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Freed guard: Suspect 'holding back'


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Mickey John
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ORANJESTAD, Aruba (CNN) -- Police searched an area in Aruba near a Marriott hotel Tuesday, more than two weeks after 18-year-old Natalee Holloway disappeared and a day after two security guards were released from custody.

Three men remain in custody in the case -- none of them formally charged and each claiming innocence through their attorneys. They are brothers Satish Kalpoe, 18, and Depak Kalpoe, 21, and their friend, Joran Van Der Sloot, 17, the son of an Aruban judge.

CNN's Anderson Cooper spoke Tuesday with one of the security guards, Mickey John, 30. He said Depak Kalpoe confided in him while the two were jailed and admitted lying to police about dropping Holloway off alone at her hotel, a Holiday Inn, in the early morning hours of May 30.

According to police statements, the Kalpoe brothers said a "dark-colored" man in a black T-shirt with a radio helped her. The security guards were arrested June 5.

ANDERSON COOPER: Mickey, what did this suspect in custody, Depak Kalpoe, tell you about what really happened?

MICKEY JOHN: He told me that -- I was talking to him Sunday -- and he told me that when they left Carlos'N Charlie's [nightclub], they went straight to the lighthouse. He -- Depak -- was driving. His brother was sitting in the car next to him. The missing girl was in the backseat behind Depak, and the other guy was in the backseat behind his brother, and they drove down to the California lighthouse. He didn't tell me what took place at the lighthouse.

COOPER: Now, the lighthouse, that's obviously on the beach?

JOHN: The lighthouse is at the end of island. It's not close to Marriott. It's far from the Marriott. ...

COOPER: He didn't say what happened then?

JOHN: No, sir. He said -- what he told me [was that] on his way back up they stopped ... close to the Marriott and they dropped off the missing girl and the Dutch guy ... and he and his brother went home. And he went online, and like, after an hour later, the Dutch guy sent him a message, a text message on his cell phone, saying that when he got home he'd also go online to chat with him.

COOPER: Did he say anything about the way the Dutch guy, Joran, was behaving with Natalee? Was there some talk that they had been intimate while driving?

JOHN: No, he said there was kissing in the backseat. She was very, very drunk. I could recall he said that.

COOPER: Did he say what he thought had happened?

JOHN: No. He didn't emphasize on that.

COOPER: Did he tell you why he lied to police?

JOHN: Yes, because he said that normally, like, when tourists, somebody, come here and they get lost, a few days after that, they're going to be recovered, you know, at some crackhouse or with some beach bums. ...

But, push comes to shove and nothing was coming out, he decided to tell the truth with his brother to the armed police.

COOPER: He told you that he lied to police because he thought she would show up a couple of days later in a crackhouse or somewhere else?

JOHN: Correct, sir.

COOPER: Had you ever met any of these three young men? These three suspects?

JOHN: No, sir. Never.

COOPER: Did he apologize to you because he originally implicated you and your colleague?

JOHN: Yes. He did apologize. He apologized and told me he's sorry ... and that the day [they had] been arrested, which was a Thursday, he thought I should be released, and my colleague, the following day ... because he knew we were innocent from the start.

COOPER: Do you think this guy, Depak, knows more than he told you? Do you think he really knows what happened to Holloway?

JOHN: I don't know what I think. He's holding back something. I don't know if he knows exactly what happened to her, but he's holding back something, I think.

COOPER: What makes you think that?

JOHN: Because he didn't tell me what happened at the lighthouse and according to the news, they are giving different stories.


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