Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, admitted Wednesday to beating the Alabama teenager to death with a cinder block on a beach in Aruba in 2005 and then dumping her lifeless body into the sea after she rebuffed his sexual advances.
The stunning confession was made before the Dutch national pleaded guilty in federal court to extorting money from the missing teenager’s mother and sheds light on a nearly two-decade-long mystery that has captivated people around the world.
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Holloway’s disappearance had been long linked to Van der Sloot, but no charges had ever been brought against him.
Holloway’s mother, Beth, has tirelessly pursued what happened to her 18-year-old daughter the night she went missing from her high school trip to the Caribbean island and has kept her daughter’s name and case in the headlines throughout the years.
“You have finally admitted that, in fact, you murdered her,” Beth Holloway said in her victim impact statement. “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.”
According to Beth Holloway, Van der Sloot admitted that after he killed her daughter, he went home and watched pornography. Despite his admission to murdering Natalee Holloway, the statute of limitations for homicide in Aruba is 12 years, meaning local authorities cannot pursue charges.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s over,” Beth Holloway said outside the courthouse in Alabama. “Joran van der Sloot is no longer the suspect in my daughter’s murder. He is a killer.”
Van der Sloot was extradited to the United States earlier this year after an Alabama jury indicted him for extorting $250,000 from Beth Holloway for information on what happened to her daughter as well as a promise to lead her to Natalee Holloway’s body.
“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.
As part of the plea agreement he made with prosecutors, Van der Sloot was required to provide details on how Natalee Holloway died and how he disposed of her body.
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The 36-year-old was sentenced to 20 years in prison on the extortion and wire fraud charges.
Van der Sloot has been in Peru serving a 28-year sentence for the 2010 murder of Stephany Flores, a 21-year-old who was killed five years after Natalee Holloway. While in jail, he married Leidy Figueroa. They were allowed conjugal visits and in 2014 had a daughter named Dusha Trudie van der Sloot.
