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From what I'd read, it's not like she just met the guys that night -- she'd been hanging out with them all week. Thus, her classmates probably wouldn't be too alarmed by her leaving with them. Furthermore, it is not her classmates' responsibility to take care of her drunk ass. For all we know, they could have been just as drunk or drunker than she was -- or she could have disappeared while their backs were turned for a split-second. Any of you who have ever tried to watch out for a drunk 18-year-old will understand how tricky they can be. Hell, I've been that drunk 18-year-old. And even if she had gone somewhere with a friend, I doubt that would have prevented ANYTHING -- you'd probably just be looking at two dead teenage girls instead of one. Yeah, great idea.
Holding the chaperones liable is equally stupid -- unless, of course, they didn't do their job. But did any of you actually go on high school trips? It's not like sneaking out after room check is unheard of. I also don't think that leaving the country when one of your kids is missing is that weird. I don't know how many people were on this trip, but can you imagine forcing them all to pay for new tickets home just because one kid went missing? I can see -- maybe -- one chaperone staying behind, but that's it, and even that's a stretch. When I went on high school trips, we signed contracts to the effect of, "If I'm not there when the transportation leaves, it is not the school's fault and I will have to find my own way home, etc." I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case here. You can't hold up a whole trip worth of high school kids -- at their financial loss -- because one of the kids was being irresponsible and didn't show up.
At the end, there is no one to blame but Natalee. (I was going to say "and her parents for not realizing that she wasn't mature enough to be on a trip like this," but the girl was 18 -- they couldn't have stopped her from going.) Does that mean I don't feel for her? Of course not. I don't go home with random men, but I've still done plenty of stupid shit while drunk that could have gotten me into equal amounts of trouble, and let's face it -- if you drink regularly, you probably have too, regardless of whether or not you go home with strange men. Like James said, it's pretty naive to say this is a horrible decision when plenty of women do it all the time with no thought to the consequences. So it was in a foreign country? How does that make a difference? I don't think the streets of Pittsburgh are inherently safer than those in Aruba . . .
To sum up -- it's not her friends' fault. It's not the chaperones' fault. It's not her parents' fault. It's her own damn fault. She made a mistake, and she paid dearly for it. A nice little moral lesson for everyone tied up in a neat little bow.
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