In a recently discovered email sent just two days after the mysterious disappearance of Natalee Holloway in 2005, Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the case, allegedly claimed that he and his father had rented a boat and taken care of certain matters. This revelation sheds new light on a long-standing unsolved mystery.
Van der Sloot’s email, addressed to an individual identified as “David G,” alluded to the actions he and his father took following Holloway’s vanishing during her class trip to Aruba, the New York Post reported. The message stated, “My dad got a boat two days later. We went for a ride and took care of things. That’s all I’m going to say,” as reported by the Messenger.
Van der Sloot faced extradition to the United States in June on charges related to fraud and extortion linked to the Holloway disappearance, Breitbart News reported. Although he had been identified as a suspect in her disappearance at the time, he was never formally charged in connection with her death.
Currently 35 years old, van der Sloot has spent over a decade imprisoned in Peru for his involvement in the 2010 murder of Stephany Flores, a 21-year-old student whom he strangled at a casino in Lima. Remarkably, this crime took place exactly five years after Natalee Holloway disappeared.
Over the course of the 18 years since Holloway’s disappearance, Aruban authorities have actively investigated van der Sloot’s claims that he disposed of the teenager’s body at sea. One unnamed Aruba investigator shared, “It’s always seemed most likely that she was taken out on a boat,” while emphasizing the importance of determining who might have assisted in such an act since van der Sloot and his father did not own a boat.
Though officials have been unable to confirm this theory, van der Sloot himself has provided a series of conflicting accounts regarding the fate of the missing teen. In a hidden camera interview conducted by Dutch journalists Peter De Vries and Patrick van der Eem in 2008, he initially claimed that Holloway had a seizure during a sexual encounter on the beach and subsequently died. He alleged that he had enlisted a friend named Daury to help transport her body onto a boat and dispose of it at sea. However, van der Sloot later recanted these statements.
Van der Sloot’s involvement in the case took a bizarre turn in May 2010 when he purportedly offered to disclose the location of Holloway’s remains in exchange for $250,000. He led Beth Holloway’s attorney to a site he claimed concealed the remains after receiving an upfront payment of $25,000 but subsequently retracted the story. An email from the same address later confessed that he had fabricated the entire account.
Currently, van der Sloot faces federal charges in the United States for allegedly providing false information about Holloway’s whereabouts and extorting money from her parents. It is anticipated that his stay in the United States will extend throughout the entirety of the criminal proceedings, including any potential appeals, as specified in a resolution published in Peru’s federal register.