Nearly two decades after Natalee Holloway vanished in Aruba, it was revealed during an emotionally charged court hearing on Wednesday that Joran van der Sloot had confessed to bludgeoning her to death after she refused his sexual advances.
Van der Sloot, who has been the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance and death of Natalee, appeared in a Birmingham, Alabama court where he pleaded guilty to trying to extort $250,000 from her mother in exchange for information about the location of her body.
Natalee Holloway was declared dead in 2012, but her body has never been found. U.S. District Judge Anna Manasco said it’s likely her remains will never be recovered.
On Wednesday, Van der Sloot received a 20-year sentence on each of the two convictions on the extortion charges. Those sentences will run concurrently with each other and also concurrently with his 28-year sentence in Peru for the murder of Stephany Flores in 2010. He will now return to Peru to serve the rest of his time.
“After 18 years, Natalee’s case is solved,” Beth Holloway said following the hearing. “It’s over. Joran van der Sloot is no longer a suspect in my daughter’s murder. He IS the killer.”
The Dutch national from Aruba is not charged in Holloway’s death. But just before he was sentenced, Natalee Holloway’s mother made a statement revealing he had confessed to the murder, admitting he had bludgeoned her to death and then disposed of her body into the ocean. And he did it alone.
“You changed the course of our lives and you turned them upside down,” Beth Holloway said in court, standing a few feet from van der Sloot. “You are a killer. You have finally admitted that, in fact, you murdered her.”
“You terminated her dreams, her potential, her possibilities, when you bludgeoned her to death in 2005,” Holloway said after he pleaded guilty. “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.”
Van der Sloot wore an orange jumpsuit as he stood to address the court on Wednesday.
“I would like to take this chance to apologize to the Holloway family, to apologize to my own family,” he said, adding that he is now a Christian. “I am no longer that person I was back then.”
Attorney John Q. Kelly, who represented Holloway’s mother during the alleged extortion attempt, said the plea deal was contingent on van der Sloot providing details about what happened to Holloway. Her parents were able to listen in on the confession that he told prosecutors prior to the hearing.
Before the sentencing, Judge Manasco said she considered van der Sloot’s confession to Holloway’s murder as part of the decision.
“You have brutally murdered, in separate instances years apart, two young women who refused your sexual advances,” the judge said.
“You knew the information you were selling was an absolute lie,” Judge Manasco added, speaking of his extortion of Beth Holloway.
The judge said the pain of Natalee’s death was compounded by the fact that her “family has not found and will not find her remains.”
Natalee Holloway’s case has captivated the public’s attention for nearly two decades, spawning extensive news coverage, books, movies and podcasts. A heavy media presence assembled outside the federal courthouse nearly three hours before the hearing Wednesday.
Holloway was 18 years old when she vanished during a high school graduation trip with classmates to Aruba. She was last seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot, a student at an international school.
The mysterious disappearance sparked years of news coverage and true crime podcasts, books and movies. Van der Sloot was identified as a main suspect and was detained for questioning but no charges were filed in the case.
Holloway’s family has long sought answers about her disappearance. But those answers have proven elusive as van der Sloot has given a variety of conflicting descriptions over the years about what happened.
Federal investigators in the Alabama case said van der Sloot gave a false location of Holloway’s body during a recorded 2010 FBI sting that captured the extortion attempt.
Prosecutors in the Alabama case said van der Sloot contacted Kelly in 2010 and asked for $250,000 from Beth Holloway to reveal the location of her daughter’s remains.
Van der Sloot agreed to accept $25,000 to disclose the location, and asked for the other $225,000 once the remains were recovered, prosecutors said.
Van der Sloot said Holloway was buried in the gravel under the foundation of a house, but later admitted that was untrue, FBI Agent William K. Bryan wrote in a 2010 sworn statement filed in the case.
Van der Sloot moved from Aruba to Peru before he could be arrested in the extortion case.
He was extradited from Peru to Alabama in June for the extortion case. U.S. authorities agreed to return him to Peruvian custody after his case is concluded.