Back then, before anyone knew he's completely bat-shit-crazy, he was just another asshole trying to pick up tourist girls on resorts, but he LOOKED completely normal. He told Natalee's friends he was a 19 year old exchange student from Holland (he was 17 and his family had lived on Aruba for a long time), and apparently he seemed perfectly friendly.

Am I the only one who thinks he looks like a neo-nazi/skinhead?

I did not think Natalee was a senior at the time of her disappearance.

Our local high school (a public school) offered a marine ecology class for seniors. For 32 years,their final included going down to Mexico about 200 miles. They camped out on the beach and studied the marine life there. The kids were gone for almost a week with LOTS of supervision from a combination of teachers and some parents. This was school sanctioned. Last year, the students did not get to go because of the violence in Mexico. The class was in an area with VERY little population, the kids could not leave.

There are programs which are not only a tradition in the schools, but are sanctioned such as this was. No idea if the class this year was able to go.

DaffyKD

She graduated high school 6 days prior. We graduated on the 24th of May and she disappeared on the 30th. So technically...no, she wasn't a senior, she was a graduate.

This wasn't a sanctioned trip and was not supposed to be educational. It was blatantly a just-for-fun trip. A lot of people that I know went got the trip as a graduation present.

Honestly, I didn't think he was cute back then either. I think its his eyebrows that have always given me the willies.

He wouldn't have been my type either, but he seemed harmless enough, I guess, in the casino.

QUOTE=honeychile;1942683]Am I the only one who thinks he looks like a neo-nazi/skinhead?[/QUOTE]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_9MrCLXq5ub...-corn_hell.png

I actually thought this picture looked allot like him (I hope this link worked, if not- the picture is from Dreamseeker's post on pg 7 of "Real Life Signs That you're Spending Too Much Time on GC")

Here's a version w/o the words, you know, for your future man in unicorn chaps usage.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a2...iulwo1_400.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_9MrCLXq5ub...-corn_hell.png

I actually thought this picture looked allot like him (I hope this link worked, if not- the picture is from Dreamseeker's post on pg 7 of "Real Life Signs That you're Spending Too Much Time on GC")[/QUOTE]

Weirdly...it totally does.

I don't think anyone assumed it was a school-sanctioned trip. I know that I wrote that it was a school tradition, and wasn't it? There are plenty of school traditions that aren't necessarily school-sanctioned.

I would say more of a community tradition, but sure. I say it is not a school tradition because it was always only graduates, and the school was careful to have nothing to do with the trips, or even acknowledge them.

Trust me, people did assume it was school sanctioned in the beginning, partially because of the media and their propensity to lean towards the scandal and not the facts. It caused quite a stink.