Stephany Flores Ramírez, Joran van der Sloot and Natalee Holloway.Photo:SplashNews; AP Photo/Martin Mejia; AP Photo/Courtesy of Beth Twitty
SplashNews; AP Photo/Martin Mejia; AP Photo/Courtesy of Beth Twitty
Days afterappearing in an Alabama courtroom, wherehis confessiontomurderingNatalee Hollowaywas finally made public,Joran van der Slootwill return to Peru today tofinish out a separate murder sentencethere, theAssociated Pressreports, citing Peru’s head of Interpol, Col. Aldo Avila.
As of early Tuesday afternoon, van der Sloot remained in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service, Stacy Crane, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Northern District of Alabama confirmed to PEOPLE. The U.S. Department of Justice has a long-standing policy of prohibiting comment on extradition schedules, citing safety concerns for the escorting law enforcement officers, a spokesperson for the department tells PEOPLE, adding that there is no new information available on the extradition at this time.
Van der Sloot, 36, wastemporarily extraditedto Alabama in June to face extortion and wire fraud charges in a case connected to Natalee’s 2005 disappearance.
Joran van der Sloot.AP Photo/Martin Mejia
AP Photo/Martin Mejia
Earlier this month, hepleaded guiltyto both charges, and as part of the plea deal, for the first time – hooked to a polygraph test –detailed how he killed Nataleeon an Aruban beach on the last day of her graduation trip in May 2005.
Natalee Holloway.Courtesy Beth Holloway
Courtesy Beth Holloway
Beth Holloway.Butch Dill/AP
Butch Dill/AP
“Even though knowing the answer from such a brutal confession can just blister and burn your soul, I needed to know what happened,”Beth Holloway, Natalee’s mother, told PEOPLEin an interviewshortly after. “Thenot knowing is more tortuousthan knowing.”
Natalee was last seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot during a high school graduation trip to Aruba on May 30, 2005. Van der Sloot, then 17, was arrested several times in connection to the 18-year-old’s disappearance but never charged. Natalee waslegally declared deadin 2012, but her body was never found.
Joran van der Sloot.Kypros/Getty Images
Kypros/Getty Images
In court Oct. 18, van der Sloot admitted to taking about $25,000 of Beth’s money in 2010 on the false premise of giving the grieving mother answers about her daughter’s disappearance. After saying he would direct the family to Natalee’s body in exchange for the funds, van der Sloot later emailed them to say his intel was “worthless,” prosecutors say.
Instead, $25,000 richer, van der Sloot flew from Aruba to Peru in May 2010. By the end of the month, another student, 21-year-old Stephany Flores Ramírez, was dead — exactlyfive years to the dayof Natalee’s disappearance.
Beth Holloway, outside federal court Oct. 18, 2023.Butch Dill/AP
Van der Sloot – who until this June had been in a Peruvian prison on a28-year murder sentencefor her 2010 killing — laterreportedly told investigatorsthat Flores Ramírez had seen an online message accusing him of Natalee’s disappearance, leading to a violent struggle inside their Lima hotel room. He later admitted to beating, choking and smothering her to death May 30, 2010.
That’s when “we knew that most likely we were looking at Natalee being murdered with the same brutality and ferocity,” Beth told PEOPLE.
An Alabama federal judge sentenced van der Sloot to 20 years to be served concurrently with his murder sentence in Peru. If he is released early there, he will return to the U.S. to finish out his sentence stateside.
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Van der Sloot likely won’t be charged for Natalee’s killing, as Aruba’s statute of limitations for murder isjust 12 years. Given that, it would be unusual for him to be charged there in Natalee’s killing, although, following news coverage of his public confession, Aruban authorities emphasized that the case, which was reportedly previously closed,was in fact open.
source: people.com
