Natalee Holloway went missing in Aruba in 2005, and the person responsible for the 18-year-old's death has admitted to killing her. Joran van der Sloot has been suspected to be connected to Holloway's death for some time, but he has not been charged with her murder due to the statute of limitations for murder in Aruba.
Instead, he pleaded guilty to extortion and wire fraud and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He is currently serving 28 years in prison in Peru for the murder of another woman, Stephany Flores.
Beth Holloway, Natalee's mother, said to Joran van der Sloot, 36, in court: “You changed the course of our lives and you turned them upside down. You are a killer.” Beth Holloway shared that van der Sloot admitted to killing Natalee. Based on the plea deal, van der Sloot had to provide everything he knew about what happened to Natalee the night she went missing.
To celebrate her high school graduation, Natalee traveled to Aruba in 2005. She was last seen leaving a club with van der Sloot. Her body was never found but she was declared dead in 2012.
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“After 18 years, Natalee’s case is solved. He gave a proffer in which he finally confessed to killing Natalee," Beth Holloway shared, according to CNN. A transcript from an interview with van der Sloot's lawyer, Kevin Butler, was released with the plea agreement. In the transcript, van der Sloot said he kissed Natalee and began "feeling her up" on the night that she went missing.
She rejected him at that point, reportedly kneeing him in the crotch, according to van der Sloot's account of what happened. He then kicked her “extremely hard” in the face, which he admitted could've killed her, but he was unsure. He just knew she was unconscious. He then bludgeoned her with a cinder block and pushed her into the water before leaving.
Although he isn't charged with Natalee's murder, Judge Anna Manasco considered his confession to the crime when determining his sentencing. "I have considered your confession to the brutal murder of Natalee Holloway. You have brutally murdered, in separate incidents years apart, two beautiful women who refused your sexual advances," the judge said.
After the hearing, Beth Holloway told reporters that van der Sloot "finally confessed." “He is the killer. He described when and how he killed her,” she said.
In 2010, van der Sloot tried to tell Beth Holloway that he would tell her where Natalee's body was if she gave him $250,000. Beth Holloway paid $25,000 and said she would pay the rest if van der Sloot actually provided her with accurate information.
But the information he provided her with was not correct. "I paid my daughter’s killer money. That’s shocking. I don’t think anyone can really wrap their mind around what that means,” Beth Holloway said, reported AL.com. Speaking of the extortion, the judge told van der Sloot that “[he] knew the information [he was] selling was an absolute lie."
After his confession, Beth Holloway told van der Sloot: “You terminated her dreams, her potential, her possibilities, when you bludgeoned her to death in 2005. You didn’t get what you wanted from Natalee, your sexual satisfaction, so you brutally killed her … You are the one in Aruba no one wants to be, the black mark on the island," according to AL.com.
Van der Sloot had been extradited to the US, reported the Associated Press. He will return to Peru, but if he gets out of prison there early, he will be put in prison in the US to finish his sentence, according to People.
