The mystery of Natalee Holloway’s death may finally have been solved, with the aid of Joran van der Sloot, the man widely suspected of killing the young woman.
Van der Sloot appeared in court today to take a plea deal after being charged in an extortion plot involving the Holloway family. Fox News reports that Beth Holloway’s lawyer, John Q. Kelly, has stated that the plea deal is conditioned on him releasing details on how Natalee Holloway died and what happened to her body.
Natalee Holloway was an 18-year-old American teenager whose mysterious disappearance made international news after she vanished on May 30, 2005, in Aruba, while on her senior trip with classmates. She was last seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot, but she was never found. In January 2012, a judge legally declared Natalee Holloway dead after a request from her father.
Van der Sloot, now 35, is serving out a 28-year prison sentence in Peru after pleading guilty to the May 2010 murder of student Stephany Flores, 21, whom he strangled at a casino in Lima exactly five years to the day after Holloway disappeared.
John Q. Kelly also told Fox News Digital that the search for Natalee Holloway’s body is over.
“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.”
Beth Holloway made the biggest revelation herself, disclosing in a victim impact statement that – as part of the plea deal – van der Sloot, now 36, had finally admitted to killing her daughter, who was last seen leaving an Aruban bar with van der Sloot May 30, 2005.
Beth claimed that van der Sloot recently told law enforcement officials that Natalee had rejected his sexual advances after leaving the island bar. Enraged, van der Sloot, then 17, smashed Natalee’s head in with a cinder block, her lawyer, John Q. Kelly exclusively tells PEOPLE. Then, the teenager threw her body in the water, Natalee’s mother said in a later statement outside the courthouse, according to reporters in attendance.
“This confession means we have finally reached the end of this never ending nightmare,” Beth said, per a WBRC News reporter.
Kelly called Natalee’s killing a “hands-on vicious, unprovoked execution” that was seemingly an “instinctive act” for a man who would kill two young women by age 22.
Van der Sloot was arrested several times in connection to the 18-year-old’s disappearance but never charged.
The statute of limitations for murder in Aruba is 12 years, so van der Sloot will not be charged with Natalee’s murder, despite allegedly confessing to her killing, but he will be returned to Peru to serve out the rest of his sentence for the murder of Stephany Flores.
