(NewsNation) — Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway, admitted to killing her and disposing of her remains and pleaded guilty to extortion and wire fraud charges.
The Dutch citizen was sentenced Wednesday to 20 years in prison for extortion and wire fraud, and he will have to pay $25,100 to the Holloway family in restitution.
Here is the timeline of the investigation, extradition and trial of van der Sloot.
It began in May 2005 when Holloway and dozens of her 12th grade classmates at Mountain Brook High School took a trip to Aruba to celebrate their graduation.
Holloway, 18 at the time, and some of her classmates went to a party at Carlos’n Charlie’s nightclub on May 29. After the club closed, some members of the group returned to the Holiday Inn where they were staying. Holloway was last seen getting into a gray or silver Honda with three young males: van der Sloot, 17 at the time, and brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe.
Van de Sloot initially told investigators he was with Holloway that night but claimed he left her alone on the beach. When the Mountain Brok group met in their hotel lobby to head home May 30, Holloway was not there.
On June 9, van de Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers were arrested in connection with Holloway’s disappearance, but on September 3, a judge ruled there wasn’t enough evidence to hold them, and they were released.
“All three of those boys know what happened to her,” Natalee’s mother, Beth Holloway, told the Associated Press at the time. “They all know what they did with her that night.”
At the time, van der Sloot’s attorney said his client would be returning to the Netherlands to lead a normal college life.
Van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers were arrested again in November 2007 on suspicion of involvement in Holloway’s disappearance but were released again less than a month later after a judge found there wasn’t enough evidence to hold them under Aruban law.
Three years later, federal prosecutors say van der Sloot offered to tell Beth Holloway where her daughter’s body was located and how she died in exchange for money.
According to the FBI, he asked Beth Holloway for $25,000 upfront and a total of $250,000 after the remains were found. A sting operation was conducted on the house he identified, but he later admitted to lying about the location.
In July 2010, van der Sloot was indicted by an Alabama grand jury on the extortion and wire fraud charges he was convicted of in 2023.
The indictment places van der Sloot’s extortion attempts between March 29 and May 17, 2010.
On May 30, 2010, van der Sloot killed 21-year-old Stephany Flores in Lima, Peru. Four days later, he was arrested in Chile and sent back to Peru to face murder charges. He pleaded guilty to Flores’ murder in Jan. 2012, saying he believed she found something related to Natalee Holloway’s disappearance on his laptop.
“I did not want to do it,” van der Sloot told La República, a newspaper based in Lima. “The girl intruded into my private life … she didn’t have any right. I went to her and I hit her. She was scared, we argued and she tried to escape. I grabbed her by the neck and hit her.”
Back in the U.S., Jefferson County Probate Judge Alan King signed an order officially declaring Holloway dead on January 12, 2012, allowing her family to handle her financial affairs.
One day later, a Peruvian court sentenced van der Sloot to 28 years in prison for the murder of Stephany Flores.
On May 10, 2023, Peru agreed to extradite van der Sloot to the U.S. to face federal charges on the condition he be returned to Peru to finish out his sentence after any trial concludes in the U.S.
On Wednesday, van der Sloot pleaded guilty to extortion and wire fraud. He also admitted to killing Holloway and disposing of her remains but is not charged in her death. As a part of his plea agreement, van der Sloot’s sentence will run concurrently with his sentence in Peru.
