BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Convicted killer Joran van der Sloot has confessed to the slaying of Natalee Holloway, according to a federal judge in Alabama who accepted his guilty plea in an extortion case targeting her family Wednesday.
Van der Sloot apologized to Holloway’s family in court, agreed to assist law enforcement and her relatives about her disappearance and submit to a polygraph test.
Holloway was 18 years old when she went missing during a senior trip to Aruba in May 2005 with high school classmates from Mountain Brook, a suburb of Birmingham, and was last seen exiting a bar with van der Sloot, who told the court “I am no longer the person that I was.”
“You have brutally murdered, in separate incidents, years apart, two young women who refused your sexual advances,” Judge Anna Manasco told van der Sloot in court, referencing an unrelated murder of another woman.
TIMELINE OF ALABAMA TEEN NATALEE HOLLOWAY’S DEATH
Joran van der Sloot prepares to leave the airport in Lima, Peru on Thursday, June 8, 2023. (Col. Carlos López Aeda for Fox News Digital)
Manasco called the extortion and fraud charges “heinous” because the killer knew the information he was selling was a lie to make profit. However, as part of the deal, she said federal prosecutors have agreed not to use his confession against him for any other purposes.
“After 18 years, Natalee’s case has been solved,” Holloway’s mother told reporters outside the courthouse immediately after the hearing. “Joran van der Sloot is the killer.”
In a powerful victim impact statement minutes earlier, Holloway’s mother tore into van der Sloot saying he taunted her family and caused indescribable pain before turning to him and saying, “you look like hell.”
You are a killer and I want you to remember that every time that jail door slams.
Van der Sloot, a 36-year-old Dutch national, was charged with extortion and wire fraud in the U.S. after he allegedly attempted to sell the mother information about her daughter’s body in 2010.
Holloway, who teared up at times, said she lost her job, teaching license and tenure while searching for answers about her daughter’s disappearance.
“I implore this court to give you the maximum sentence possible and make financial restitution,” she said.
I incurred killer fees. I paid my daughter’s killer.
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Van der Sloot was sentenced to 20 years in prison, with credit for time already served in U.S. custody after his arrival in June. The court will allow his sentence to run concurrently with the ones he faces in Peru. His new expected release date is June 9, 2043.
Joran van der Sloot’s Sentencing Details:
- Will serve U.S. sentence in Peruvian custody
- Will serve remainder of sentence in U.S. if he is released from Peruvian custody earlier than anticipated
- Ordered to pay $25,100 in restitution immediately
- Ordered to pay $200 special assessment
- Must not re-enter U.S. without permission of Homeland Security
- May be forever refused admission to enter U.S.
- Waived his right to appeal both his conviction and sentence
Judge Manasco ordered the U.S. Marshals to remove van der Sloot from American soil as soon as possible.
Joran van der Sloot’s mugshot (Shelby County Jail)
Van der Sloot entered the courtroom about 10 minutes before the 9:30 a.m. CT start time for the hearing, wearing an orange jumpsuit with a white undershirt. He had his usual short buzz cut.
As the hearing began as scheduled, the judge confirmed with van der Sloot that he intended to change his plea to “guilty” and swore him in under oath. By 9:40, a plea agreement had been filed with the court.
Natalee Holloway, 18, with her mother, Beth Twitty, at her home before her graduation ceremony at Mountain Brook High School in Mountain Brook, Alabama on May 24, 2005. (Courtesy Beth Twitty/ZUMA Press )
A separate court declared Holloway legally dead in 2012, and nearly two decades later, her remains have not been found. She would have turned 37 this coming Saturday.
Van der Sloot is expected to begin his U.S. punishment after returning to Peru, where he was convicted of the unrelated murder of another woman. He is scheduled to be released from prison there in 2038.
“It’s a great day for justice,” Beth Holloway’s lawyer, John Q. Kelly, said as he arrived at the courthouse.
Natalee Holloway, 18, with her father, Dave Holloway on her graduation day from Mountain Brook High School in Mountain Brook, Alabama on May 24, 2005. (Courtesy Beth Twitty/ZUMA Press )
According to federal prosecutors, van der Sloot tried to extort the family for $250,000 and collected $25,000 up front for purported information about the whereabouts of her remains. The rest was to be paid once Holloway’s body was positively identified.
However, van der Sloot lied to Beth Holloway about where her daughter’s remains were located, according to U.S. prosecutors. The alleged extortion scheme took place between March 29, 2010, and May 17, 2010. He pleaded not guilty to the charges after a June hearing when he was temporarily transferred from Peru to the United States.
After allegedly attempting to carry out the extortion plot, van der Sloot traveled to Peru where he met 21-year-old Stephany Flores at a Lima casino owned by her father.
A video grab released June 9, 2010 shows Dutch Joran van der Sloot (top 2nd R) and Peruvian Stephany Flores (R) playing at a casino before her murder on May 30, 2010 in Lima. (Atlantic City Casino via Reuters)
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Van der Sloot admitted to killing Flores on May 30, 2010, in a fit of anger after she found out his connections to Natalee Holloway’s disappearance.
Natalee Holloway, 18, with her her date, Henry Ennis, before her senior prom in Mountain Brook, Alabama on May 13, 2005. (Courtesy Beth Twitty/ZUMA Press )
The extortion charges were filed by federal prosecutors in 2010, but Peruvian officials didn’t agree to release van der Sloot into American custody until May this year. He initially pleaded not guilty to the extortion charges after arriving to Birmingham, Alabama in June.
Beth Holloway, mother of Natalee Holloway, speaks during the opening of the Natalee Holloway Resource Center (NHRC) at the National Museum of Crime & Punishment in Washington, June 8, 2010. Natalee, 18, of Mountain Brook, Alabama, vanished while on a high school graduation trip to Dutch-owned Aruba, an island in the Caribbean in 2005. She never showed up for a flight home and her disappearance made international headlines. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
He was originally handed 28 years in a Peruvian prison for killing Flores, but he had more time added because of a prison drug smuggling scandal.
GALLERY: Joran van der Sloot through the years
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Van der Sloot has offered shifting explanations for Holloway’s final hours over the years, including that he shoved her into a rock, causing a head injury. He has also claimed that his father, a prominent judge who died in 2010, helped hide the body.
Fox News’ Samantha Daigle contributed to this report.
