ORANJESTAD, Aruba (AP) – One month to the day after Natalee Holloway disappeared, investigators have found no physical evidence that the US teenager was murdered, Aruba’s attorney general said yesterday.

“There are no traces or facts to come to the conclusion that Natalee is no longer alive,” Attorney General Caren Janssen told Associated Press in a telephone interview.

“But that doesn’t mean we can’t prosecute without a body. It’s difficult but not impossible.”

Janssen declined to reveal what other evidence investigators might have.

Holloway’s stepfather, George ‘Jug’ Twitty, said the family wasn’t surprised by the attorney general’s comments and was not losing hope that the truth would be found.

“We may have no physical evidence, but there is a lot of other evidence of what may have happened in this case,” Twitty told AP. “There are lies, tales and changing stories” of the three men detained in the disappearance.

Janssen said that the father of a Dutch teenager detained in the disappearance, gave his son and two arrested friends legal advice, telling them that “without a body there is no case”.

“He confirmed to me that he told them that a few days after she disappeared,” Janssen said.

Dutch teenager Joran van der Sloot, 17, along with friends, Surinamese brothers Deepak Kalpoe, 21, and Satish Kalpoe, 18, were the last people seen with Holloway the night she vanished, on May 30. The three were questioned in the days after the disappearance, but were not arrested until June 9. No one has been charged.

The Dutch teen’s father, Paul van der Sloot, was arrested June 23 but released a few days later when a judge ruled there wasn’t enough evidence to hold him.

Massive searches by FBI agents, Dutch Marines, Aruban police and thousands of islanders have produced no trace of Holloway, a recent high school graduate from Mountain Brook, Alabama.