This case is sort of like the OJ case in the sense that we all know exactly who did it even if the person responsible continues to deny it. But in the case of Joran van der Sloot, he finally did admit it in a court in Alabama today. The admission came as part of a plea deal in a related case in which van der Sloot had tried to extort money from Holloway’s family.
The charges stemmed from 2010 when Mr. Van der Sloot tried to demand a $250,000 payment from Beth Holloway, claiming to have knowledge of the location of her daughter’s remains, prosecutors said. He received only $25,100 from her after providing false information, according to prosecutors.
In exchange for a 20-year sentence for charges of extortion and wire fraud, Mr. van der Sloot had agreed to provide “full, complete, accurate, and truthful information” about the disappearance of Natalee Holloway.
So in exchange for a lighter sentence, he finally told his account of what happened.
He described wanting to be dropped off with Ms. Holloway a distance from the hotel where she was staying with more than 100 recent graduates of Mountain Brook High School in Alabama so he “might still get a chance to, to be with her.” He said they began kissing while lying on the beach, but she refused further sexual advances.
When he persisted, he said, she kneed him in the crotch, and he kicked her “extremely hard” in the face. At that point, he said, she was “possibly even, uh, even dead but definitely unconscious.”
Then, he said, he picked up a large cinder block and used it to “smash her head in with it completely.”
He then dragged her body into the surf and walked home.
In case it’s not clear by now, van der Sloot seems to be a complete psychopath. He murdered a girl for refusing to have sex with him and then five years later he murdered another woman, this time in Peru. He beat her to death with a tennis racket and after he was caught he tried to claim that trauma from being a suspect in Holloway’s death had somehow triggered him after the woman he was with discovered his connection to the case.
A three-judge panel sentenced him to 28 years in prison, discarding his claims of contrition in a killing his lawyer said was triggered by trauma from being the prime suspect in the unsolved 2005 disappearance of U.S. teen Natalee Holloway…
After killing the Lima woman, he took nearly $300 in cash from Flores as well as credit cards, and was captured four days later in Chile.
Van der Sloot told police he flew into a rage when she discovered his connection to Holloway while they were playing online poker in his hotel room. He had received an instant message from someone about the case.
Police forensic experts disputed that story, and the judges who sentenced him noted that Van der Sloot later recanted the confession, claiming it was exacted under duress and without an official translator. The victim’s family contends Van der Sloot killed Flores so he could rob her.
He still has many years left to serve for the Peru murder but while in prison he also started smuggling drugs. He was convicted for that and given another 18 year sentence.
Dutch national Joran van der Sloot (35), who is serving a 28 year sentence for the murder of Stephany Flores in a Peruvian jail has been sentenced to another 18 years for drug smuggling, the Telegraaf reports.
Van der Sloot was said to have played a ‘crucial role’ in selling cocaine smuggled into the Juliaca prison by a family member of a fellow prisoner and even sending it to addresses outside Peru.
The law in Peru limits sentences to a maximum of 35 years. His sentence in the extortion case will run concurrently with his murder sentence. So, barring some accident, Joran van der Sloot will be released in 2045 (he would be 58 years old). My own feeling is that’s not good enough. I have no doubt the moment he is free he will murder someone else.
As for Beth Holloway, she said she believed van der Sloot had finally told the truth and her daughter’s case is solved.
“It’s over. Joran van der Sloot is no longer the suspect in my daughter’s murder. He is the killer,” Beth Holloway said Wednesday.
“After 18 years, Natalee’s case is solved,” she said. “He gave a proffer in which he finally confessed to killing Natalee.”
Here’s Beth Holloway’s statement outside the courthouse today.
Read the full article here