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And, boy, did they ring often.
It seemed like every media outlet from here to Birmingham, Ala., wanted to hear Thursday about the mysterious image that looks like a skeleton they found in one of their Aruban vacation pictures.
Is it Natalee Holloway?
"It's somebody's body," John Muldowney said over and over. "Somebody will get closure."
The 78-year-old retiree and his wife first told the story of the photo in Thursday's Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era.
Since then, interest in the case has exploded — and not just among the media. Both the FBI and Aruban police said Thursday they will try to find out whether it really is a skeleton in the photograph and, if so, whose.
"We try to leave no stone unturned, so we will look into it," Deputy Chief Adolpho Richardson of the Aruban police told The Birmingham News in Alabama. Birmingham is near Holloway's hometown.
•••
The Muldowney household, north of Manheim in Rapho Township, was the center of attention beginning around 9 Thursday morning.
First it was the local news media, CBS 21, which showed up with its mobile newsroom at their Rapho Township house. Then it was NBC Philadelphia and, a short time later, Action News.
It then went national.
ABC's "Good Morning America" called to do a piece — but Muldowney agreed to first do a national exclusive with Nancy Grace's show on the HLN network.
"They're taking me and Patti to a studio in Harrisburg, in a limo, to do an interview for the show," John Muldowney said.
"I can't believe this. I don't think Lee Harvey Oswald got all this attention."
Janine Iamunno, a spokeswoman for the HLN network, confirmed that the Muldowneys are booked for tonight's show, barring any last-minute changes to the schedule.
The show airs at 8 and 10 p.m.
Grace, a former violent crimes prosecutor, has devoted lots of airtime to the Holloway case and has become acquainted with the missing honors student's biological father, David.
"She's going to talk to him and call me," Muldowney said.
Muldowney mailed a copy of the picture to David Holloway two weeks ago, after first sending it to the FBI's Philadelphia office in early February, but hadn't heard back.
David Holloway was vacationing and could not be reached for comment, but a secretary said his office in Meridian, Miss., had been made aware of the photo's existence and the high level of media interest.
•••
Muldowney's wife, Patti, snapped the picture while snorkeling off the coast of Aruba during a cruise in October. She and her husband only noticed what appears to be a skeleton in one picture in December, when they first went through the photographs.
The cruise ship had docked in the capital city of Oranjestad in October.
Natalee Holloway was last seen on May 30, 2005, during her high school's graduation trip to the Dutch Caribbean island. Her classmates reported seeing her leave a Carlos 'n Charlie's restaurant in Oranjestad.
The case remains unsolved, though a man once suspected of involvement in Holloway's disappearance has recently claimed to have disposed of her body. Aruban prosecutors say they lack evidence to charge the man.
The Muldowneys forwarded copies of the photo — which they had enlarged — to the FBI field office in Philadelphia in February. That office forwarded the photo, by mail, to the agency's legal attaché in Barbados, which has jurisdiction over Aruba.
The attaché, however, receives mail only once a month because all postal items must go through diplomatic channels. It is likely the Barbados office has not yet received the picture.
"It's in transit," said Special Agent Frank Burton Jr., a spokesman for the FBI's field office in Philadelphia.
He said agents were traveling to Lancaster County to interview the Muldowneys Thursday and to get an electronic version of the picture so they could instantly transmit it to the Barbados.
•••
In Aruba, meantime, the lead investigator on the Holloway case told The Birmingham News he was unaware of the photo but that his team of investigators will look into it.
"Of course," Richardson told the paper. "We look at everything. We try to leave no stone unturned, so we will look into it. Although the chances are very slim that it will lead to any results."
He told the paper that divers have conducted a thorough search of the waters, and that if a body was dumped at sea, "it could be even in Panama. You never know."
•••
The story, meantime, seems to have taken on a life of its own.
In Amsterdam, news outlet De Telegraaf kept it at the top of its Web site all day. Het Belang van Limburg, a Belgian regional newspaper, gave it good play. So did Elsevier, a Dutch weekly magazine that put the story high on its Web site.
In the United States, "Crimesider," a Web site run by the producers of the CBS show "48 Hours Mystery," wrote about the photo Thursday.
So did the folks on Twitter, the hugely popular microblogging service.
"foto: is dit het lichaam van Natalee Holloway?" tweeted Bosch van Rosenthal, a Washington, D.C.-based correspondent for NOS Dutch Public Television.
Translation: "Is this the body of Natalee Holloway?" he asked, linking his followers to the Muldowney's picture.
"Komt er dan misschien toch een einde aan dit drama? (Is there perhaps an end to this drama?)" wondered Saskia van Trierum in Amsterdam.
Some of the Twitterati voiced skepticism.
"That's just a rock IMO," tweeted Mike624 (IMO is shorthand for "in my opinion").
John Muldowney said all the calls he's gotten from folks have been positive.
"I've gotten about five calls from perfect strangers," he said. "They're saying, 'Thank you for pushing this. It's great to see maybe they can find that girl because it's somebody's body.' "
