August 23, 2011 -- Updated 0025 GMT (0825 HKT)
Robyn Gardner disappeared earlier this month while on vacation in Aruba.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: "I'm not going to let this go until we find her," Richard Forester says
- Officials find no body or new clues in the search for Robyn Gardner
- Police: The new search area is based on Gary Giordano's interrogation
- Gardner did not come back after the two went snorkeling August 2, Giordano says
The search area, a rugged terrain on the Dutch Caribbean Island, is covered with cactus and other treacherous desert plants. It included a section next to the Correctional Institute of Aruba, where the only suspect connected to the case is being held.
The area was selected as a result of information authorities gained after interrogating Gary Giordano, and other information, said Aruba Solicitor General Taco Stein.
Police would not go into detail about "other information" they had obtained.
Search teams, including approximately 45 police officers, cadets and Red Cross volunteers, spread out in long lines and walked an area north of the Seroe Colorado lighthouse, just a few miles from Baby Beach and Nanki Point, where Giordano says Gardner disappeared while snorkeling.
Along the way firefighters drove their fire trucks down dirt paths and through thick undergrowth into areas where searchers found old well holes. They lowered themselves down ladders and ropes to search for any sign of Gardner.
Giordano, 50, of Gaithersburg, Maryland, has told investigators that he went snorkeling with Gardner on August 2 and that she failed to return to shore with him.
According to a transcript, obtained exclusively by CNN, Giordano told police that he feared for his life when he signaled for Gardner to turn back and didn't look for her as he swam for shore.
"I only looked back when I hit a rock," the document quotes Giordano as telling investigators. "Before that, I did not look back. I was only busy saving my life."
Gardner had been snorkeling before and was a comfortable swimmer, he said. He showed police scrapes on his legs, but he said he did not know how they happened.
Stein said police have interviewed several witnesses in the case, but would not confirm or deny new reports suggesting a fisherman saw the couple leave the beach together. Police have previously said no one saw Gardner and Giordano snorkeling.
Giordano and Gardner flew to Aruba on July 31. A judge ordered last Monday that Giordano could be held until August 31 in connection with Gardner's disappearance.
On Thursday, police said that both Giordano and Gardner had their own travel insurance policies worth $1.5 million each. Giordano's mother is the beneficiary on his policy, Stein said, and authorities have not said who is the beneficiary on Gardner's policy.
It was Giordano himself who told authorities about the travel insurance, Stein said. The transcript shows that Giordano said his mother was the beneficiary on his policy, and that he was not asked who was named on Gardner's.
The FBI brought copies of the policy to Aruba late last week.
Giordano's lawyer, Michael Lopez, has not returned repeated calls for comment regarding the policy.
Other evidence in the case includes a camera that Giordano had been using while in Aruba with Gardner. Based on his own conversations with Aruban law enforcement officials, Stein described the photos found on Giordano's camera as "explicit."
Richard Forester of Maryland, who describes himself as Gardner's boyfriend, brushed aside reports of the pictures Monday and said his focus was squarely on locating Gardner.
"There's a lost American woman there who I love very much and we need to find her," he told HLN's "Issues With Jane Velez-Mitchell." "I'm not going to let this go until we find her."
"I can get millions of eyes and ears on this. Maybe it'll touch the right person, who knows somebody, who knows somebody, who saw something," Forester said.
DNA tests have been taken from Giordano and sent to Holland for processing, Stein said Thursday. No time was given as to when those results could be expected.
CNN's Martin Savidge and Tristan Smith contributed to this report.
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