Netflix's Taken: Natalee Holloway is out today, with 2010 FBI footage never shown before
The three-part docuseries premiered on 4 November, directed by Dani Sloane and Matthew Galkin for Story Syndicate. Natalee's mother, Beth Holloway, is at its centre, and Aruba's former deputy police chief talks about the case for the first time in nearly twenty years.
Netflix released “Taken: Natalee Holloway” on Wednesday, a three-part docuseries about the American student who vanished in Aruba in 2005. It was one of the most-followed cases on US television for the next two decades, and the series has pushed it back up the search charts on both sides of the Atlantic.
It is directed by Dani Sloane and Matthew Galkin for Story Syndicate, the production company run by Liz Garbus and Dan Cogan, both of whom are executive producers.
What is new in it
According to the series page on Netflix Tudum, it includes footage from a 2010 FBI operation that has never been released, along with access to investigators and previously unseen material. Gerold Dompig, Aruba’s former deputy police chief, talks about the case for the first time in about twenty years.
At its centre is Natalee’s mother, Beth Holloway. She calls it the most complete, chronological account of the case, running up to the conclusion reached in 2023, when Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect from the start, admitted in a plea deal with US prosecutors that he had killed Natalee.
Who takes part
Alongside her mother are Madison Greer and Claire Fierman, friends who were with Natalee on the graduation trip, and another friend, Sue Remick. Attorney John Kelly appears, as does Aruban businessman Charles Croes, who helped lead the early searches, Aruban journalist Dilma Arends Geerman, cameraman Tony Zumbado and two retired FBI agents, Alexandra Montilla and Michael Leverock.
Who it is for
This is short-form true crime: three episodes make one evening, two at most. If you watched the Lizzie Borden season of Monster, this is the opposite register, with no dramatisation, just archive, interviews and the people who lived the case from the inside.
By Lucy Bennett
Image: Netflix
