When 18-year-old Alabama high school graduate Natalee Holloway disappeared during a trip to Aruba in 2005, it turned into a media firestorm that lasted for years.
His killer, Joran van der Sloot, did not confess until almost two decades later, in 2023. His body was never found.
The Netflix documentary series “Taken: Natalee Holloway” features new interviews with Natalee’s mother Beth, her friends, the FBI agents who worked on the case and Aruba’s police chief at the time.
Here are the biggest revelations from the series.
Natalee’s friends weren’t worried when she drove off with strangers
“When a friend of mine saw Natalee in a gray Honda Civic with Joran (van der Sloot) and two guys from Aruba driving, we weren’t really worried,” said Madison Greer, one of Natalee’s friends. The group met van der Sloot at a party.
Natalee was last seen alive on May 30, 2005, leaving a bar and getting into a car with van der Sloot and her brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe.
Greer recalled on-screen that Natalee was in a good mood at the time, “hanging out of the car and saying, ‘Aruba!’ People were saying “Aruba!” ” back. And then she left.
Natalee’s friends weren’t alarmed because the taxis on the island were regular, unmarked cars, she explained.
Greer added: “There’s no doubt in my mind that (Natalee) was thinking, ‘(The Kalpoe brothers) are local taxi drivers, and they’re going to take me wherever we want to go, and then (back) to the hotel.’ »
Van der Sloot, now 39, was 17 at the time. He told Natalee and her friends that he was a Dutch student, Greer said.
Natalee’s mother immediately confronted van der Sloot and decided he was guilty.
After Beth learned her daughter was missing, she rushed to Aruba. Natalee’s friends had shared details about van der Sloot and described his car. Armed with this information, Beth confronted him at his home, in the presence of her father.
“The only thing going through my head was, ‘Find this guy, get Natalee, bring her home,’” Beth said.
During their confrontation, van der Sloot allegedly told Beth that he had kissed Natalee on a beach, before dropping her off at her hotel, where she stumbled out of the car, hit her head and security guards helped her inside.
Beth knew in her “gut” that van der Sloot was lying, she said. “I don’t know what parts of it (the story) are true, but I knew he knew what happened to him. I decided, ‘Tag, it’s you,'” she recalled.
She added: “I looked at this gray Honda and thought, ‘Could Natalee be in that trunk?’ »
Why it took police so long to arrest van der Sloot
Although van der Sloot was the prime suspect, he was not arrested until 10 days after Natalee’s disappearance. The Kalpoe brothers were also arrested, but they were never charged in connection with Natalee’s disappearance and maintain their innocence.
Gerold Dompig, Aruba’s police chief at the time, said on screen: “We couldn’t find any forensic evidence, but we had so much publicity – so much pressure on Aruba.” »
“It was frustrating watching the news and wanting something to happen,” Greer recalled. “It made us all very angry because it was taking them so long. Why don’t we stop it?”
Before arresting van der Sloot, Aruba police first arrested two hotel security guards, to confirm van der Sloot’s initial account that he had dropped Natalee off and security helped her gain entry.
“All the people watching from the outside were only focused on Joran, but the investigation had a certain tactic which was to eliminate the noise first. The security guard was making noise. But to exclude them, we have to investigate,” Dompig explained.
After police arrested security guards, they obtained video footage showing van der Sloot lying about dropping Natalee off at her hotel.
“We had to find what could be used to corner the suspect. We were hoping he would start to collapse,” Dompig said.
Van der Sloot changed his story ’40 times’ when police questioned him
“Normally, juvenile suspects break down during interrogation. I was convinced that we were ready to try to extract a confession. But Joran was very difficult to interrogate,” Dompig admitted.
At the time, van der Sloot gave police conflicting accounts about his night with Natalee. “He liked to be the dominant one, the center of attention…he changed his story I think 40 times,” Dompig said.
Then it was revealed that van der Sloot’s father, Paulus, was a lawyer who was about to become a judge in Aruba.
“That seriously complicated things, because he had more visitation rights… His father being a judge-in-training was a problem for us, because he could give certain advice to his son,” Dompig said, adding that during their investigation they discovered that van der Sloot’s father allegedly told him: “if there is no body, there is no crime.”
Police detained van der Sloot for several weeks, but had to release him on September 3, 2005, due to lack of evidence.
“The main thing that was missing in this case was that we never found Natalee,” Dompig said.
Residents feel wronged by media coverage
Dilma Arends Geerman, a journalist from Aruba, said: “The disappearance of one person is almost a slap in the face, we take care of our people. »
Charles Croes, an Aruba businessman who helped Beth search for Natalee, explained that Aruba has a sense of “being nice to visitors” because its economy depends “almost entirely” on tourism.
Geerman called the arrival of the American media and “the impression that Aruba was doing nothing” “disappointing.”
How Beth’s lawyer arrested van der Sloot for extortion and wire fraud
In 2010, John Q. Kelly, Beth’s lawyer, received an email from van der Sloot, telling him: “I will take you to Natalee. In exchange, I want to receive $250,000.”
“I thought it was complete bullshit. I knew he had no intention of giving any truthful information, but I told Beth there might be a play to frame him with an extortion and fraud charge,” Kelly explained, noting that U.S. authorities had no jurisdiction in Aruba, but could extradite van der Sloot to the United States.
When Kelly flew to Aruba and met van der Sloot in 2010 and gave him some of the money, he told her that Natalee’s body was in the cement foundation of a house under construction in 2005.
“I pretended to believe that,” Kelly said. “In theory, Joran took twenty-five thousand dollars, had a good laugh, and went on his merry way. It didn’t bother me at all, because I knew how it was going to go.”
Working with FBI investigators, Kelly discovered that van der Sloot’s story was not true, because the house was not under construction at the time.
However, before charges could be brought against him for extortion and wire fraud, van der Sloot was convicted of the murder of another young woman and sentenced to prison in Peru.
Natalee’s friends were angry when van der Sloot was convicted of murder in Peru
In 2012, van der Sloot pleaded guilty to the 2010 murder of Stephany Flores Ramírez, a 21-year-old Peruvian business student. In 2012, he was sentenced to 28 years in Peruvian prison.
“I remember being angry. This could have been avoided,” Greer said.
“It was devastating,” Beth said. “Another young girl lost her life, five years after Natalee was murdered. I mean, it was sickening. I knew he would kill again. It’s just a ticking time bomb.”
Dompig was “shocked” when he learned that van der Sloot had killed Ramírez.
“Unfortunately, the fact that we couldn’t find forensic evidence and that he was able to get away with the Natalee case made him even more dangerous. I think if he wasn’t in prison, he would kill again.”
Van der Sloot claimed to have killed a rabbit
In 2023, FBI agents extradited van der Sloot to Birmingham, Alabama. Retired FBI agent Alexandra Montilla explained, “We can’t charge him with Natalee’s murder, but we will charge you with extortion, and we will indict you in Natalee’s backyard.” »
Montilla, who was on the plane with van der Sloot on his way from Peru to Alabama at the time, recalled that he was “charismatic, easy to talk to… people are attracted to him. He comes across as a very educated man.”
During the robbery, van der Sloot, who had married and had a daughter while in prison, allegedly told Montilla…
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