Eighteen years after 18-year-old Natalee Holloway was presumed killed during a high school graduation trip to Aruba, the man long suspected in her disappearance had to reveal all he knew about her fate. Appearing in Alabama court on Wednesday, Joran van der Sloot pleaded guilty to extortion and wire fraud; he'd been charged with demanding Beth Holloway pay $250,000 in exchange for information about the location of her daughter's remains. The plea deal "was conditioned upon Mr. van der Sloot revealing details of how Natalee died and how her body was disposed of," a lawyer for the Holloway family had explained on Sunday, and AL.com notes that US District Court Judge Anna Manasco had van der Sloot verbally confirm he's aware he can be charged with perjury if he lies.
"I would like to take this [chance] to apologize to the Holloway family, to apologize to my own family, to say I hope the statement I provided brings some kind of closure to everyone involved," said van der Sloot, who noted he's now a Christian. "I am no longer that person I was back then." Beth Holloway gave a victim impact statement in court: "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. You didn't get what you wanted form 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."
Beth Holloway added that after killing her daughter, van der Sloot returned home and watched pornography. The AP notes that the Birmingham, Alabama, hearing took place a few miles from the suburb where Natalee Holloway lived. The teen went missing during a high school graduation trip to Aruba with classmates from Mountain Brook High School. She was last seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot. Prosecutors said that in 2010, van der Sloot agreed to be paid $25,000 to share the location of the remains and requested the other $225,000 be paid once the remains were recovered. "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 in court, per AL.com, adding, "By the way, you look like hell, Joran. I do not see how you're gonna make it."
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Van der Sloot said in 2010 that Holloway was buried in the gravel under a home's foundation, but he later confessed that was a lie, FBI Agent William K. Bryan wrote in a 2010 sworn statement filed in the case. The 36-year-old Dutch national was extradited from Peru, where he's serving a 28-year sentence for another young woman's murder. He was sentenced Wednesday to 20 years on each of the two convictions and will serve those sentences concurrently with each other and and his sentence in Peru. Should he be released early in Peru, he'll return to the US to serve out his remaining time. (More Natalee Holloway stories.)
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