Is there anything more exciting than taking a vacation? I ask because I assume this episode will premier sometime in the summer of 2024, when many listeners will be packing their bags to fly away to some distant country where good times and relaxation are all but guaranteed. Personally, I know I could use a vacation, but I won’t be taking one because, unfortunately, I am painfully aware of the dangers that accompany international travel.
Yes, as I have been informed, beyond the US border lies a lawless world teeming with criminals and ne’er-do-wells: thieves looking to break into my hotel room and steal my luggage, fraudsters attempting to swindle me out of my hard-earned money, and extortionists foaming at the mouth to kidnap and hold me for ransom. And worst of all, if one of these tragedies does befall me, the governments of most foreign countries won’t lift a finger to help me because they hate Americans and freedom and Jesus. Yes, I think I have more than enough motivation to keep my butt planted firmly in front of my keyboard where it belongs.
Obviously, I’m being a bit facetious here, but there is no shortage of people in America—particularly rural America—who wholeheartedly subscribe to this mindset. My experience with them is firsthand as many of the older people I grew up around repeatedly assured me that I would be killed, or worse, if I dared to leave the safety and security of Uncle Sam’s burly embrace. They, of course, had never left the country themselves and had no way of knowing what they were talking about, but they meant well, so I certainly cannot fault them. Plus, it’s no secret how they arrived at their misguided conclusion: like sex, fear sells, and the 24-hours news networks figured out a long time ago that it’s not difficult to manufacture fear, especially when it concerns traveling abroad.
Back in the 90s and early 2000s, international missing persons cases were always big news and served as a starting pistol for a sensationalized news cycle that followed a very predictable pattern: something tragic happens to an American tourist overseas, it becomes front-page news as networks seize the opportunity to hook viewers, audiences recall all the times this has happened in the past, and panic sets in. It’s basically the summer’s version of “poisoned Halloween candy” in more ways than one. I hope you can understand how, if this warped reporting is your only source of information, the outside world could quickly become a very scary place.
Today’s case is just one of many that the media used for this purpose, yet the details of it are tragic, nonetheless. It occurred in 2005 when a young woman from Alabama named Natalee Holloway disappeared from the island of Aruba while on vacation with her friends. Almost immediately, news stations began broadcasting images of Natalee around the clock until it seemed that her picturesque face would be permanently etched into the corner of every LCD television screen in the country.
As the story unfolded, US Governors even began calling for a nationwide boycott of the island as allegations of incompetent policing and corruption by Aruban government officials and judges circulated. Thanks to the fact that both Natalee’s parents—particularly her mother—and the alleged killer opted to give repeated news interviews, the story stayed in the public’s consciousness for years as the FBI, the Aruban government, and multiple private investigative teams attempted to uncover real answers in a case that seemed hopeless. However, what nobody at the time knew was that it would take until late 2023—eighteen full years since Natalee’s disappearance—for the complete, illusive truth to finally be revealed.
A Promising Future
Seeing as much of our story today will revolve around a mother’s two-decade search for her missing daughter, it’s best to begin this chapter a bit earlier than we normally would by briefly discussing Beth Holloway.
By Beth’s own account, her early life was largely uneventful. She was born Elizabeth Renolds in 1960 and raised in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, where she was an excellent student who went on to pursue a bachelor’s degree in speech pathology from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. While studying here, she met and began dating her future husband, Dave Holloway, and, upon graduating, transferred to Arkansas State University to obtain her master’s degree.
With this finished, she and Dave then married and moved to the tiny town of Clinton, Alabama, where she found work as a special needs teacher. This is where and when her daughter, Natalee Ann Holloway, was born on October 21st, 1986. A few years later, Beth and Dave’s second child, Matthew, was also born.
According to those that knew the family, Dave and Beth’s marriage started off fine; however, it was not meant to last. They divorced in 1993, when Natalee was 7 years old. From here, Beth then took primary custody of both children, choosing to raise them on her own.
While living and working in Clinton, Beth then met a man with the most quintessential Alabamian name I’ve ever heard: Jug Twitty, whose real name was George. Jug was a prominent and wealthy Alabama businessman who had children of his own from a previous marriage. He quickly fell in love with Beth and the pair married on July 26, 2000. They then relocated to Mountain Brook, Alabama, a wealthy suburb of Birmingham.
Fortunately, despite this messy time in the families’ lives, Beth’s divorce and new marriage did not seem to affect Natalee or Matthew in any negative way. While enrolled at Mountain Brook High School, Natalee’s excellent grades earned her a spot in the National Honer Society, and she quickly found a home within multiple student groups, including the student government and the school’s dance team. However, beyond her accomplishments on paper, Natalee was also a very popular person.
She had many friends in Mountain Brook, ones who would someday attest to how nice, honest, and kind she was to everyone she met. She was also regarded by the school’s staff as a positive influence on those around her. As a student who excelled in Spanish language class and a member of the American Field Service, she volunteered her time to help foreign exchange students from Spanish-speaking countries adapt and feel more welcome in Alabama.
In short, she was the type of daughter that any parent would be proud to have; nobody could say a negative word about her.
Appropriately, the colleges that Natalie applied to were eager to meet with her, and she was eventually accepted into the University of Alabama and offered a full scholarship. There, she planned to pursue a career in healthcare and someday become a doctor. But, first, she had some big plans to attend to.
One of Natalee’s biggest obsessions as a teenager was travel. With the help of her parents’ money, she had taken trips to Canada and Europe and had sailed aboard multiple international cruise ships. In her senior yearbook, she quoted lyrics from the song “Free Bird,” by Lynard Skynyrd:
“If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me? For I must be traveling on now, there’s too many places I haven’t seen.”
As an adult, Natalee hoped to continue her travels between semesters at AU, but her first trip was scheduled to occur before her time in college even began. In 2005, directly after her senior year, she planned to see was the Dutch Caribbean Island of Aruba, which is located approximately 18 miles north of the coast of Venezuela.
For the prior few years, seniors at Mountain Brook High School, along with a few volunteer chaperones from the school, had been organizing an unsanctioned trip for “one last hurrah” with their graduating peers. Not every senior student attended, but those that did came back with stories of fun times that mirrored any classic coming-of-age movie. It had become a regular tradition in their small community.
The reason that Aruba was chosen was because of its approachability: it was a popular tourist destination and at least 3 out of 4 of the island’s visitors were from the United States, which meant that most residents of Aruba spoke English as a second language. Many local restaurants, shops, venues, nightclubs, and hotels also catered directly to American clients. There were familiar chains lining the streets and products stocking the shelves, making it a suitable destination for people who didn’t want to be overwhelmed by total unfamiliarity.
As it had in the past, the trip was scheduled to last 5 days; however, some in Natalee’s family were hesitant to allow her to go. Her father said:
”…I thought it was, [in] my opinion, too extravagant. And I said, ‘No, [we’re] not going to do this.’ And I told her flat out she was not going to Aruba if I had anything to do with it.”
However, for as much as Dave protested, he also knew that Natalee had grown into an exceptional young woman, so when she didn’t stop hounding him about the trip, he relented.
Beth had her qualms about the trip as well, primarily because one of Jug’s sons, her stepson, had run into a bit of trouble while on the trip himself two years earlier, in 2003, while at a local bar called Carlos ‘n Charlie’s.
According to Beth:
“My stepson [had] an encounter at Carlos ‘n Charlie’s… There were some locals there. And they had coaxed some young females into leaving the establishment with them… and he stepped in at the last minute because [he] just didn’t feel good about the situation…”
This left Beth fearing that, because Natalee was a young woman, she would be targeted by older local men. However, like David, she took comfort in the fact that Natalee was a smart girl and that there would be chaperones on standby in case, God forbid, something went terribly wrong. Plus, being part of a group of over 125, the phrase “safety in numbers” provided relief on the nights when worry began to creep in.
Aruba
Natalee, her 124 classmates, and their 7 chaperones arrived in Aruba via airplane on May 26th, 2005. It was a Thursday, and they landed at the Queen Beatrix International Airport in Oranjestad, the island’s capital. From here, they travelled south to Palm Beach and checked into the Holiday Inn Resort and Casino, where nearly an entire floor was reserved for them. Free from the watchful eyes of their parents, the graduates then spent the next few days making their way to and from various locations around the island.
Because Aruba’s legal drinking age was 18 instead of 21, most were having their first taste of legal alcohol. Many partook eagerly, and the next four days and nights on the island were truly unforgettable.
Laraine Watson, one of Natalee’s classmates, stated:
“We were so excited. I mean, it was a tropical paradise… without our parents! Together.”
Claire Fierman, another classmate and close friend of Natalee’s, confirmed:
“We were on the beach. We stayed outside all day. You’d usually take a nap, get dressed, go eat dinner, and then go to one of the bars. Come home whenever you wanted to.”
Natalee herself reportedly had a similarly positive experience for the first few days; however, that all changed on the last night of the trip, Sunday, May 29th, when she and several of her friends, including Loraine Watson, ventured down to the Holiday Inn Resort’s Casino. That night, they intended to make good use of their final hours on the island, aware any lost sleep could be made up for on the flight home. First, they ordered a drink and hit the blackjack table. This is when Natalie first met a 19-year-old teen who introduced himself as Joran (pronounced a bit like “Urine”).
According to Loraine, Joran was very tall—about 6’4”—confident, and very friendly. He also looked like a normal guy around their age and could have easily passed as just another teenager from Alabama like them. Loraine couldn’t recall who approached who first, but Joran and Natalee began talking to one another at some point during the night. This is when he revealed to their small group that he was a student from the Netherlands on holiday with his own friends.
After this, he accompanied Natalee and the rest of them when they left the casino, intending to go to Carlos ‘n Charlei’s.
Carlos n’ Charlie’s was a popular spot for the American group every year, and over 100 of the students had packed into the tiny bar that night, essentially taking control of the establishment. It was cramped from wall to wall. At one point in the night, Loraine spotted Natalle from across the bar talking with Joran but did not personally speak with either of them. Loraine thought Natalee appeared fine and the conversation seemed amicable, so she didn’t want to intrude.
As the bar was about to close at around 1 AM, the JD played “Sweet Home Alabama” as the last song of the night for the students, who all drunkenly shouted the familiar lyrics back at him in unison. After this, they all finished what remained of their drinks and set out into the night.
Unfortunately, because so many of the teens had been eager to stay out until the last possible minute, the scene outside Carlos n’ Charlie’s was chaotic. There were far too many passengers for the small number of taxis that were available at that time of night, so students were sitting on each other’s laps in order to fit as many people inside each car as possible. Still, there was not enough, and Natalee could not catch a ride.
Students present that night stated that Natalee was one of those without a ride but was later seen getting into a car with Joran and his friends, whom they had never met before. They assumed that Joran was giving her a ride back to the hotel and did not attempt to intervene as they were, understandably, too preoccupied with arranging a ride for themselves in the chaos.
When Claire Frierman and the rest of them arrived back at the Holiday Inn Resort, she immediately fell asleep and did not awaken until it was time to leave the next morning. The class’s time in Aruba had officially come to an end.
Missing, Day One
Standing in line at the airport and waiting to board her flight, Claire was more focused on the journey home than she was anything else. She assumed that Natalee had made it back to the hotel the previous night; however, this belief was shattered when Francis Ellen, another of Natalee’s friends, came rushing up to her. As Claire was boarding, Francis took Claire by the arm and said:
“Natalee is not coming home. We can’t find her.”
Frances told Claire that all of Natalee’s belonging were still inside her room, untouched, but nobody, including the chaperones, had been able to find her. Nobody had seen her since the previous night, since they were all outside the bar.
All at once, Claire felt tension building in her chest as she attempted to recall whether or not she had seen Natalee at any point that morning. She eventually decided that she wasn’t sure and wanted to go back to the hotel to aid in the search, but she couldn’t; the plane was about to take off, and she would have no way of getting home if she wasn’t on it. With a guilty conscience, she boarded the plane. In a later interview, she said:
“It felt like I was leaving something behind. It was just a horrifying feeling knowing that she was supposed to be there, and she wasn’t.”
Naively, Claire’s biggest concern was that Natalee was about to be in big trouble with her parents; she had no idea how much worse the situation truly was.
Before boarding the flight themselves, one of the Chaperones placed a call to Beth in Alabama to deliver the concerning news. Despite their efforts to keep the mother calm, Beth was inconsolable:
“I knew instantly when I received that call that, just from Natalee’s history and character and just her record… I knew instantly that she’d either been kidnapped or murdered. There was no hesitation. Absolutely none— absolutely none.”
Back in the states, Beth hung up the phone and jumped into her car. She started speeding home, making calls to 911 and her ex-husband along the way. While enroute, she pushed her car to over 120mph (~195kpm), until she was eventually pulled over by a state trooper. Hearing her story, the trooper then put her in contact with the FBI.
Once Natalee had been officially declared missing, the first thing that Beth, Jug, and several close friends of their family decided to do was rent a private jet to fly down to Aruba themselves. They couldn’t stand the thought of sitting idly by and wanted to begin a search of their own, believing that the Aruban police were not taking the case seriously. We’ll talk about why they believed this in just a bit.
As soon as the plane landed, Beth took charge of the impromptu investigation. She led their group to the Holiday Inn Resort, where they searched Natalee’s room and then asked to speak with the manager. With her help, Beth was allowed to review footage from the hotel’s security cameras, which is how she got her first look at the mysterious boy known to her as “Joran.” She watched as Natalee and Joran stood at the bar together, taking shots and chatting. She then watched as they exited the casino with her friends.
Initially, Beth believed that tracking Joran down would be difficult considering they were in an unfamiliar country and Joran was a guest from yet another unfamiliar country, but to her surprise, the hotel’s manager was able to identify Joran with ease. She said that his name was Joran van der Sloot and that he was a 17-year-old local high school student.
Yes, despite what Joran had told Natalee and her friends, he was not a college student from the Netherlands; he was a local resident of Aruba that had a reputation among the staff of several nearby hotels as a party boy who would float between bars to seduce and pick up women while gambling. He would present himself as a tourist to keep those around him at ease, but that was just part of his pickup game.
Before the sun had even set on Beth’s first day in Aruba, she already had a solid lead on the last person her daughter had been seen with. Before long, after bribing a few locals with cash, she also had a lead on who else was in the car outside Carlos ‘n Charlie’s the prior night: two brothers, 21-year-old Deepak Kalpoe and 18-year-old Satish Kalpoe.
Hoping to confront Joran herself, Beth and the rest of the Twitty family quickly made their way to the van der Sloot residence, which they also found using information obtained by bribing more locals. At the front door, they were greeted by Joran’s father, Paulus van der Sloot; however, if they thought that Paulus would be any help to them, they were wrong. Beth was stonewalled by Paulus, who was an attorney training to be judge.
He told her that she didn’t have any right to show up at his door asking questions and that Joran didn’t have to speak with her if he didn’t want to. He did eventually call Joran and request that he return home, but Beth stated that she found Paulus’s overall demeanor concerning; her had dropped off the face of the earth, was possibly injured and in need of help, but Paulus had no desire to help find her. Instead, he was intentionally placing himself between Beth and the only person who might be able to provide answers.
Even though Joran was his son, she believed that was extremely suspicious.
When Joran finally arrived home after a tense wait, he was once again accompanied by the Kalpoes. By now, tensions at the home were beginning to get heated, and things only escalated when Joran denied that he had ever met Natalee.
According to Beth, she wanted to hit Joran the moment he told her such a bold-faced lie but, thankfully, didn’t. Instead, she allowed the rational part of her brain to take control and confronted the teen with the video evidence and multiple witness accounts she had acquired that placed him and Natalee together the prior evening. Faced with this, Joran then changed his story.
Now, he admitted that he and Natalee had hung out the prior night, but his admission did little to ease the tension in the air. While using very sexually explicit language to describe Natalee, Joran told Beth that her daughter had been wasted and hanging all over him at the bar. He said that, once Carlos ‘n Charlies closed, he, Deepak, and Satish had offered her a ride back to her hotel, but she had refused, saying that she wanted to stop and see the sharks on the beach one final time before heading home.
They agreed and drove her to a lighthouse on Aruba’s Arashi Beach, known as the California Lighthouse. After spending some time together there, the Kalpoe brothers finished driving them back to the Holiday Inn at around 2 AM. Now, because Natalee was stumbling drunk by this point, Joran offered to help her to her room, but she once again refused.
As the Kalpoes were about to drive away, Joran said that he had noticed a man in a security guard’s uniform approaching her, offering his assistance. He had assumed that Natalee would be fine and hadn’t seen her since. The Kalpoes confirmed Joran’s story.
Upon hearing Joran’s new version of events, Beth says she felt her heart sink. She knew deep down that Joran was still lying but had no way to prove it. She requested to search the Kalpoe brother’s car, but they refused. Then Paulus ordered her and her family away from his house.
Feeling lost and knowing that they would get no further that night, Beth then returned to the Holiday Inn, where she was once again permitted to view security footage from the previous night. She looked at different cameras this time, ones that were on the building’s exterior. But, as suspected, there were no signs of the Kalpoe brothers’ car—or of Joran and Natalee—at any point around 2AM. Natalle was also never seen reentering the hotel through the lobby, the building’s only accessible entrance.
Discouraged, Beth decided to pack it in for the night. She was allowed to stay in the room that contained Natalee’s luggage and personal belongings free of charge, marking the end of her first day on the island.
The Great Search
Now that you’ve officially met our full cast of characters, it’s time for me to explain why Beth Twitty felt the need to metaphorically dawn a fedora and pull out her magnifying glass instead of allowing the Aruban authorities to handle the situation themselves. Beth states that one of the class’s chaperones had attempted to have an investigation into Natalee’s disappearance opened in Aruba before she had even arrived on the island but was told that no investigation was warranted at that time. According to the chaperone, Aruban police claimed that the situation was not nearly as severe as it first seemed because many, many tourists go missing for a day or two while on the island for a variety of innocent reasons.
Some young women, they said, go wild while on vacation: they start partying, take drugs, hook up with random men, take more drugs, lose track of time, and drop off the radar for a few days before eventually sobering up. It happened almost daily, so there was no urgent need to organize a search at that time. Beth was told the same thing when she arrived and attempted to have a case opened herself several hours later.
When Beth urgently told the police that Natalee wasn’t that type of girl, they refused to listen and simply assured her that they would help her daughter get back to the Unites States once she reappeared. This, Beth states, is what prompted the Holloway family to take matters into their own hands.
The day after she arrived on the island, Natalee’s father, Dave, landed with even more family members in tow, all of whom planned to organize a search team and set out to comb the small, 70-square-mile island from end to end. They put up missing persons posters, walked the beaches, scoured the known drug dens in the areas, used even more cash to bribe locals for information, and visited multiple police stations. They were hoping to find Natalee alive, but Dave also feared the worst:
“I just kept it to myself, but I knew that I was going to Aruba for recovery… because I knew that, after 24 or 48 hours, if you hadn’t heard from them, it’s not a good situation…”
Now, it should be noted that representatives from Aruba dispute Beth’s claim and say that they were taking steps to find Natalee but couldn’t disclose specifics to the Holloway family at such an early stage. They said that they were monitoring Joran’s movements in secret and attempting to obtain a warrant for a wiretap, but Beth’s interfering was causing problems for them. It cannot be proven which version of events is true because records of these early days have never been released; however, what can be proven is what happened next:
We started this episode by discussing how the American media is inclined to latch onto stories about tourists that go missing while abroad, but you should be aware that that inclination is multiplied exponentially when the missing person is an attractive young woman. Speaking respectfully, Natalee was gorgeous, and her picture was perfect for primetime TV news.
When it became clear to the Holloways that they were on her own, Beth began contacting members of the American media to tell her story. Within a few days, journalists began flocking to the island with cameras. They interviewed Beth inside Natalee’s hotel room, where she told the world her version of events for the first time.
This did wonders to get the public interested in Natalee’s case as Beth was a sympathetic person in a truly unimaginable situation, which only encouraged more feverish reporting from over 26 separate counties. As you can imagine, this was not a good look for the Aruban authorities, who were being dragged through the mud by every talking head on the evening news.
Within days of this story breaking, calls for action were coming in from all angles. People in both America and Aruba were pissed, as were government officials from Alabama who began asking for the US federal government to step in, saying that not enough was being done to bring Natalee home. The FBI was already assisting Aruba in the investigation, but the public’s perception was that “assisting” simply wasn’t enough. News stations reported on Aruba as if it were a lawless land of gamblers, drug dealers, and murderers, which wasn’t true but made for good television.
Thankfully, one good thing that came from this whole mess was, with the eyes of the world now upon them, a fire had effectively been lit underneath the Aruban government. The search that Dave had organized was revamped and made official, and thousands of government employees and civil servants were given time off to participate. Now that they had the numbers, the team physically did walk from one end of the island to the other, searching for anything that could point them in the right direction. Unfortunately, they found little.
To encourage witnesses to come forward, Natalee’s family put out a $175,000 reward for any information that could lead to her safe return. This amount was increased to $195,000 when Aruba’s tourism board offered up another $20,000 of their own to go with it. This was done in an attempt to help stop the PR nightmare the island had suddenly found itself in.
As all this was happening, detectives in Aruba had also ramped up their investigation into two suspects who they thought might be able to provide some answers. They were security guards from a nearby hotel, Nick John and Abraham Jones. Both were brought in for questioning on suspicion of kidnapping and murder.
While not officially confirmed by Aruban authorities, it is strongly suspected that Joran and the Kalpoe brothers’ statements were the primary evidence against these men. They were suspected of being the security guards seen helping Natalee outside the Holiday Inn Resort on the night she was last seen. Like Joran himself, John and Jones were also both known for picking up young female tourists, and one of them had a prior criminal record.
However, while the police may have been relying on the three boys’ story to arrest the two guards, it soon became apparent that they were not beyond suspicion themselves. On June 9th, 2005, Joran and Kalpoes were also arrested and charged for the same crimes: kidnapping and murder.
According to police, they had no physical evidence to tie anyone—John and Jones, Joran, or the Kalpoes—to the disappearance, but the law in Aruba states that suspects can be held for a short period of time based solely on strong suspicion. This prevents suspects from fleeing while also allowing the police to conduct additional investigations without fear of interference. After it became clear that neither Nick John nor Abraham Jones was involved, both were released without ever being officially charged. Joran and the Kalpoes, however, were not released as they were deemed to be the most likely suspects.
When Beth learned that Joran had been arrested, she was happy to see that progress was finally being made as she had never stopped believing that he was somehow involved. Her suspicion was confirmed when Joran changed his story yet again while in custody.
This time, while most of the specifics about the early night stayed the same, Joran admitted that his and Natalee’s night together concluded with him leaving her alone on the beach after she rejected his proposal for sex when he couldn’t find a condom. His pride was hurt, he said, and he had not wanted to see her anymore. The only reason he had lied to Beth about dropping her off at the hotel, he said, was he was embarrassed because leaving her behind was a childish thing to do. He claimed to have no idea where she had gone after leaving her there because he had gone straight home.
Finger Pointing, False Leads, and Other Serious Confusions
As Joran and the Kalpoes sat in jail, investigators were very hopeful that one of the boys would flip on the rest—as is typical in this type of situation—but that did not happen. All three stuck to Joran’s new story of leaving Natalee at the beach and refused to offer more information. Still, despite this, many at the department felt certain that they were guilty, primarily because each boys’ version of events varied slightly and contained conflicting information surrounding the minor details of the night. It seemed as if they had colluded at some point to decide on a definitive narrative but had not thought of everything.
With a warrant in hand, police searched several key locations for any usable evidence, but this proved as fruitless as their earlier search of the beach. The van der Sloot residence was clean, and although the trunk of the Kalpoe brother’s car initially appeared to contain several large bloodstains, forensic analysis later determined that there was no blood present. It was a false lead, meaning that authorities still had nothing on the boys.
Making matters even worse, this failure was followed by one of the first major public blunders in the case. On June 11th, a spokesperson for the Aruban Minister of Justice falsely claimed to the media that Natalee was confirmed dead and that her body had been discovered. He later retracted this statement and apologized, saying that he had been seriously misinformed by an officer who erroneously indicated that Joran and the Kalpoe brothers had made a confession, admitted to killing Natalee on the beach, and agreed to take officers to the location of the murder. This was simply not true.
Whoops!
Complicating things even further, on June 22nd, Joran van der Sloot’s father, Paulus, was taken in for questioning and then arrested as well. It’s not clear why he was detained, but authorities stated they had reason to believe he was attempting to hide evidence of Jorans’ guilt and did not want to cooperate with the investigation out of fear of implicating either Joran or possibly himself. They also believed that he may have used his knowledge of the law to help Joran and the Kalpoes set their stories straight.
Police hoped that his incarceration would apply pressure to Joran and force him to come clean, but this did not work either. Joran stuck to his new story, and Paulus was released 4 days after his arrest, on June 26th—at which time he immediately filed multiple lawsuits against the Aruban government: one to maintain his position as a judge and another for damages to his reputation. Initially, he won both lawsuits, although the latter would be overturned years later.
According to Beth, she was discouraged when she learned of Paulus’s release because she, too, had become convinced of his guilt; however, she was even more discouraged by what came next: on July 4th, 2005, a judge ordered that the Kalpoes be released as well after the public became aware that no evidence against them had been discovered despite the extensive investigation. This prompted Beth to turn to the media for help once again by making a series of inflammatory statements on live TV, including one where she said:
“Two suspects were released yesterday who were involved in a violent crime against my daughter.”
These statements were not well-received by some Aruban locals who thought that Beth was speaking irresponsibility and trying to stir up more trouble for them back in the states. In fact, although the Aruban public had been on her side throughout the early stages of the search, their patience with her shenanigans was wearing thin. Protesters took to the streets outside her hotel around this time, demanding that she either respect Aruba’s justice system or “go home.” This prompted Beth to make a public apology to the Aruban protestors; however, she wasn’t the only one facing criticism.
In an attempt to make themselves seem more competent and shift blame, Aruban authorities also made a controversial move that would further drive a wedge between themselves and the Holloways: Aruba’s police commissioner, Gerold Dompig, publicly attacked Natalee’s character by stating:
“[there was a lot of] wild partying, a lot of drinking, lots of room switching every night. We know the Holiday Inn told them they weren’t welcome next year. Natalee, we know, she drank all day every day. We have statements that she started every morning with cocktails—so much drinking that Natalee didn’t show up for breakfast two mornings.”
Beth resented these attacks on her daughter’s character, but there was little she could about them at that time. Her only consolation was that Joran remained in custody because he was the person that the police still most strongly suspected of being involved in the disappearance. After the Kalpoes were released, the judge overseeing Joran’s case had ordered that he remain in custody for an additional 60 days so that further investigations could be conducted.
While this war for the public’s sympathy was playing out on television, the search for Natalee continued in the background; however, hope that she would be found alive was rapidly dwindling. By now, she had been missing for over six weeks, and on July 17th, a piece of duct tape was discovered on Aruba’s northeast coast that had the potential to confirm everyone’s worst fears; it had several strands of blonde hair stuck to its underside.
With the permission of the Aruban government, the tape was sent off to the FBI’s crime lab in Quantico, Virginia, and three F-16 aircraft were deployed by the Royal Netherlands Air Force to search the beach near where the tape had been discovered. They used infrared cameras but came up emptyhanded. Disappointingly, on July 28th, eleven days after the tape’s discovery, the FBI announced that the hair did not belong to Natalee. This was a crushing bit of news, but there was little time to dwell on it as another tip had already begun to refocus the search elsewhere.
Sometime in late July of 2005, a gardener informed police that he had personally witnessed Joran van der Sloot and two other men dumping the body of a young woman into a small pond near the Aruba Racquet Club, which was located near the Marriot Hotel. The gardener said that this interaction had occurred at around 2 AM on the morning of May 30th and that van der Sloot had attempted to hide his face but was easily recognizable.
For Aruban police, this tip was significant for multiple reasons: not only did it provide a potential location to search for Natalee’s body, but it also came from a witness who could testify that Joran had been lying about going home directly after leaving Natalee behind on the beach. This witness’s statement was used publicly as further justification to keep Joran in custody.
The same night this tip was received, large fences were erected around the pond and a crew of volunteer firefighters were brought in to begin draining the water. 3,600 gallons were pumped away every minute for nearly 15 hours straight, until only a few feet of water remained.
According to Jug Twitty, this lead was the tip the family felt was most promising:
“It’s the first time the fire department, the police and other authorities have collaborated on such a huge search… So, they must know something. … There’s so much commotion…”
While the search of the pond was being conducted, the family was asked to stay outside the fence for their own sake. Initially, they protested, but the threat of seeing Natalee’s body in such a poor state after being submerged for weeks persuaded them. They decided to return to their hotel rooms to wait for the police to publicly announce their findings.
Surprisingly, as the water was being drained, yet another witness came forward with even more information, although this information conflicted with the first tip. This time, a man known only as “the jogger,” claimed to have seen several men burying a blonde-haired woman in a landfill on the night Natalee disappeared.
According to Tim Miller, the director of Texas EquuSearch, a non-profit, volunteer-based organization that provides search and recovery services:
“[The jogger] said he saw a face, blond hair and a woman’s chest, and that the body was dumped and covered,”
Along with volunteers from Texas EquuSearch, FBI cadaver dogs were brought in, and the area was excavated using heavy machinery. But no body was found.
Now, once again, all the family’s hopes lay at the bottom of the pond that was still being drained; however, this also proved to be a disappointment in the end as the authorities found nothing of significance under the water either. It, too, was just another false tip.
As some have speculated, the reason for these multiple false tips in rapid succession was likely a result of the reward money being increased to $1 Million just a few days earlier; people were throwing out possible locations on the slim chance that they were right.
After suffering crushing blow after crushing blow, Beth Holloway returned home after nearly two months on the island. By now, she was physically and emotionally exhausted and could not bear to carry on without a break, although she made it clear that she would be returning soon to continue the search. You can be certain that the journalists who had moved into hotel rooms beside her planned to report on Beth’s return when it occurred; however, something in the distance was brewing that would refocus the media’s attention for months.
A Small Storm
On August 23, 2005, a tropical depression formed over the Bahamas that soon intensified into a tropical storm. Two days later, on August 25th, this storm further intensified and was reclassified as a hurricane just two hours before making landfall at Hallandale beach, just north of Miami, Florida. This hurricane was known as Katrina.
After wreaking havoc across southern Florida for several hours, the storm proceeded into the Gulf of Mexico, where it intensified yet again into a Category-5 hurricane, meaning that its winds were reaching up to 155 miles per hour. This is strong enough to level entire homes and rip trees—roots and all—from the ground. Thankfully, Katrina was downgraded to a Category-3 before making landfall a second time and moving further inland; however, that did not prevent it from being famously devastating.
In total, 1,800 Americans died during Katrina, earning it a reputation as one of the worst storms in US history. Along with them, thousands of homes were destroyed and over 3 million people were left without power for nearly a month. Most notably, the city of New Orleans was most heavily affected as its flood protection system failed, allowing over 80% of the city to be flooded.
Rushing water cut communication networks; destroyed roads, bridges, and emergency shelters; and left tens of thousands of people stranded for weeks. It was so colossally terrible that the federal government classified over 90,000 square miles—an area roughly the size of the entire UK—a “disaster zone.” The total cost of the damage was estimated to be upwards of $125 billion.
From the moment Katrina made landfall, Natalee’s story was doomed to fall by the wayside—at least temporarily. As compelling as it was, the arial footage of people stranded on their own rooftops, waving for help to the helicopters above them, was far too interesting for the public to ignore. This footage now began airing around the clock. However, as horrible as the situation this was, Beth’s barely noticed it; her mind was still in Aruba, where even more drama was unfolding.
On August 26, the Kalpoe brothers were rearrested alongside another man, 21-year-old Freddy Alexander Zedan-Arambatzis, who was accused of taking photographs of underage girls without their permission. According to authorities, this new arrest had nothing to do with the Holloway investigation, but the brothers’ attorneys disagreed, as did Joran van der Sloot’s mother, Anita van der Sloot. She stated publicly:
“…it’s a desperate attempt to get the boys to talk. But there is nothing to talk about… It’s a lovely picture of a young girl in a bikini…”
When news of this arrest hit the front page in Aruba, the Kalpoe brothers’ attorney brought the issue to a judge who declared that the police had once again overstepped their bounds. On September 3rd, a week after their arrest, the Kalpoe brothers were once again released—and, this time, they were not alone. Joran was ordered to be released as well.
Unsurprisingly, after being held in custody for neatly 3 months, Joran was eager to escape Aruba and the whole Holloway mess. He boarded a plane to the Netherlands, where he stayed with some of his extended family and soon enrolled himself in college. However, the media followed him there, and he found that this his family’s name was permanently marred.
Seeking to beat the charges in the court of public opinion, Joran then did something unexpected: he gave an interview to ABC News’ Primetime in February of 2006, in which he detailed how he met Natalee, what they did together, and what he thought about the Aruban and FBI’s investigations. While speaking on air, Joran admitted that he was wrong to leave Natalee on the beach alone and said that he regretted it. He also said that he regretted lying to the police and the Holloways at first but claimed that he only did so because Beth and her family were being so hostile toward him. He said that they, and the police, had already determined his guilty before even speaking with him and, because of that, he was afraid to tell the truth:
“They [showed] up at our house screaming and yelling, cussing… the way they were putting pressure on us just made us, probably made us, want to lie more because [it] seemed like we were in big trouble.”
When the interviewer asked Joran what he would say to Natalee if he saw her again, Joran replied:
“If I were to see her … if she were to be found tomorrow, I think I’d hate her. If she really ran away from home, if she did something like that, I’d hate her.”
Obviously, Joran was pissed and didn’t care who knew, so he also used this interview as an opportunity to attack Beth; he said that Natalee referred to her as “Hitler’s sister.” In later media interviews, Joran also attacked Natalee herself, stating that she had made several racist remarks throughout their night together, including when she jokingly asked if Deepak and Satish—who were both black—were Joran’s “slaves.”
Disgusted by these comments, as well as a lack of progress in the criminal case against Joran, Beth began seeking justice through other legal avenues. She filed a civil suit against Joran and his father in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, in which she alleged that Joran engaged in behavior that showed “malicious, wanton, and willful disregard of the rights, safety, and well-being” of Natalee Holloway. Paulus van der Sloot was accused of enabling his son’s delinquent behavior by allowing him to drink and gamble while underage.
In truth, many legal experts agree that this lawsuit was doomed from the start for several reasons, but Beth felt that she was running out of options. She no longer trusted the Aruban police in the slightest, just as she no longer trusted Aruba’s court system. This is why she had chosen to file the suit within the United States instead of Aruba. However, this decision was what ultimately led to the case being dismissed six months later, on August 3rd, 2006, when Judge Barbara Kapnick ruled that Beth had filed her suit in an “inconvenient forum.”
In an interview with the media, Joran’s attorney, Joseph Tacopina, stated:
“We were never afraid of the facts in this case… [Joran] did nothing to this girl. … He’s trying to get on with his life.”
In my opinion, I do believe that Joran was trying to move on, but the interviews he gave and Beth’s lawsuits against the van der Sloot family breathed new life into the case. Plus, around this time, both Beth and Dave also released their own separate books detailing their experiences as a way to keep the case in the public’s eye: Dave’s was titled “Aruba: The Tragic Untold Story of Natalee Holloway and Corruption in Paradise;” Beth’s was titled “Loving Natalee: A Mother’s Testament of Hope and Faith.” In Dave’s book, he strongly implied that Joran had gotten away with murder.
In response to these published allegations, Joran van der Sloot teamed up with a Dutch reporter named Zvezdana Vukojevic to release a book of their own. It was written in Dutch, but the title translated to “The Case of Natalee Holloway: My own story about her disappearance in Aruba.” In it, van der Sloot recounts his own version of the events and investigation—much of which we have already discussed—and reasserts his innocence. During an interview at the time of the book’s release, he told the media:
“I see this book as my opportunity to be open and honest about everything that happened, for anyone who wants to read it. I understand that my lies in the past seriously tarnished my credibility, and that some people will not believe what is written in this book. Still, I feel that contributing to this book is something I have to do. I hope to contribute in this way to recovering the truth.”
Later, he also said:
“I want to apologize to Natalee’s parents, Dave Holloway and Beth Twitty, and to both of their families, for the fact that I initially made up statements. I can’t say that I agree with many of the things they did, but the pain of not knowing where their daughter is and what happened to her must be unimaginably great. I hope every day that Natalee will be found.”
This book was never translated into English and did not result in van der Sloot’s name being cleared. In fact, it only served to renew interest the case once again, which prompted the Aruban police to refocus their efforts on investigating him.
On April 27th, 2006, 11 months after Natalee’s disappearance, a team of 20 investigators descended on the van der Sloot residence in Aruba. Although police insist that this was not retribution for the book’s release, they have failed to disclose what new evidence warranted this raid. They searched the property’s grounds for a burial site using shovels, long metal rods, and radar technology. Finding nothing, they then seized journals that belonged to Joran’s mother and father as well as a personal computer, which they were later forced to return after Paulus threatened yet another lawsuit.
Two weeks later, the police executed a similar search at the Kalpoe brothers’ residence. Once again, they stated that they were acting on a tip but refused to elaborate. The police left that day without discovering or seizing anything; however, the Kalpoes were arrested for a third time anyway after both reportedly became belligerent and objected to the search.
Public backlash for these searches came swiftly, leading the police to give this very vague justification for them during a press release:
“[we needed to] get a better image of the place or circumstances where an offense may have been committed and to understand the chain of events leading to the offense.”
As some have speculated, another reason that these searches may have been conducted was that somebody had finally run the numbers and discovered that over 40% of Aruba’s operational budget for the prior year, 2005, had been spent of the Holloway case alone. Granted, this was only $3 million dollars—but still… 40%. The police needed something, anything, to show for it. But it didn’t work out for them, and the case went cold.
A little over a year later, Joran and the Kalpoes would be rearrested yet again after Aruban authorities announced that they had made a break in the case; however, their new evidence fell through, and all three boys were rereleased three weeks later. Not long after this, authorities publicly announced that they were officially dropping the case against the Joran and the Kalpoes indefinitely.
Beth was devastated. She and Jug Twitty soon filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences.
The Recording
In late 2007, theories about what had happened to Natalee were everywhere. Obviously, the most popular was that she had been killed, likely by Joran, but there were many others. Some suggested that she had been sold into sex slavery, as there was a rumor that pornographic videos of her existed on several popular adult websites. These videos were later analyzed and the woman in them was determined not to be Natalee, but the theory remained in the public’s consciousness regardless.
Among the less sinister theories, some believed that she may have voluntarily run away, citing her high-school yearbook quote as proof; others wondered if she may have drowned while attempting to go night swimming after Joran left her behind. Of these two, the latter certainly seems more plausible, but nothing could be proven. So, the mystery continued; however, on January 31st, 2008, a Dutch journalist named Peter de Vries made an announcement that had the potential to change everything.
In a public statement, de Vries said that he had solved Natalee’s murder by obtaining undeniable proof that Joran van der Sloot was her killer as he had tricked Joran into unwittingly providing a full confession to one of his associates. This confession, he said, had been recorded and would be aired on Dutch television in exactly three days, on February 3rd. At this point, all eyes tuned in to watch, causing it to become the most-viewed non-sports program Dutch television history.
When the special aired, de Vries explained that he had hired a former convict named Patrick van der Eem to approach Joran and slowly and methodically befriend him. He said this undercover operation took approximately seven months but that, by the end of it, Joran had obviously begun to trust van der Eem wholeheartedly. When de Vries and van der Eem felt that Joran was ready to confess, de Vries provided van der Eem with a Range Rover equipped with three video cameras and a microphone to secretly record his and Joran’s conversation. Van der Eem then spent one afternoon driving Joran around town while pressuring him to speak candidly about what exactly had happened to Natalee.
In the recording, Joran can be heard saying that he really did bring Natalee to the beach that night with the intention of having sex with her but that she was so intoxicated that she had passed out and begun violently shaking. He then stated that, when she stopped shaking, he was unable to determine if she was alive or dead, so he rushed to a nearby payphone to call a friend for help. That friend then arrived at the beach, informed him that Natalee was dead, and helped him load her body into his boat.
The friend then sailed out into the ocean and dumped her overboard. This was done because Joran feared he would be accused of killing her.
After this bombshell admission, Joran then told van der Eem that he was nervous about being caught that night but that his friend had reassured him everything would be okay: if the police ever started asking questions, they would just deny everything, assured that Natalee’s body would never be recovered from the shark-infested waters. They both then agreed to play it cool, go to school the following day, and get on with their lives as if nothing had happened.
Almost immediately, the Aruban police announced that they were reopening their investigation into Joran and hinted that an arrest was imminent; however, they jumped the gun a little as, to everyone’s surprise, their request for an arrest warrant was denied. Let me explain:
In the three days between the tape’s announcement and its release, Joran made a call to a Dutch TV station to offer an interview. He knew, it seemed, exactly what was on the tape and wanted to get ahead of the story. While talking on air, he claimed that his confession was completely fabricated, that he had been under the influence of marijuana inside the car with van der Eem, and that he was simply trying to impress the man with a good story:
“That is what he wanted to hear, so I told him what he wanted to hear,”
On February 8, Joran then voluntarily met with investigators in the Netherlands to officially state the same thing on the record. Lending credit to his denial, the friend who allegedly helped him dispose of Natalee’s body had an alibi for the night, meaning that particular part of the confession was almost certainly false. This cast serious doubt on the tape as a whole and, since there was no independent evidence to corroborate the confession, a judge ruled that it was not enough. The police then appealed the judge’s decision, but this appeal was denied as well.
Unsurprisingly, despite the official ruling, the public began to seriously debate whether or not the confession was genuine, causing it to become a major talking point for the Dutch and US news media. Psychologists and criminologists were brought onto news programs to analyze and provide a breakdown of the tape, many of whom sided with Joran. Law experts also stated that the manner in which the tape had been released would make it next to impossible to use against him in court.
Had de Vries turned it over to Dutch authorities immediately, it was possible the police could have worked behind the scenes to corroborate the confession before the general public—and Joran—became aware of it; however, solving Natalee’s murder seemed nowhere near as important to de Vries as boosting his television show’s ratings. And, as if that weren’t bad enough, it took less than one month for the tape to lose its last remaining shred of credibility:
In March of 2008, approximately one month after de Vries’s program aired, Patrick van der Eem was captured on a hot mic admitting that he had lied about several of the key facts stated within the program. After an interview with journalist John Anthony Castro, van der Eem was told that the cameras and microphones around him were turned off. But they were not.
Now speaking candidly, van der Eem admitted that his story about going undercover to earn Joran’s trust had been a lie and that the two of them had known each other for years. He also said that he was simply using the Holloway case as a way to earn money and that he expected to be a millionaire by the end of the year because he had just signed a book deal. It is unclear if Joran was aware of this scheme or if he was an unwilling participant.
Truthfully, I think this situation had the potential to be hilarious, but what happened next makes it no laughing matter: when van der Eem learned that his admission had been captured, he made a series of violent threats against Castro, which prompted Castro to turn the recording over to his attorney, who then contacted the police. In response, the Aruban Justice Department asked Castro to not release the tape immediately as they felt it would further complicate their investigation. When the public learned of this tape’s existence, however, van der Eem became unhinged and was arrested later that year for fleeing the police after beating his girlfriend with a crowbar.
Two years later, in 2010, Castro was assassinated outside his own home. No charges have ever been filed against Patrick van der Eem, and the murder remains unsolved to this day.
The Despicable Deception
Now, with that brief tragedy out of the way, let us now fully return our attention to Joran: as we have already discussed, Joran found himself unemployable in the wake of Natalee’s disappearance, so around 2008, he began looking for new ways to make money. First, he returned to Aruba and tried his hand at professional poker but quickly found himself in massive debt. With creditors closing in and no options remaining, his mother, Anita, claims that he fell into a deep depression. At one point, his metal state became so bad that she attempted to have him involuntarily committed, but he left Aruba before authorities could locate him.
Now unable to return home, Joran’s desperation reached new levels, causing him to try a new approach at making money: embracing his infamy instead of distancing himself from it. Taking a page out van der Eem’s book, Joran began contacting news networks with the promise of revealing “never before heard” details about the case and even alluded that he might give a full confession on air. Before giving these interviews, however, he would demand money and then go on to tell lies that sounded believable but were easy to disprove.
In one, he confirmed the theory that he had sold Natalee into sex slavery. In another, he asserted that he had paid people hush money to keep her murder a secret. As he claims to have done to van der Eem, he told journalists whatever they wanted to hear and was paid handsomely for it; however, it did not take long for people to catch on to his lies.
When outlets realized that Joran was stringing them along, he then began fabricating evidence to convince them he was being truthful. In November of 2008, he presented a recording of a conversation that was supposedly between him and his father, Paulus, in which Paulus admits to his involvement in covering up Natalee’s murder. Analysis later determined the two voices heard in this recording both belonged to Joran. He was having a conversation with himself and deepening his voice while pretending to speak as his father.
Roughly one year later, on February 10, 2010, Paulus van der Sloot died of a heart attack at the age of 57. I wonder why?
Now that he had a bit of money in his pocket from this string of deceptions, Joran returned to playing poker and started a YouTube channel where he talked about poker strategy. In 2009, he won $12,000 at the Asia Pacific Poker Tour; however, his luck eventually ran out, and he lost it all. This once again left him looking for a new source of income, but by now, no news stations would return his calls. So, he took aim at a new target: Beth Holloway.
On March 29th, 2010, Beth’s lawyer, John Q. Kelly, received an email from Joran, in which Joran offered to reveal the location of Natalee’s body in exchange for $250,000. According to Kelly, he was already very familiar with Joran’s lies to the media and didn’t believe for a moment that Joran would reveal any real legitimate information because doing so would open himself up to prosecution. However, that did not really matter because getting Joran to admit to anything could be useful.
In an interview years later, Kelly said:
“It was a win-win situation… if the information turned out to be true, Beth would get closure, she’d bring Natalie home. Assuming it was false, it would be extortion and wire fraud once falsehoods are proven. Either way, he’d be boxed in,”
Depending on who you ask, Kelly’s next move was either incredibly brave or brazenly stupid. Without telling anyone but his wife and Beth Holloway, Kelly agreed to fly to Aruba to meet with Joran privately inside a hotel room. He told Joran that he would be bringing $25,000 of the $250,000 as a downpayment and would have the rest wired to him after the information Joran provided could be validated. Joran agreed, but Kelly decided at the last minute to not bring any money with him because he felt nervous about the situation.
Now, he still planned to meet with Joran but only did so in an attempt to pry as much information from the man as possible without paying. This didn’t go as planned.
When Kelly informed Joran he hadn’t brought the money, Kelly said that Joran got very, very upset:
“He’s a big guy. He’s 6’4”, 225lbs, well built. He’s sort of a threatening individual when he gets angry, no question… You can look right into his eyes and see he’s cold as ice and pathological.”
Kelly got out of the hotel room as quickly as possible and boarded a plane back to the United States. When he arrived, he contacted the FBI, who then began working with the Aruban government to formulate a plan of action.
With the authorities now behind him, Kelly was encouraged to reach out to Joran again and set up a new meeting. This time the police would be on standby in case anything went wrong. Kelly agreed but feared that convincing Joran to meet with him again would be no easy task. But, as it turns out, that was not true; Joran was so desperate for money that Kelly was able to convince him to meet again by wiring a measly $100 deposit to him in advance.
Under instruction from the FBI, Kelly then returned to Aruba for a second meeting with Joran on May 10th, 2010. This time, he wore a wire and brought with him $10,000 of the promised $25,000. He had the remaining $15,000 sitting in an account on standby. This would be wired to Joran after Kelly received the information and was safely off the island. He also brought a contract with him for Joran to sign in order to make the extortion easier to prove in court.
Back inside an Aruban hotel room, Joran signed the contract, and Kelly handed over the $10,000 as agreed. After this was done, the pair then got into a car and drove to a house not far from the hotel. They parked on the street, and Joran informed Kelly that the house had been under constructed at the time of Natalee’s death. He stated that she was underneath the foundation, and his father had helped him bury her.
With this information and Joran’s signed agreement in hand, Kelly then returned to the United States and wired the remaining $15,000 to Joran’s bank account. He was advised by the FBI to not file any type of lawsuit while Joran’s latest claims were being investigated. Neither Kelly nor the FBI, nor the Aruban government believed that his new story held any more water than the numerous ones that came before it, but they still wanted to do their due diligence.
Their suspicions were confirmed when civil records showed that the home’s construction had been completed months before Natalee’s disappearance. That was enough to stop them from evicting a family and tearing down their home, and this turned out to be a wise decision: one week after receiving the $15,000, Joran emailed Kelly to inform him that he had made everything up. Nobody knows why Joran did this.
Either way, the FBI urged Kelly to keep holding off on any civil lawsuits as they worked with the Aruban government to iron out a criminal case against Joran. While this was happening, Joran left Aruba for Peru, where he planned to use Beth’s money to compete in the Latin American Poker Tour, which was scheduled for June 2nd-5th. However, that would never happen because he would gamble the entire $25,000 sum away in less than two weeks. He would also find himself behind bars once again—this time for the unrelated charge of murder.
Arrested, Again
On May 14th, 2010, Joran entered Peru through Columbia and checked into the Hotel TAC in the Miraflores District of Lima, Peru. While staying here, he met a young woman named Stephany Flores Ramirez, a third-year business student from the University of Lima and daughter of former Peruvian presidential candidate Ricardo Flores. Like Joran, Stephany was also a poker player, although she had recently found much better luck than him by winning over $10,000 inside the hotel’s casino.
According to the hotel’s staff, she and Joran were seen playing poker together before Joran invited her back to his hotel room, where they planned to hang out and continue playing online poker on his laptop. Inside this hotel room is where Joran would permanently seal his fate by murdering Stephany Flores on the 5-year anniversary of Natalee Holloway’s death.
While theories vary about exactly what happened inside that room, Joran stated that Stephany was using his computer to play poker when he stepped out to get some air. While he was gone, a Facebook message arrived from a stranger who had been harassing him over the Natalle Holloway disappearance. He says that Stephany saw the message and started snooping through his social media accounts. This is when she allegedly realized whose room she was staying in.
When he returned, Joran says that Stephany began attacking him, which prompted him to take her by the throat.
In a taped confession, Joran said:
“She was on the bed when I hit her hard with my right elbow and I think her head went back and hit the wall, then she begins to bleed. Immediately I get on top of her and with both hands I begin to strangle her, keeping her that way for a minute. After that, I throw her to the floor, but she keeps breathing. At that moment I take off my shirt and put it on her face, pressing on it. I don’t remember for how long, but she stops breathing. In this way I think I caused her death,”
After he was confident that she was dead, Joran considered what to do next. He said that he was high on marijuana at the time and couldn’t think clearly but that he considered folding her body into a suitcase and dumping it into the ocean. When he realized this wouldn’t work because the hotel would check his luggage as he left (for some reason?), he simply left her behind inside the hotel room. He placed a do not disturb sign on the door’s exterior as he exited.
The hotel’s maid discovered her two days later on June 2nd. Joran had beaten her so severely that her neck had been broken.
Upon leaving the hotel, Joran bought supplies to dye his hair red and then fled to Chile. Here, he contacted an ex-girlfriend of his to request emergency money in order to return to Aruba; however, his life on the lam was short-lived; just four days after murdering Stephany, he was arrested by Chilean authorities in a rented cab while on his way to Santiago.
After being questioned and denying everything, insisting that Staphany had been murdered by armed robbers, he was extradited back to Peru, where he gave a full confession, including the direct quote I provided earlier. He was housed inside the Lima Police Headquarters and placed on suicide watch until he could face justice. The same day that he was officially charged with Flores’s murder, US authorities also filed charged against him for wire fraud in the United States.
On Joran’s first day in court in Peru, he had to be transported to the courthouse via an armored truck and ushed past a large crowd that jeered and threw rotten food at him. Inside, he was brought before a panel of three judges rather than a jury. None of his family were in attendance.
At first, Joran’s counsel attempted to have the taped confession throw out, saying that it had been coerced. They claimed that he had been on his way to Santiago to turn himself in and that he was innocent of all charges. When this didn’t work, they changed strategies and opted instead for a reduced sentence based on sympathy. Now, they stated that he killed Stephany on the anniversary of Natalee’s death because of a “severe emotional reaction to extreme psychological trauma.”
The prosecution rebutted this argument by arguing that:
“[psychological examinations] concluded that [Joran] is a psychopathic person.”
The panel of judges did not grant Joran’s request.
On January 11th, 2012, 25-year-old Joran van der Sloot entered a guilty plea for the murder of Stephany Flores Ramirez and was sentenced to 28 years in prison. He was also given a fine of $75,000 to be paid to the Flores family.
The Confession
With Joran now behind bars until his mid-50’s and a trial pending in the United States that would likely see him imprisoned for the remainder of his miserable life, Beth Holloway was more content than she had been in years; however, she simply could not move on because she was still haunted by a desire to hear Joran own up to his actions. She also wanted to know what had become of Natalee’s body so that her remains could be recovered and brought back to Alabama. Even though she knew it would not change anything, she needed closure.
While Joran was awaiting trial for murder, Beth flew to Peru to meet with him inside the jailhouse for one last desperate attempt to make him talk. She brought a Dutch television crew along with her and sat down face-to-face with him; however, Joran did not wish to speak with her. The interview lasted less than one minute and concluded with him handing Beth his lawyer’s business card before returning to his cell.
Not long after this, once Joran was officially convicted in Peru, Dave Holloway had Natalee declared legally dead. Beth was not happy with this because she was not ready to close that particular door just yet, not until she had definitive answers. But answers would not come for another 11 years, until Joran was extradited to the United States to stand trial. During those 11 years, several notable events occurred:
First, Beth became a motivational speaker and founded the International Safe Travels Foundation, a non-profit created to “inform and educate the public” on how to safely travel to foreign countries, advise on which countries to avoid, and more. She also worked with America’s Most Wanted founder and host John Walsh to organize the Natalee Holloway Resource Center at the National Museum of Crime and Punishment in Washington DC. The exhibit provided resources to families of missing persons.
As for what Joran was doing during this time, he was being productive as well by sorting through all his love letters. Yes, because he was young, relatively attractive, and had garnered international infamy, hybristophiles began coming out of the woodwork in hopes of starting a relationship with him. Prison guards report he had many potential suitors from dozens of faraway countries; however, his eye landed on one specific girl close to home.
Her name was Leidy Figueroa, a candy and cigarette vendor at the prison. The pair began meeting twice a week and eventually married in a prison ceremony in July of 2014, when Figueroa was 7 months pregnant with his child.
Unsurprisingly, their marriage sparked the media’s interest and dozens of articles were written, which is how we know exactly what was going through Figueroa’s tiny mind:
“Many people judge Joran and criticize him, saying he is a monster and an assassin, but when you get to know him, you know he is different. I want to show he’s not a monster, he’s changed a lot. He’s a gentle, sensitive, kind person and I love him. I know he has killed, but he is now paying for what he did. He is asking God for forgiveness and praying every day.”
Their marriage lasted for ten years, until 2023, when Joran filed for divorce so that he could marry another girl, Eva Pacohuanaco, who Joran referred to as “prettier and younger.” Lady Figueroa was furious.
Around this time, Joran was also staying busy by participating in the prison’s illegal drug trade. Heacted as a mule for cocaine but was eventually caught and convicted for selling drugs in 2021. For this, he was given another 18 years; however, he will not serve the full term as Peruvian law states that prison stays cannot exceed 35 years if a person has not been sentenced to life.
Unless Joran does something truly horrendous while behind bars, he will be released from prison in Peru no later than 2045. And with all that out of the way, that brings us to June of 2023, when Joran was temporarily extradited to the United States to stand trial in federal court for extortion. Here, he found that the FBI had done their homework and had him boxed in.
He was facing up to life in prison, but they offered him a way out via a proffer agreement. As I understand it, a proffer agreement is a written contract signed between a defendant and a federal prosecutor in which the defendant agrees to disclose all known useful information about a particular crime in exchange for total immunity for that specific crime. In these types of agreements, defendants are under extreme pressure to be truthful as, if the prosecutor can prove they lied about anything during their statement, the agreement is considered null, and the defendant can then be tried as normal with all the information they provided being used against them, as if it were a regular confession.
Because of the immunity aspect, these agreements are rare and usually only offered under very special circumstances. In Joran’s case, it was done as a way to provide closure to the Holloway family. Beth gave her blessing.
As she understood it, it was very unlikely that Natalee’s murder would ever be solved in the traditional sense of the word, and after 18 years of fighting, she simply wanted to have a confession on the record. The offer given to Joran was 20 years for extortion with the condition that he agreed to give a full confession about what had happened to Natalee. He accepted.
On October 3rd, 2023, Beth and several other members of Natalee’s family were brought to the Shelby County Jail and placed inside a viewing room. Across the hall, Joran was strapped into a polygraph and asked a series of very specific questions about Natalee’s disappearance. Knowing that he was completely safe from prosecution, Joran finally admitted that he killed Natalee Holloway on purpose.
With no emotion in his voice, he said that, after climbing into the Kalpoe brothers’ car with Natalee on the night of May 30th, 2005, they set off toward the Holiday Inn where Natalee’s group was staying. She told him that she wanted to be dropped off right outside the front door, but Joran told the Kalpoes to stop the car a few blocks earlier so that he and Natalee could walk along the beach together the rest of the way. His plan, he said, was to get her alone and seduce her.
While watching the waves, Joran said they laid down together on the sand and he started to feel her up. She protested, but Joran continued. After this, there was a struggle, and she kneed him in the groin, hard.
This enraged Joran: “When she knees me in the crotch… I get up… on the beach and I kick her extremely hard in the face… She’s laying down unconscious, possibly even dead, but definitely unconscious.” After this, knowing that Beth was listing, he provides graphic details about how he ended Natalee’s life using a cinderblock he found lying nearby before dragging her body out into the ocean. Then he went home, to bed, hoping that his actions that night would never be known.
Neither the Kalpoe brothers nor Paulus van der Sloot were involved. Some question how reliable this new version of events is considering Joran has given at least a dozen different recollections over the years, but Beth believes that she finally has the truth. If he lied, he has opened himself up to prosecution for a second murder charge.
She doesn’t believe that he would risk that. Outside the jail that day, Beth addressed a crowd of her supporters: “Today, I can tell you with certainty after eighteen years that, as far as I’m concerned, Natalee’s case is solved. It is over.
Joran van der Sloot is no longer the suspect in my daughter’s murder. He is the killer… Days later, Joran was returned to Peru to serve the remainder of his sentence for murdering Stephany Flores. Once his sentences have been served in both countries, he will be eligible for parole no later than 2065, when he will then be 78 years old.
Key Takeaways Natalee Holloway disappeared in Aruba in 2005 during a post-graduation trip, last seen with Joran van der Sloot. Media sensationalism and 24-hour news cycles amplified fears about international travel and pressured the Aruban investigation. Joran van der Sloot gave multiple conflicting stories over 18 years before confessing to Natalee’s murder in 2023 under a proffer agreement.
Beth Holloway relentlessly pursued justice through media campaigns, lawsuits, and eventually a federal extortion case against Joran. Joran is serving a 28-year sentence in Peru for murdering Stephany Flores in 2010, and faces additional U.S. prison time for extortion. Frequently Asked Questions When and where did Natalee Holloway disappear?
Natalee Holloway disappeared on May 30, 2005, from the island of Aruba while on vacation with her friends after graduating from high school. Who was the last person seen with Natalee Holloway? The last person seen with Natalee Holloway was Joran van der Sloot, a 17-year-old local high school student from Aruba who had presented himself to Natalee and her friends as a college student from the Netherlands.
What was Joran van der Sloot’s initial story about what happened to Natalee? Joran initially claimed he had never met Natalee. When confronted with evidence, he changed his story to say that he, along with Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, had offered her a ride back to her hotel, but she wanted to see the sharks at the beach first.
He claimed they dropped her off at the Holiday Inn around 2 AM where a security guard approached her. How did the American media coverage affect the investigation? The American media coverage intensified after Beth Holloway contacted journalists, leading to over 26 countries reporting on the case.
This created pressure on Aruban authorities, who were being criticized as incompetent, and led to an official search involving thousands of government employees. However, it also caused tension with Aruban locals who felt Beth was disrespecting their justice system. What happened to Joran van der Sloot in 2010 that was unrelated to Natalee’s case?
On May 30, 2010, the 5-year anniversary of Natalee’s disappearance, Joran van der Sloot murdered Stephany Flores Ramirez, a 21-year-old business student from Lima, Peru, in his hotel room after she allegedly discovered his identity while using his laptop. He was arrested in Chile four days later and extradited back to Peru. What was the outcome of the 2008 undercover recording by Peter de Vries?
Dutch journalist Peter de Vries hired Patrick van der Eem to befriend Joran and secretly record him. In the recording, Joran claimed Natalee died on the beach and that he and a friend disposed of her body in the ocean. However, the confession was deemed unreliable because the alleged friend had an alibi, and van der Eem was later caught on a hot mic admitting he had known Joran for years and was using the case for money.
How did Joran van der Sloot attempt to extort money from Beth Holloway in 2010? On March 29, 2010, Joran emailed Beth’s lawyer John Q. Kelly offering to reveal the location of Natalee’s body for $250,000.
Kelly met with him twice in Aruba, wearing a wire the second time, and gave Joran $10,000 cash plus wired $15,000 after Joran claimed Natalee was buried under a house foundation. Joran later admitted he made everything up. What finally happened in October 2023 regarding Natalee’s case?
On October 3, 2023, after being extradited to the United States and given a proffer agreement granting him immunity from prosecution for Natalee’s murder, Joran van der Sloot finally confessed to killing Natalee Holloway. He admitted that after she kneed him in the groin during a struggle on the beach, he kicked her in the face and then used a cinderblock to kill her before dragging her body into the ocean. What organizations did Beth Holloway create after her daughter’s disappearance?
Beth Holloway became a motivational speaker and founded the International Safe Travels Foundation, a non-profit to educate the public on safe foreign travel. She also worked with John Walsh to organize the Natalee Holloway Resource Center at the National Museum of Crime and Punishment in Washington DC, which provided resources to families of missing persons. What was the legal drinking age in Aruba and how did it affect the students’ trip?
Aruba’s legal drinking age was 18 instead of 21, which meant most of the graduating students were having their first taste of legal alcohol. Many partook eagerly during their 5-day trip, and the article notes that Natalee was described by Aruban police commissioner Gerold Dompig as drinking heavily throughout the vacation.
Key Takeaways
- Natalee Holloway disappeared in Aruba in 2005 during a post-graduation trip, last seen with Joran van der Sloot.
- Media sensationalism and 24-hour news cycles amplified fears about international travel and pressured the Aruban investigation.
- Joran van der Sloot gave multiple conflicting stories over 18 years before confessing to Natalee’s murder in 2023 under a proffer agreement.
- Beth Holloway relentlessly pursued justice through media campaigns, lawsuits, and eventually a federal extortion case against Joran.
- Joran is serving a 28-year sentence in Peru for murdering Stephany Flores in 2010, and faces additional U.S. prison time for extortion.
Dana Ortiz covers prosecutorial mechanics, evidentiary procedure, and how investigations unwind decades after the original case file went cold.
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where did Natalee Holloway disappear?
Natalee Holloway disappeared on May 30, 2005, from the island of Aruba while on vacation with her friends after graduating from high school.
Who was the last person seen with Natalee Holloway?
The last person seen with Natalee Holloway was Joran van der Sloot, a 17-year-old local high school student from Aruba who had presented himself to Natalee and her friends as a college student from the Netherlands.
What was Joran van der Sloot’s initial story about what happened to Natalee?
Joran initially claimed he had never met Natalee. When confronted with evidence, he changed his story to say that he, along with Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, had offered her a ride back to her hotel, but she wanted to see the sharks at the beach first. He claimed they dropped her off at the Holiday Inn around 2 AM where a security guard approached her.
How did the American media coverage affect the investigation?
The American media coverage intensified after Beth Holloway contacted journalists, leading to over 26 countries reporting on the case. This created pressure on Aruban authorities, who were being criticized as incompetent, and led to an official search involving thousands of government employees. However, it also caused tension with Aruban locals who felt Beth was disrespecting their justice system.
What happened to Joran van der Sloot in 2010 that was unrelated to Natalee’s case?
On May 30, 2010, the 5-year anniversary of Natalee’s disappearance, Joran van der Sloot murdered Stephany Flores Ramirez, a 21-year-old business student from Lima, Peru, in his hotel room after she allegedly discovered his identity while using his laptop. He was arrested in Chile four days later and extradited back to Peru.
What was the outcome of the 2008 undercover recording by Peter de Vries?
Dutch journalist Peter de Vries hired Patrick van der Eem to befriend Joran and secretly record him. In the recording, Joran claimed Natalee died on the beach and that he and a friend disposed of her body in the ocean. However, the confession was deemed unreliable because the alleged friend had an alibi, and van der Eem was later caught on a hot mic admitting he had known Joran for years and was using the case for money.
How did Joran van der Sloot attempt to extort money from Beth Holloway in 2010?
On March 29, 2010, Joran emailed Beth’s lawyer John Q. Kelly offering to reveal the location of Natalee’s body for $250,000. Kelly met with him twice in Aruba, wearing a wire the second time, and gave Joran $10,000 cash plus wired $15,000 after Joran claimed Natalee was buried under a house foundation. Joran later admitted he made everything up.
What finally happened in October 2023 regarding Natalee’s case?
On October 3, 2023, after being extradited to the United States and given a proffer agreement granting him immunity from prosecution for Natalee’s murder, Joran van der Sloot finally confessed to killing Natalee Holloway. He admitted that after she kneed him in the groin during a struggle on the beach, he kicked her in the face and then used a cinderblock to kill her before dragging her body into the ocean.
What organizations did Beth Holloway create after her daughter’s disappearance?
Beth Holloway became a motivational speaker and founded the International Safe Travels Foundation, a non-profit to educate the public on safe foreign travel. She also worked with John Walsh to organize the Natalee Holloway Resource Center at the National Museum of Crime and Punishment in Washington DC, which provided resources to families of missing persons.
What was the legal drinking age in Aruba and how did it affect the students’ trip?
Aruba’s legal drinking age was 18 instead of 21, which meant most of the graduating students were having their first taste of legal alcohol. Many partook eagerly during their 5-day trip, and the article notes that Natalee was described by Aruban police commissioner Gerold Dompig as drinking heavily throughout the vacation.
Sources
- Original Casual Criminalist video: What Happened to Natalee Holloway?
- Hero image source by IAEA Imagebank / openverse, by.
