In May 2005, Natalee Holloway, 18, left Carlos ‘n Charlie’s, a bar in Oranjestad, Aruba, with three young men. She was on a graduation trip with classmates from Mountain Brook High School in Alabama and was scheduled to return home later that day. But she never took the flight.
One of the men was Joran van der Sloot, a 17-year-old Dutch student who lived on the island. Over the next 18 years, he gave police, journalists and Holloway’s family one story after another about what happened that night. His story kept changing, and investigators dismissed many of his accounts as false.
Then, in October 2023, van der Sloot finally confessed to killing Holloway. By that time, he had already spent more than 13 years in a Peruvian prison for killing another young woman.
Netflix docuseries Taken: Natalee Holloway revisits the case, with Natalee’s mother, Beth Holloway, telling the full story of her search for answers for the first time. Here’s what you need to know about the man who admitted to killing Natalee Holloway.
Who is Joran van der Sloot?
One of three sonsJoran van der Sloot was born on August 6, 1987 in Arnhem, Netherlands. His father, Paulus van der Sloot, was a judge and his mother, Anita van der Sloot, was an art teacher. The family moved to Aruba when Joran was young. He became an honor student at the International School of Aruba, where he played soccer and tennis.
In September 2005, Van der Sloot left Aruba for the Netherlands, where he began his university studies. He then studied at Rangsit University in Bangkok, but I left without finishing. His father died of a heart attack in 2010.
What happened after Natalee Holloway disappeared?
In the early hours of May 30, 2005, Van der Sloot left the bar with Holloway and two brothersDeepak Kalpoe, then 21, and Satish Kalpoe, 18. Aruba police arrested all three June 9. Paulus was also detained for questioning for approximately four days later that month. Joran gave investigators conflicting accounts of the night, and the three young men were released in early September for lack of evidence.
Dutch authorities stopped him again in November 2007, suspected of manslaughter, but he was released without charge two weeks later.
In February 2008, Dutch crime journalist Peter R. de Vries broadcast secretly recorded images of van der Sloot saying he was with Holloway when she died. An Aruba judge ruled that the footage was not enough to warrant a new arrest. Van der Sloot later claimed he made it all up while talking to someone he thought was a friend.
How did Joran van der Sloot extort the Holloway family?
Two years later, in March 2010, van der Sloot offered tell the Holloway family where Natalee’s body was and how she died for $250,000. The FBI observed and recorded the exchange. In May of that year, the family’s lawyer handed van der Sloot $10,000 in cash in Arubawhile another $15,000 was paid into his bank account. An earlier test payment of $100 brought the total to $25,100.
However, the information he provided them was false, prompting federal prosecutors in Alabama to charge him for extortion and wire fraud in June 2010.
How was Joran van der Sloot captured?
But by the time the extortion charges were filed, he was already wanted in Peru for murder. May 30, 2010exactly five years after Holloway’s disappearance, van der Sloot met Stephany Flores Ramírez, 21, a business student at the University of Lima, at the Atlantic City casino in Lima. Security cameras recorded their arrival at the TAC Hotel, in the Miraflores district, around 5 a.m. He left alone with his luggage a few hours later.
A hotel employee found Flores’ body three days later in the room rented by Van der Sloot. A autopsy revealed a fractured skull and broken neck.
Van der Sloot had already fled to Chile when the body was discovered. On June 3, 2010, he was arrested by Chilean police and returned to Peru the next day. He admitted the murder during his interrogation, but later claimed that the police had forced him to confess. The judge was not convinced and ruled that the confession could be used against him.
January 11, 2012, van der Sloot accepted charges of capital murder and simple theft and was sentenced to 28 years in prison. During his detention, he married a Peruvian womanLeidy Figueroa, in 2014, and the couple welcomed a daughter in September. In January 2023, he received still 18 years and four months for trafficking cocaine in prison.
When did Joran van der Sloot confess to killing Natalee Holloway?
Joran van der Sloot starring in Netflix Taken: Natalee Holloway
Peru agreed temporarily extradite van der Sloot to face extortion charges in Alabama, and he landed in Birmingham in June 2023. While he initially pleaded not guiltyhe changed his mind on October 18, 2023, plead guilty extortion and electronic fraud. As part of his plea deal, he was required to give a full and truthful account of Holloway’s disappearance.
In a recorded interview with investigatorsvan der Sloor said Holloway rejected his advances on the beach near the Marriott Hotel. “When she knees me in the crotch, I get up on the beach and kick her extremely hard in the face,” he said. He then picked up a cinder block and smashed her head with it. “Even though it’s dark, I can see his face is crumpled.”
Van der Sloot later said he dragged her body into the ocean and returned home. Several details of his story matched the evidence in the case, and a polygraph concluded he was telling the truth.
U.S. District Judge Anna M. Manasco sentenced him to 20 years in prison, alongside his Peruvian sentence. However, van der Sloot never been billed with the Holloway murder. Addressing him directly in court in 2023, Natalee’s mother, Beth Holloway, told him: “You are a killer. »
Where is Joran van der Sloot today?
Van der Sloot has since been returned to Peru and is currently detained detained in Challapalca prisona maximum security facility located approximately 15,000 feet above sea level in the southern Andes. In December 2025, guards found him seriously injured in his cell after a apparent suicide attempt.
In August 2026, van der Sloot requested a transfer in another prison, claiming that other inmates had threatened to kill him and his family, and that he was subjected to “psychological torture almost daily.” From the end of Augusta judge had not ruled on his request. Peruvian sentencing rules capped his cumulative prison term at 35 years, keeping him incarcerated until 2045, according to Dutch media.
How to watch Taken: Natalee Holloway
Directed by Dani Sloane and Matthew Galkin, the three-part documentary series Taken: Natalee Holloway is now streaming on Netflix. “I felt like it was the time to tell the most complete, conclusive, chronologically ordered story,” Beth Holloway told Netflix. Tudum. “And it’s never been done before with this finale.”
Eric Spitznagel is a frequent contributor to magazines like Playboy, Esquire, and the New York Times, and was employed for more than two decades by the Second City comedy theater, where Stephen Colbert was his Secret Santa on two occasions.
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