The mother of Natalee Holloway, whose disappearance in Aruba in 2005 remains unsolved, is suing over a TV series on Oxygen last year about the case. In her $35 million lawsuit, Beth Holloway says the producers duped her into believing they were investigating a legitimate lead in the case when, in fact, the six-part series was a "pre-planned farce," reports the Washington Post. Holloway's ex-husband, Dave Holloway, asked her to submit DNA so it could be matched against newly found remains, and Beth Holloway agreed, per the lawsuit. She says he never informed her it was for a TV show, which purported to follow Dave Holloway and a private investigator looking into a promising new avenue in the case. The suit states Beth Holloway truly believed her daughter had been found, but "she was forced to wait nearly two months to discover the truth." No DNA match emerged, and Beth Holloway says that's no surprise.
The network and Brian Graden Media knew "prior to filming their Series that they would not find Natalee because the Series was pre-conceived and was not a real-time investigation discovering new facts," she asserts. She argues the producers knew the bone fragments weren't Natalee's before they got her DNA sample and accuses them of fraudulent misrepresentation. Both companies—Oxygen is owned by NBC Universal—deny that. One legal expert tells the Observer that Beth Holloway faces long odds in the case. "What Oxygen has done is contemptible—they’ve strung a mother along, giving her fake hope," he says. "But whether what they've done is unlawful is up for debate." The show's big moment revolved around an informant who claimed to have dug up Natalee's remains at the behest of longtime suspect Joran van der Sloot. The latter remains in prison for the murder of another young woman. (More Natalee Holloway stories.)
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