According to Natalee Holloway‘s father, a tip from a man who claims to have helped dispose of her body 12 years ago has led to the discovery of unidentified human remains behind a house in Aruba. 
 
 Calling it a “major discovery,” Dave Holloway made the revelation Wednesday morning during an appearance on NBC’s Today show to promote Saturday night’s premiere of Oxygen’s new true crime series, The Disappearance of Natalee Holloway. 
 
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 “We have a person who states he was directly involved with [suspect] Joran van der Sloot in disposing of Natalee’s remains,” Holloway told Today Wednesday. “I thought, you know, there may be something to this. We’ve chased a lot of leads and this one is by far the most credible lead I’ve seen in the last 12 years.” 
 
 Holloway and private investigator T.J. Ward said they have been back and forth to Aruba over the last 18 months and, thanks to an informant, found bones that testing recently determined were human. 
 
 Holloway said that DNA testing is being done on the bones and that he should know within the next month if they are his daughter’s. 
 
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 Natalee Holloway AP Photo/WBRC-TV FOX 6 
 
 RELATED VIDEO: Story Behind the Story — New Clues in the Disappearance of Natalee Holloway 
 
 “When we determined these remains were human, I was shocked,” Holloway said, adding he had been disappointed before in his search for the truth. 
 
 “I know there’s a possibility this could be someone else, and I’m just trying to wait and see.” 
 
 Natalee Holloway, 18, vanished during a graduation trip to Aruba in 2005. No one has ever been charged with the Alabama teen’s disappearance and her body was never found by police. 
 
 RELATED VIDEO: Natalee Holloway’s Father Speaks Out Regarding the Human Remains Found After Their 18-Month Investigation 
 
 Joran van der Sloot, the man who was last seen with Natalee, is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence in Peru for killing business student Stephany Flores, who died in 2010 on the fifth anniversary of Holloway’s disappearance. 
 
 Holloway awaits the results and is hoping for closure. 
 
 “It would be, finally, the end,” he said. 
 
 Ward and Holloway are both featured in the upcoming Oxygen series, which follows their search to find out what happened to Natalee. ||||| Get the latest from TODAY Sign up for our newsletter 
 
 / Source: TODAY By Scott Stump 
 
 Twelve years after Natalee Holloway's disappearance on a graduation trip to Aruba, her father is hoping a recent discovery will yield a major break in the case of what happened to his daughter. 
 
 Dave Holloway and private investigator T.J. Ward announced on TODAY Wednesday that an 18-month investigation has led them to discover human remains that are being DNA tested to confirm if they are Natalee's. 
 
 "When we determined these remains were human, I was shocked,'' Holloway told Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie. "I know there's a possibility this could be someone else, and I'm just trying to wait and see." 
 
 In May 2005, Holloway vanished on a trip with friends following her graduation from an Alabama high school in a disappearance that remains an unsolved mystery. No one has ever been charged in her disappearance. 
 
 Joran van der Sloot, the Dutch man Natalee was last seen with outside a popular tourist bar, is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence in Peru for killing business student Stephany Flores. She died on the fifth anniversary of Holloway's disappearance in 2010. 
 
 An informant known as "Gabriel" put Ward and Holloway in contact with a man they claim had direct knowledge of Natalee's disappearance. 
 
 "We have a person who states he was directly involved with Joran van der Sloot in disposing of Natalee's remains,'' Holloway said. "I thought, you know, there may be something to this." 
 
 Ward and Holloway are featured in a new Oxygen series premiering on Saturday night called "The Disappearance of Natalee Holloway," which follows their search to find out what happened. 
 
 "We've chased a lot of leads and this one is by far the most credible lead I've seen in the last 12 years,'' Holloway said. 
 
 The men have been back and forth to an unspecified location behind a house in Aruba that was provided to them by the informant, ultimately digging up remains that were found to be human after they were tested. The DNA test will take several weeks to a month to determine if they are Natalee's remains, Holloway said. 
 
 A year after Natalee's mother said on TODAY that "justice has not been served" in Natalee's death, her father is hoping for some closure if the remains are determined to be his daughter. 
 
 "It would finally be the end,'' he said. 
 
 Follow TODAY.com writer Scott Stump on Twitter.
– Answers might finally be at hand for the family of Natalee Holloway, 12 years after the 18-year-old American student disappeared while on a graduation trip to the Caribbean island of Aruba. Father Dave Holloway says that in one of many trips to the island with private investigator TJ Ward over the last 18 months, they received a tip that led to unidentified human remains behind a house, People reports. "We’ve chased a lot of leads and this one is by far the most credible lead I've seen in the last 12 years," Holloway told the Today show on Wednesday. Holloway says the tip came from someone who claims to have helped Dutchman Joran Van der Sloot, long suspected of playing a role in the disappearance, dispose of his daughter's remains. Holloway says DNA testing is being carried out on the bones and they should know within a month whether they belong to Natalee. Ward and Holloway's search is documented in the Oxygen series The Search for Natalee Holloway, which premieres on Saturday. Van der Sloot is serving a 28-year sentence in Peru for the 2010 murder of Stephany Flores.