Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, admitted to bludgeoning the missing teen to death.
Van der Sloot, 35, appeared for a hearing at the federal courthouse in Birmingham, Alabama, where he was facing charges of extorting Holloway’s family after her death.
Holloway was 18 when she disappeared while on vacation in Aruba in 2005. Van der Sloot, then 17, was one of the last people seen with her at a nightclub the night she vanished.
Holloway’s body has still never been recovered. A judge in Alabama declared her legally dead in 2012.
Holloway’s death has captivated the American public for nearly two decades, and numerous true crime books, documentaries, and podcasts have been produced about the case.
As part of his plea deal for the extortion charges, van der Sloot agreed to confess everything he knows about Holloway’s death.
During his disclosure, van der Sloot admitted to killing Holloway before disposing of her body off the coast of Aruba.
In a statement to the court, Holloway’s mother Beth Holloway called van der Sloot a ‘killer’ and ‘changed the course of our lives.’
‘You terminated her dreams, her potential, her possibilities, when you bludgeoned her to death in 2005,’ the grieving mother said.
Van der Sloot, now 36, was one of the last people seen with Holloway before she disappeared. He has long been considered the prime suspect in her murder.
Van der Sloot said he killed Holloway after she refused his sexual advances.
‘You didn’t get what you wanted from Natalee, your sexual satisfaction, so you brutally killed her,’ Beth Holloway told her daughter’s killer.
Exactly five years after Holloway’s disappearance, the Dutch national was arrested and charged with murdering Stephany Flores in Lima, Peru.
Van der Sloot confessed to that murder and was sentenced to 28 years in Peruvian prison.
Earlier this year, van der Sloot was extradited to the United States to face charges for extorting Holloway’s parents.
According to prosecutors, van der Sloot offered to lead Holloway’s parents to her body in exchange for $250,000.
A private investigator hired by the family paid van der Sloot an upfront fee of $25,000. He told the investigator that Holloway’s death was an accident, and that she was buried beneath the foundation of a house in Aruba.
Holloway’s remains were never found at the location, and van der Sloot eventually admitted to making up parts of the story.
Van der Sloot was extradited to Alabama in June, and initially pleaded not guilty.
He changed his plea at a hearing on Wednesday, accepting a deal that would see him serve a 20-year prison sentence concurrent with his sentence in Peru.
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