UPDATE: Joran van der Sloot confessed to murdering Natalee Holloway in 2005 when she rebuffed his sexual advances. He smashed her skull with a cinderblock and set her body out to sea.
“You have brutally murdered, in separate incidents, years apart, two young women who refused your sexual advances,” Judge Anna Manasco told van der Sloot in court on Wednesday.
Read more about van der Sloot’s confession and sentence here.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Natalee Holloway, an 18-year-old American high school student, disappeared during a graduation trip to Aruba in May 2005. She was last seen leaving a bar with Joran van der Sloot, but vanished and was never found. Seven years later she was declared dead.
Van der Sloot, 36, was always the primary suspect in the case. Although he was briefly in custody, he was later released due to a lack of evidence and avoided prosecution. However, he was later convicted of murdering a Peruvian woman and is serving a prison sentence for the 2010 homicide.
Earlier this year, Van der Sloot was extradited to the U.S. in an extortion plot involving the Holloway family. Now, he is expected to accept a plea deal in exchange for details involving the teen’s death and disposal of her body, according to a family attorney, the New York Post reported.
Natalee Holloway’s body was never found, and no charges were filed against Joran Van der Sloot in the case.
Van der Sloot faces charges of extortion and wire fraud in Alabama after he reportedly tried to sell Beth Holloway, Natalee’s mother, information about the location of her daughter’s body.
John Q. Kelly is Beth Holloway’s attorney. He told Fox News Digital that van der Sloot is expected to take a plea deal, which is conditioned on him releasing details on how Natalee Holloway died and what happened to her body.
“It [the plea agreement] was conditioned upon Mr. van der Sloot revealing details of how Natalee died and how her body was disposed of,” Kelly first told “Today.”
Van der Sloot is scheduled for a plea and sentencing hearing Wednesday morning in a Birmingham, Alabama, federal courtroom.
Federal prosecutors said he attempted to extort the Holloway family in March 2010 and May 2010, for $250,000, with $25,000 upfront for the information and the balance to be paid once Natalee Holloway’s body was positively identified.
However, van der Sloot lied to Beth Holloway about the location of her daughter’s remains, according to prosecutors.
Although the Dutch native was never held accountable in Natalee Holloway’s disappearance, he is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence for the 2010 murder of a Peruvian citizen, 21-year-old Stephany Flores.
After Van der Sloot was accused of murdering Natalee Holloway in 2005, he traveled to Peru and met Flores at a Lima casino owned by her father, Law Officer reported.
Van der Sloot admitted to killing Flores, saying he murdered her on May 30, 2010, in a fit of anger after she found out he was connected to Natalee Holloway’s disappearance.
U.S. federal prosecutors filed the extortion charges against van der Sloot in 2010, but Peruvian officials didn’t agree to temporarily release him into American custody until May of this year.
Joran van der Sloot (Shelby County Jail)
Van der sloot was originally sentenced to 28 years in prison for killing Flores, but more time was added due to a drug smuggling scheme in which he was involved while in prison, the New York Post reported.
Once van der Sloot’s federal case concludes, he will return to Peru to complete his sentence for murdering Flores. After finishing his time in Peru, he would then be returned to the U.S. to face potential incarceration, depending upon a conviction and the terms laid out in the plea agreement.
