From Reuters:
“Dutch man confesses to killing US teen Holloway, pleads
guilty to extorting her mother”
(Dutch citizen Joran van der Sloot, who was serving a 28-year
sentence in Peru after confessing to killing a 21-year-old Peruvian woman, is
escorted to the airport to be extradited to the U.S., to face charges of
extortion and wire fraud against the family of Natalee Holloway)
Joran van der Sloot, the Dutch man suspected in the 2005
death of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba, confessed to killing her,
as part of a deal with prosecutors in which he pled guilty on Wednesday to U.S.
charges of extorting Holloway's mother, local media reported.
Van der Sloot, 36, was extradited to Alabama in June from a
Peru prison, where he has been serving a 28-year sentence for murdering another
woman in Lima. He initially pleaded not guilty in federal court in Birmingham
to two charges of extortion and fraud, accused of conspiring to get Holloway's
mother, Beth Holloway, to pay him $250,000 in 2010 in exchange for telling her
where her daughter's remains were buried. "You are a killer and I want you
to remember that every time that jail cell door slams," Beth Holloway said
in court after van der Sloot entered his plea, NBC News reported. He apologized
to the Holloway family and said he had embraced Christianity, NBC reported.
Holloway, an 18-year-old from a Birmingham suburb, went
missing in 2005 during a high school graduation trip to Aruba, a Dutch
territory in the Caribbean. Eyewitnesses said she was last seen leaving a bar
in a car with van der Sloot on the night of her disappearance. While her
remains have not been discovered, an Alabama judge declared her legally dead in
2012.
Van der Sloot reached a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors that
requires him to truthfully disclose what happened to Natalee Holloway and
confess to the killing, according to John Q. Kelly, a lawyer for the Holloway
family. Dutch authorities in Aruba arrested van der Sloot twice on suspicion of
murder, but ultimately released him for lack of evidence. Working with the FBI
in a sting operation, Holloway's family wired a portion of the demanded money
to van der Sloot in 2010, but he then provided false information about where
Holloway's remains were buried, prosecutors say.
In 2012, van der Sloot was convicted in Peru after he
confessed to beating, strangling and suffocating Stephany Flores, a 21-year-old
Peruvian business student, in May 2010.
^ I remember when this happened. It was evident when I went
to Aruba many years later. I hope this brings closure to the Hollowway Family.
^
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