Joran van der Sloot

Nearly two decades after Natalee Holloway disappeared in Aruba, the man suspected of killing her has confessed to the gruesome murder of the Alabama girl, court documents reveal.

Joran van der Sloot's confession was made public shortly after he pleaded guilty on Wednesday in federal court to defrauding the Holloway family and fraud. He is accused of trying to sell information about the whereabouts of Holloway's body to his mother, Beth Holloway, in exchange for $250,000. "It's over. Joran van der Sloot is no longer a suspect in my daughter's murder. He's the killer," Beth Holloway said Wednesday.

He said: “After 18 years Natalee has been sentenced. "He made an offer that he later confessed to killing Natalee."

In support, the defendant provides information he knows about the crime, usually as part of a plea agreement.

Van der Sloot, 36, admitted to killing the teenager with a barricade on Aruba's beach after rejecting his sexual desire, according to details of the conversation with his lawyer. Van der Sloot said Holloway knelt in the crotch when he tried to "touch" her, and she responded by kicking him in the face and covering him with an apron.

He decided to "throw" her into the ocean, according to the interview transcript. Holloway's body was never found. In 2012, an Alabama judge signed a bill declaring it legally dead. The deaths of Holloway in 2005 and Stephany Flores, a Peruvian, in 2010 - whom van der Sloot had previously confessed to killing - prompted Judge Anna Manasco to sentence van der Sloot to 20 years in prison on federal charges.

"I have considered your statement regarding the brutal killing of Natalee Holloway," Manasco said Wednesday. "You brutally killed, in separate events a few years apart, two beautiful women who refused to have sex."

After reading van der Sloot's proposal, the judge said Holloway's body would not be found.

Van der Sloot was arrested several times in connection with Holloway's death. He was later released by Aruban authorities, who said there was no clear evidence.

He is currently serving a 28-year sentence in Peru for the 2010 murder of Flores. In 2021, van der Sloot was convicted of trafficking cocaine from his prison and sentenced to another 18 years in prison in Peru, according to the newspaper.

"Given that Peruvian law prohibits prison sentences exceeding a total of 35 years (unless sentenced to life), the accused is currently scheduled to be released in Peru on or about June 10, 2045 (35 years was arrested in Peru)" the document says. But Peruvian authorities granted his extradition to the United States in June to face extortion and wire fraud charges.

Van der Sloot will return to Peru to serve time in prison for the murders in the Flores case before returning to the United States to serve time in prison on federal charges. But Wednesday's plea agreement said his 20-year federal sentence at his trial in Peru will be served. In other words, it is unlikely that van der Sloot will return to the United States to serve a prison sentence. The 18-year-old was last seen leaving a nightclub with van der Sloot and two other men, brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe.

The three men were arrested in 2005 but released due to insufficient evidence. They were arrested again and charged in 2007 with "participating in the murder of Natalee Holloway or causing serious injury to Natalee Holloway that caused her death," Aruba prosecutors said at the time.

But a few weeks later, an Aruban judge ordered van der Sloot's release, citing a lack of direct evidence that Holloway died of a violent crime or that van der Sloot was involved in such a crime. The Kalpoe brothers were released.

Why was van der Sloot charged in the United States?

Although U.S. authorities do not have jurisdiction over criminal investigations in Aruba, a federal grand jury in Alabama indicted van der Sloot on charges of selling information about Holloway's body to his family. According to the indictment, van der Sloot's plan took place between March and May 2010.

He was indicted in June 2010 on charges of extortion and fraud. In the weeks between the defection and the indictment, van der Sloot killed Flores, 21, on May 30, 2010, in his hotel room in Peru.