Natalee Holloway’s Alleged Killer Extradited to the United States

Natalee Holloway’s mother, Beth Holloway, can finally find closure in the disappearance of her 18-year-old daughter, who went missing during a senior class trip to Aruba in 2005. 

Natalee Holloway was last seen by her friends on May 30, 2005, leaving a bar with her suspected killer, Jordan van der Sloot, as reported by the Associated Press.

Now 18 years later, the Dutch citizen is being extradited to the United States from a Peruvian prison. He will face trial on extortion and wire fraud charges due to an accusation that van der Sloot solicited Beth Holloway, Natalee’s mother, for $250,000 to uncover Natalee’s remains. He was indicted in 2010, according to a press release by the U.S. Attorney General’s Office.

Holloway’s mother wired van der Sloot $25,000 for him to show lawyer John Q. Kelly the site of her daughter’s remains. Once the remains were recovered, Holloway was supposed to wire transfer the rest of the money, but an email from van der Sloot confirmed the information he gave to the mourning mother was “worthless.” Natalee Holloway’s remains were never found, and she was pronounced legally dead in 2012. 

Five years to the day of Holloway’s disappearance, van der Sloot brutally murdered 21-year-old Peruvian student Stephany Flores in his Lima hotel room. He had met Flores, the daughter of a prominent family, at a casino where she had won money. Van der Sloot was convicted in 2012 and is currently serving a 28-year sentence.

Van der Sloot’s temporary transfer to U.S. authorities was approved by Peru’s president Dina Boluarte. A 2001 treaty between the United States and Peru has allowed for the extradition of those facing criminal charges, but they must be returned after judicial proceedings conclude.

“We will continue to collaborate on legal issues with allies such as the United States, and many others with which we have extradition treaties,” said Edgar Alfredo Rebaza, director of Peru’s Office of International Judicial Cooperation and Extraditions of the National Prosecutor’s Office.

In July 2014, van der Sloot married a woman selling goods in the prison.