NETFLIX has now released a three-part true crime docuseries on the May 2005 disappearance and murder of 18-year-old Natalee Holloway.
Tracking a near 20-year search, the truth eventually came out in 2023, when Joran van der Sloot confessed to beating and killing the student on a beach in Aruba. But where is he now?
What happened to Natalee Holloway?
Natalee Holloway and many of her classmates went to Aruba in May 2005 to celebrate their graduation from Mountain Brook High School in Alabama.
The 18-year-old, who was set to attend the University of Alabama on a full pre-med scholarship, was nowhere to be found at the airport when she and her peers were scheduled to fly home.
Eventually, it was realized that the last time she was seen alive was when she left a nightclub the night before she was due back in her hometown in Alabama.
This led to an intensive search of Aruba, mainly led by Natalee’s parents, Beth and Dave, who flew out to find their daughter.
And a break in the case seemed to happen when Aruban authorities received a tip that Joran Van der Sloot was one of the last people to have seen Natalee alive and suspected him of having murdered her.
However, he wasn’t initially charged with killing Natalee despite being investigated for five years.
But that changed in 2023, almost two decades after her initial disappearance, when he confessed to killing the Alabama teen in gruesome detail.
Van der Sloot’s confession was made public shortly after he pleaded guilty in an Alabama federal court to extorting and defrauding Holloway’s family.
Where is Joran van der Sloot now?
Joran van der Sloot is currently serving time at Challapalca Prison in southern Peru – an area renowned for its harsh environmental conditions and remote location.
Although, that sentence is separate from the Natalee Holloway case as he is serving 28 years in prison for the murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores in Peru.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald , van der Sloot reportedly killed Flores in a moment of rage when he found her on his laptop and said she discovered his connection to Natalee.
On top of this, in his 2023 trial, the 39-year-old was sentenced to 20 years for the financial crimes, which will run simultaneously with his ongoing prison sentence in Peru.
That was after he was accused of attempting to sell information to Beth Holloway for $250,000 on the location of Natalee Holloway’s remains.
In Aruba, the statute of limitations for homicide has been 12 years, meaning this expired in 2017.
During the 2023 trial, however, a spokesperson for the Aruba Public Prosecutor’s Office did not rule out the possibility that van der Sloot could face new legal action in Aruba after he confessed to killing Holloway.
