Beth Holloway, whose daughter Natalee was slain after going missing during a high school class trip in 2005, told Newsmax on Wednesday she “felt victorious" seeing the man suspected of killing her daughter receive a 20-year prison sentence.
Upon seeing Joran van der Sloot, 36, enter a courtroom in Birmingham, Alabama, and plead guilty to extortion and wire fraud charges in the case, Holloway told "The Record with Greta Van Susteren," “I felt so victorious. Like, finally, it felt like such an accomplishment."
Although van der Sloot was not charged in Holloway's murder, he pleaded guilty to trying to extort $225,000 from the Holloway family in return for information about the location of Holloway's remains. Her body was never found.
Van der Sloot, who formerly lived in Aruba, was extradited from Peru to face the extortion and wire fraud charges in the United States, but the statute of limitations for murder in Aruba is 12 years, meaning he will not face charges for the killing to which he has admitted, People reported Wednesday. During an impact statement in court, Beth Holloway confronted her daughter's killer.
“You have finally admitted that, in fact, you murdered her," she said. “You terminated her dreams, her potential, her possibilities when you bludgeoned her to death in 2005. You didn't get what you wanted from Natalee, your sexual satisfaction, so you brutally killed her."
According to the report, van der Sloot, then 17, beat the 18-year-old to death after leaving a bar with her in Aruba on May 30, 2005.
He was arrested several times in the case but was never charged.
He later killed a 21-year-old student, Stephany Flores Rameriez, in 2010 after she learned of his role in the Holloway case. He has been serving a 28-year prison sentence in Peru in that case. In 2021, van der Sloot was convicted of trafficking cocaine into prison and was sentenced to an additional 18 years, CNN reported.
“He just acts," Holloway told Van Susteren, who reported on the original case. “He has four functions of existence. It's anger, killer, food, and sex. That's all he has got. That is all I've ever seen from him."
CNN reported van der Sloot was expected to return to Peru to finish his murder sentence in the Flores Ramirez case. But according to the plea agreement, CNN reported his 20-year U.S. federal sentence will be served concurrently with his sentence in Peru. It appears unlikely van der Sloot will return to the U.S. to serve prison time.
NPR reported Beth Holloway said she now officially considers her daughter's killing “solved."
"I can tell you with certainty that after 18 years, Natalee's case is solved as far as I'm concerned," she told reporters outside the courthouse Wednesday. "It's over, it's over. Joran van der Sloot is no longer the suspect in my daughter's murder. He is the killer."
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Charles Kim ✉
Charles Kim, a Newsmax general assignment writer, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years in reporting on news and politics.
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