Disappearance: In May 2005, 18-year-old Natalee Holloway vanished on a graduation trip to Aruba. She was last seen leaving a nightclub with Joran van der Sloot.

Investigation: Despite high-profile media attention and repeated investigations, no remains were found. Natalee was declared legally dead in 2012.T

Extortion and Confession: In 2010, van der Sloot attempted to extort Natalee’s mother, offering to reveal her location for $250,000. This led to U.S. federal charges. In 2023, as part of a plea deal, he confessed to killing Natalee by beating her with a cinder block and disposing of her body in the ocean.

Legal Outcome: Because of Aruba’s 12-year statute of limitations, he cannot be prosecuted for Natalee’s murder there. He is serving a combined sentence: 28 years in Peru for another murder (of Stephany Flores) and 20 years in the U.S. for extortion and fraud.

Closure: Natalee’s mother, Beth Holloway, described the confession as painful but necessary: “As far as I’m concerned, it’s over. Joran van der Sloot… is the killer.”

This case, marked by relentless public fascination, highlights how prolonged mystery and conflicting narratives can devastate families and the community. Yet, in the end, a confession provided a form of closure—even if justice in the courtroom remained elusive.

Natalee Holloway: 20 years since disappearance, Joran van der Sloot’s arrest

Natalee Holloway disappeared in Aruba during a class trip in May 2005.

Joran van der Sloot was arrested on June 9, 2005, as the main suspect.

In 2023, he confessed to killing Holloway but has not been charged in her death.

It’s been 20 years since the disappearance of Alabama 18-year-old Natalee Holloway during her class trip to Aruba.

On June 9, 2005, the first arrest related to the case was that of Joran van der Sloot, the Dutch national, who was the main suspect.

Who was Natalee Holloway?

The backstory:
Holloway, 18, went missing during a high school graduation trip to Aruba with classmates.

She was last seen on May 30, 2005, leaving a bar with van der Sloot.

Holloway’s disappearance quickly became an international sensation, filling evening newscasts with live reports from the island and photos of her smiling face. Her disappearance also spawned countless books, podcasts and movies.

A judge eventually declared her dead.

The Holloway family has long sought answers about her disappearance, and van der Sloot has given shifting accounts over the years. At one point, he said Holloway was buried in gravel under the foundation of a house but later admitted that was untrue.

Joran van der Sloot’s arrest and confession

Timeline:

Van der Sloot was identified as the main suspect and detained weeks later for questioning, along with two Surinamese brothers, but no charges were filed in the case.

But in 2010, U.S. prosecutors said van der Sloot reached out to Beth Holloway, seeking $250,000 to disclose the location of the young woman’s body. A grand jury indicted him that year on one count each of wire fraud and extortion.

In 2012, van der Sloot pleaded guilty in Peru to killing 21-year-old Stephany Flores, a business student from a prominent Peruvian family. She was killed in 2010, five years to the day after Holloway’s disappearance.

Van der Sloot married a Peruvian woman in July 2014 in a ceremony at a maximum-security prison.

In October 2023, van der Sloot pleaded guilty to extorting Holloway’s mother in exchange for a 20-year sentence. The plea deal required van der Sloot to provide all the information he knew about Natalie Holloway’s disappearance, allow her parents to hear in “real time” his discussion with law enforcement, and take a polygraph test.

He admitted that he beat the young Alabama woman to death on a beach in Aruba after she refused his advances, then dumped her body into the sea.

“I smash her head in with it completely,” van der Sloot said in an Oct. 3, 2023, interview with federal authorities. “Her face basically, you know, collapses in. Even though it’s dark, I can see her face is collapsed in.”

“I would like the chance to apologize to the Holloway family, my own family,” he said, later adding, “I am no longer the person I was back then.”

He wasn’t charged in Holloway’s death.

Where does the Natalee Holloway case stand now?

What’s next:

In 2023, the Aruba public prosecutor’s office said it was not immediately clear whether van der Sloot could face murder charges on the island.

The investigation into Holloway’s disappearance is still open, and authorities “will follow up on any serious leads,” said Ann Angela, a prosecutor’s office spokesperson.

What they’re saying:

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s over,” Beth Holloway, Natalee’s mother, told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Alabama in 2023. “Joran van der Sloot is no longer the suspect in my daughter’s murder. He is the killer.”

The family agreed to the plea deal because it was a way to get answers, she said.