *besides* the fact that these were all white, privileged, attractive women.

I think it was pretty racist how the boys told the police the black security guards did it, and on that alone, the security guards were arrested. Thank god those guards were released.

doctamario said:

Ditto
As sad as it is, with a missing girl who is caucasian if you can attach a ebony face to the situation most will beleive it. Even though the stats on such crimes show otherwise. 90% of all crimes are commited by a person of the same ethnic background.

Just a small soapbox..I'm stepping down now...thanks Godbless and goodnite.

Astasheiks said:

As a young lad I used to hate it when the friends of the woman I was trying to leave the club with would block it w/that "we came together we're leaving together" thing.
As I matured I understood why, no I would never force a woman to anything that she didn't want me to (the safe word is apple) but that is something that they did not and could not know on a meeting, and that makes sense.
Now that I have a daughter, I tell her all the time (even though she's only 14, not dating and only going to parties with her friends from school) never let your drink sit by itself, if you do get a new one, keep up with whomever you went to the party with and always leave with the same group you go with.

Funny how things change.

CarrieLee said:

You know a punch in the face probably would turn out to be pretty helpful rather being wherever she is now. Or Imagine when they saw them pull off run inside and call the Aruban cops, might have turned out different?