The Test Results Are In For Remains Believed To Be Natalee Holloway's

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The Test Results Are In For Remains Believed To Be Natalee Holloway's

There have been plenty of developments in Natalee Holloway's case since Oxygen's six-part series The Disappearance of Natalee Holloway premiered on August 19, 2017.

18-year-old Natalee vanished while on a class trip to Aruba in May 2005. Twelve years later, the Mountain Brook High School student's disappearance continues to remain a mystery despite some significant breakthroughs and multiple arrests.

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Back in August, Natalee's father, Dave Holloway, claimed that he found a promising new lead which could finally provide them with the answers they have been after for more than a decade.

Dave, along with private investigator TJ Ward, revealed in the documentary that they have found human remains in Aruba, after receiving a tip from the main suspect's former roommate, who is only identified as "Gabriel."

"We've chased a lot of leads and this one is by far the most credible lead I've seen in the last 12 years," Dave told Today.

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Since Natalee's body was supposedly moved from the original burial location and cremated by the suspect, Joran van der Sloot, and his friend John Ludwig, only bone fragments were discovered during the new probe. The remains were taken in for testing to determine if the DNA matches that of the Alabama teen's.

Now, a few months since this new lead surfaced, the results of the tests are in.

Initial testing confirmed that the skeletal remains belonged to a Caucasian of European decent, but gender could not be determined at that stage.

Now, after weeks of testing, forensic scientist Dr. Jason Kolowski has some more answers. Unfortunately, the bone fragments are not a match for Natalee.

"Out of the four individual bone samples only one was found to be human. The mitochodrial DNA bone sample was not a match to [mother] Beth Holloway, and so it was ruled out as being Natalee Holloway," Dr. Kolowski told Oxygen.com.

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The findings line up with the information Dave and TJ were given by John Ludwig, who was paid $1,500 by van der Sloot in 2016 to dig up the teen's body, crush the bones and burn them along with dog bones to hide the fact that they belonged to a human.

Van der Sloot has remained the main suspect in the investigation, but he was never charged due to the lack of evidence.

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In 2010, he extorted $25,000 from the Holloway's after claiming that he could lead them to her remains, but as we all know, that was a lie. As a result, he was charged with fraud and extortion.

He has yet to be tried for these charges because he is currently serving a 28-year sentence in Peru for a murder he committed five years after Natalee went missing.

Natalee's parents have set to speak out about the test results, and what this means for the case overall. Now that the series has ended, it's unclear what direction the investigation will go, but hopefully some of the other leads will produce more useful results.

Blair isn't a bestselling author, but she has a knack for beautiful prose. When she isn't writing for Shared, she enjoys listening to podcasts.