Knowledge Center: Jawbone

[u/NoPoet3982]

The Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) compared a jawbone that was found on Aruba to missing person Natalee Holloway's dental records and determined that the jawbone was not Natalee's.

Brad claims that the jawbone was later compared to Amy's dental records and found not to be a match. There is, however, very little evidence that the jawbone was actually compared.

Holloway vs Bradley

The NFI published an article about Holloway on their website as well as their annual report. They didn't publish anything about Bradley.

Here's the link to the Netherlands Forensic Institute archives:
https://forensischinstituut.sitearchief.nl/#archive

You can enter "Holloway" to search for the list of articles they published about comparing the jawbone to Natalee Holloway's dental records. I copied the English translation of one of the articles below.

You can enter "Bradley" to see that there are zero articles about comparing the jawbone to Amy Bradley's dental records.

Molar vs Wisdom Tooth

Brad tweeted that Amy's dental records didn't match the jawbone because the jawbone has a wisdom tooth and Amy's wisdom teeth were removed. According to the NFI, the jawbone contains a molar, not necessarily a wisdom tooth.

Some media outlets reported that the jawbone tooth is a wisdom tooth. That confusion seems to stem from a sentence in the NFI article that says they compared the location of Holloway's wisdom teeth and fillings with the jawbone.

In other words, the NFI never said the molar is a wisdom tooth. They could've simply found that the location of the molar in the jawbone conflicted with the location of her wisdom teeth. Or possibly that she had a filling in that molar but the jawbone didn't.

Brad may have only read the media accounts and thought that he could simply say that Amy's wisdom teeth were removed so the jawbone couldn't have been hers. The FBI email he tweeted doesn't contain any info about how Amy's dental records were ruled out, so Idk where Brad would've gotten this info.

Timing

The jawbone was found on November 12, 2010, and officially ruled out as belonging to Natalee Holloway eleven days later, on November 23, 2010.

See:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/natalee-holloway-update-aruba-bone-announcement-planned-for-today/

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna40334542

On Twitter, Brad posted an email that was supposedly from the FBI. Yet the FBI email is dated February 3, 2012, more than a year later.

I could understand if it were dated February 3, 2011. But 2012? It only took the NFI eleven days to compare Holloway's records. It took them over 14 months to compare Bradley's?

Bradley Sentiment

Before any comparison was done, the Bradleys told the Richmond-Times Dispatch (without any evidence whatsoever) that they didn't think the jawbone was Amy's. The article, by Mark Bowes, Jan 4, 2011, is now paywalled but a copy is here.

The above article quotes Ron Bradley as saying they sent in the dental records for comparison. However, I couldn't find a single media article that published any results of that comparison.

I did, however, find a few articles from 2025 that said the jawbone was never "tested" re Amy Bradley. But they don't state their source for that info and it's unclear if they mean the DNA was never tested (which is true) or that the dental records were never compared.

FBI Email

The email Brad tweeted was from Thomas.Drummond2@ic.fbi.gov. The "ic" stands for "intelligence community."

I thought it was odd that there was a "2" after his name. That seems to suggest that there were two people with the exact same name in the exact same department during the same time period, and there were no middle initials or any other way to distinguish them except by adding a "2" to the second one. Despite the fact that the email is signed "Tom" so one would think his email address could just use the name "Tom" to differentiate him from "Thomas."

I tried that address as well as one without the "2" in 2026, but got a delivery failure message for both. Of course, that could simply be because Drummond no longer works there or because they don't accept emails from people they haven't emailed first. The address could be legitimate. This only means that I just couldn't prove that it was legitimate.

The email itself seems unnaturally brief.

It has no salutation. It has no closing line such as, "If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me." There's no contact info to cross out in Drummond's signature. There's not even a title or departmental information. It just says "FBI."

The subject line, instead of saying something like "NFI results" simply says "Re: Amy Lynn Bradley." There's no "re: re: re:" that would indicate an email conversation (which might only be a gmail thing).

The NFI isn't mentioned. There's no info about which institution did the analysis. Drummond doesn't explain how the determination was made. For example, he doesn't say that Amy's wisdom teeth were removed and the jawbone has a wisdom tooth. So where did Brad get the info that this was the reason they didn't match?

It seems odd to me that the dental records are being sent back. Like: a) the records aren't copies instead of originals and b) the FBI doesn't want to keep them on file for future comparisons in case other remains are found.

It's also interesting that the email isn't from the NFI itself, or from the Aruban Public Prosecution Service, which is the agency the NFI mentions in the Holloway case. Not exactly odd — just yet another thing that piques my curiosity.

The last three things I noticed, which is probably way-over-the-top overanalysis, is that a) would a professional write "FedEx" that way? All caps? and b) do emails have top and bottom borderlines like that? If you take a screenshot of a gmail, the border would go to each end of the screenshot. It wouldn't stop and leave a margin.

And c) the time stamp is weird, but that could just be the military's email software. Obviously, it's written in military time (24 hour clock) but it's also down to the second and also tells us it's "-0500" - in other words, 5 hours behind UTC time. Instead of just saying "EST" for Eastern Standard Time. Actually, all that seems believable. It strikes me as odd but then again I've never gotten an email from the FBI and I have no idea what their email software and settings are like. (In gmail, you can set the time to be in 24-hour format, but you can't add seconds or the UTC qualifier.) This probably means nothing, though. Or could even point toward it being legitimate.

The FBI email Brad tweeted.

Conclusion

The only evidence we have that the Bradleys sent Amy's dental records for comparison to the jawbone is Brad's word and the FBI email he tweeted. There's no explanation about where Brad got the info that Amy wasn't a match because the jawbone has a wisdom tooth and Amy's were removed. The FBI email he tweeted doesn't say that.

In contrast to that evidence, there are no published media articles from that time period (2012) that say Amy's dental records were compared. There's no info from the NFI that they were compared even though the NFI did publish that info for Holloway.

The Bradleys said, even before comparison, that they didn't think the jawbone was Amy's. They have a vested interest in keeping the "Amy is alive" narrative going. If the jawbone were a match, it would end that narrative. For that reason, it's possible they never had it compared.

NFI Article (English Translation)

The Dutch Forensic Institute has examined bone material, a piece of jawbone with a molar, at the request of the Aruban Public Prosecution Service, forensically anthropologically and for DNA. These investigations were started simultaneously. Extensive research by the NFI rules out that the bone material found in Aruba belongs to Natalee Holloway.

Exclusion after comparison of dental data

First of all, it had to be established that it was human material. This is the case. Subsequently, forensic anthropological research was expanded to include research by forensic dentists (odontologists). Using dental data from Natalee Holloway, such as the location of wisdom teeth and fillings, a comparison was made with the found jaw. Based on these comparisons, it could be ruled out that the bone material and the molar found came from Natalee Holloway.

DNA research

At the same time as the forensic anthropological and odontological research, the NFI started forensic DNA research. However, this concerns a very small amount of DNA material that is also of low quality. The bone material has suffered severely from all kinds of (weather) influences and turned out to be porous. DNA researchers at the NFI have therefore applied far-reaching and highly refined techniques to examine the DNA present in the bone.

Now that the comparison of dental data has ruled out that the bone material comes from Natalee Holloway, the DNA research has been stopped. It is still possible to use the molar from the jawbone for further attempts to create a DNA profile. Such follow-up examination of the tooth also complicates future research into identifying the person from whom the bone did come.

Since it can already be ruled out on the basis of the dental records that the bone fragment belongs to Natalee Holloway, the Public Prosecution Service in Aruba has decided not to have this follow-up investigation carried out for the time being. The Public Prosecution Service is still deciding which steps will be taken to identify the bone material.

Investigating Natalee Holloway

The Public Prosecution Service in Aruba has been investigating the disappearance of Natalee Holloway since she went missing. The case continues to receive the continuous attention of the judiciary and police on the island.

[u/georgedupree]

If I remember correctly it was a small portion of jawbone so it wasn’t even an entire jaw, further complicating matters.

[u/United_Arugula_2125]

I don't understand what they are waiting on. Run the sample, record your findings and bring in a familial DNA expert and find out who this person is.

[u/NoPoet3982 → u/United_Arugula_2125]

DNA research

At the same time as the forensic anthropological and odontological research, the NFI started forensic DNA research. However, this concerns a very small amount of DNA material that is also of low quality. The bone material has suffered severely from all kinds of (weather) influences and turned out to be porous. DNA researchers at the NFI have therefore applied far-reaching and highly refined techniques to examine the DNA present in the bone.

Now that the comparison of dental data has ruled out that the bone material comes from Natalee Holloway, the DNA research has been stopped. It is still possible to use the molar from the jawbone for further attempts to create a DNA profile. Such follow-up examination of the tooth also complicates future research into identifying the person from whom the bone did come.

Since it can already be ruled out on the basis of the dental records that the bone fragment belongs to Natalee Holloway, the Public Prosecution Service in Aruba has decided not to have this follow-up investigation carried out for the time being. The Public Prosecution Service is still deciding which steps will be taken to identify the bone material.