October 24, 2023
warning: The following post contains descriptions of violence and death. Reader discretion is advised.
Joran van der Sloot, 36, confessed to the murder of high-school student, Natalee Holloway, earlier this month.
Although Van Der Sloot has long been a suspect in Natalee's disappearance from Peru in 2005, he had not confessed to the killing until recently.
At the time, Van Der Sloot was an honour student at the International School of Aruba after relocating from the Netherlands to Aruba, Peru with his family in 1990. By the time he was twenty-two, he had killed two women.
In 2005, 18-year-old high school student, Natalee Holloway, went missing during a celebratory graduation trip to Peru. She was last seen in the company of Van der Sloot, then seventeen, at a bar called Carlos' n Charlie's. Holloway left along with Van Der Sloot and two brothers, Deepak Kalpoe and Satish Kalpoe, at around 1am. She would never be seen again.
In 2008, Van Der Sloot, who had relocated to Bangkok, Thailand, was accused of trafficking Thai women to Europe. It has been alleged that, while using the pseudonym, Murphy Jenkins, he lured Thai women in with a fake modelling agency and trafficked them to the Netherlands.
In 2010, Van Der Sloot sent an email to John Q. Kelly, New York attorney and representative of Beth Holloway, Natalee’s mother, offering money for information. They agreed on a price; $250,000, which Kelly said he would get to Van Der Sloot, who was in Aruba in 2010. Kelly had other plans, and instead, contacted both the FBI and Aruban authorities to witness the hotel room exchange so it could be used against him in court.
Kelly then accompanied Van Der Sloot, who gave false information about what happened to Natalee that night. He told the attorney that the victim had hit her head on a rock during an argument. He said he tried to leave but she attempted to prevent him, resulting in an accidental death.
He took Kelly to a home where he claimed his father had disposed of Natalee's body, concealing it beneath the buildings foundation, he said. The issue with Van Der Sloot's story, was, that the property had not been built at the time of Natalee's disappearance, and the entire story was fabricated. He would go on to tell others that he committed the crime, each time changing the details of what he claimed to have done and his motivations for doing so.
Three days later, Van Der Sloot fled the Netherlands, catching a flight to Colombia and then Peru. He was eventually arrested in Chile on June 3, 2010, for the murder of Stephany Flores, whom he had murdered in Peru the month before.
Flores’ badly beaten body was discovered in a hotel room in the Lima Province of Peru on May 30, 2010. Her money, credit cards and jewellery were all unaccounted for, including the $10,00 she had won at a casino earlier that night, where the pair had met.
The hotel had been registered in his name, but he had failed to check out.
Although at first Van Der Sloot lied about what happened to Flores, saying she was killed by armed robbers in the hotel room, he later confessed after interrogation. According to reports, Flores recognised the Dutch Killer as a suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway and confronted him, resulting in her murder.
He pleaded guilty to "simple robbery and qualified murder" in the death of Flores and was sentenced to 28 years behind bars for his crimes.
He married a local woman in the summer of 2014, and they had a child together. They met while Van Der Sloot was incarcerated.
In early 2021, Van Der Sloot, who had set up a cocaine ring within the Challapalca Prison, was convicted of drug trafficking, adding 18 years to his 28 year sentence. Despite racking up those extra years, prison sentences in Peru cannot exceed 35 years if the detainee was not sentenced to life.
Van der Sloot was extradited from Peru to the United States in early June of 2023. He was then arraigned on one count of extortion and one count of wire fraud for his attempts to extort Natalee Holloway's mother, but pleaded not guilty. Last week, on October 18, 2023, Van Der Sloot confessed to the murder of Natalee Holliway as part of a plea deal. He went on to describe the murder in gruesome detail, including descriptions of kicking the teenager in the head when she told him she did not want to have sex with him, and smashing a large cinderblock into her face before dragging her body into the ocean to dispose of it.
In a transcript of a conversation between Van Der Sloot and his attorney, Kevin Butler, Van Der Sloot said:
“I find a space, before we get to the Marriot hotel, where I lay her down, we lay down together in the sand and uh, we start kissing each other. I start- I get her to kiss me again and we start kissing each other. And uh, I start feeling her up again and she tells me no. She tells me she doesn't want me to- to feel her up. Uh, I insist. I keep feeling her up either way. Uhm, and uh she knees me uh, she ends up kneeing me in the crotch Uh, when she knees me in the crotch, I get up, on the beach, and I kick her extremely hard in the face. She's laying down unconscious and, uh, I see right next to her there’s a huge cinderblock laying on the beach. I take this and smash her head in completely. Her face basically, uh, collapses in. Even though it's dark I can see her face is collapsed in." "I decided to take her and put her in the ocean. I pull, half walk with her into the ocean. Uhm, I push her off."
In court, Beth Holloway, Natalee's mother, said to Van Der Sloot: "You have finally admitted that, in fact, you murdered her," “You have brutally murdered in separate incidents years apart two beautiful women who refused your sexual advances."
"As far as I'm concerned it's over, it's over. Joran van der Sloot is no longer the suspect in my daughter's murder. He is the killer."
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