It may not be the definitive answer Natalee Holloway’s parents have been waiting for, but it’s something. Joran van der Sloot, who was a suspect in their 18-year-old daughter’s 2005 disappearance, is going to be temporarily extradited from Peru—where he’s been serving a 28-year prison sentence for the murder of Stephany Flores—to Alabama to face extortion and wire fraud charges.
He’s accused of manipulating Natalee’s mother, Beth Holloway, into paying him for information about her child’s fate that he never provided. Now 35, he was indicted by a federal grand jury in June 2010.
“It has been a very long and painful journey, but the persistence of many is going to pay off,” Beth, who’s been divorced from Natalee’s dad Dave Holloway since 1993, told NBC News in response to the Van der Sloot update. “Together, we are finally getting justice for Natalee.
Each of the two counts Van der Sloot is charged with carries a possible 20-year prison sentence. Meanwhile, he’s been locked up in Peru since 2010; Beth traveled to South America to confront him in jail that September, recalling years later that she found him “so pathetic.
“I almost saw him as this pathetic person,” she said on Dr. Oz in 2017. “I didn’t feel any hate. Dave had previously expressed interest in making the trek as well, but in more recent years he concluded it would be “a waste of time. Beth, I don’t blame her for going,” he told E! News in 2021, “but she didn’t get any answers, either…I would be wasting my time and effort doing the same.
Van der Sloot was arrested in Aruba early on during the course of the initial investigation into Natalee’s May 30, 2005, disappearance but was never charged. Scroll on for all the twists and turns the case has taken since the night Natalee Holloway vanished
When Aruban authorities first questioned Joran van der Sloot and brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, they said they took Natalee Holloway to California Lighthouse, near Arashi Beach on the northwest tip of the island, to shark-watch, then dropped her off at her hotel at around 2 a.m., the morning of May 30, 2005.
Two former hotel security guards were arrested on June 5 after Joran and the Kalpoes claimed they saw a guard approaching Natalee outside her hotel before they drove off. The young men were arrested on June 9 and held on possible charges of first- or second-degree murder and kidnapping resulting in death. Aruban Attorney General Caren Janssen explained that they had been hoping that one of them would lead police to definitive evidence and that’s why they weren’t taken into custody right away.
The beach was searched on June 14, and Joran’s house was searched the next day, where investigators seized two vehicles, computers and cameras. “You have to build up an investigation. You can’t just go in there like a cowboy,” Janssen told reporters in explaining the perceived delay.
The guards were released June 18, and one told police that a Kalpoe brother had told him while they were both locked up that they hadn’t taken Natalee to the hotel, but rather he and his brother had left her with Joran at a beach near the hotel.
Police also questioned Paulus van der Sloot, Joran’s father, and arrested him on June 22. Multiple reports also noted the arrest of Steve Gregory Croes, a party boat DJ, in connection with the case; both Croes and the elder van der Sloot were released on June 26.
Satish Kalpoe admitted to lying to police at first; he changed his story to say he and Deepak dropped both Joran and Natalee off at the hotel and that was the last they saw of them. Meanwhile, a gardener at the Aruba Racquet Club gave police a sworn statement that he saw all three men in a car near the club at around 2:30 a.m., when the Kalpoes claimed they were already home.
Aruban police, Dutch marines, FBI agents, and thousands of locals combed the area, but that was on land. Ultimately a volunteer group dispatched divers and sonar equipment on June 25.
Six weeks after she vanished, the family’s offered reward for Natalee’s safe return was $200,000, and the reward for information that could help lead to the truth was $100,000. By the end of July, the reward was up to $1 million if Natalee came home alive.
Source: eonline
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