Joran van der Sloot, the primary suspect in the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba, is a Dutch citizen whose father was a prominent lawyer on the island.
Van der Sloot’s father figures heavily in the case’s aftermath. Over the years, Joran Van der Sloot has given a series of conflicting statements about what happened to Natalee, and some believe Paul van der Sloot knew more than he was saying, although that was never proven.
Joran van der Sloot has never been charged in connection with Holloway’s death. However, he is serving a 28-year prison sentence in the murder of Stephany Flores, who was found dead in 2010 in his hotel room. ABC News is featuring the case on an episode of 20/20 on November 22, 2019.
A U.S. federal indictment accusing van der Sloot of extorting Natalee’s mom says that Joran Andreas Petrus van der Sloot is a citizen of the Netherlands who was residing in Aruba. Natalee was a resident of Mountain Brook, Alabama who was seen alive on or about May 30, 2005 in the company of van der Sloot on the day of her disappearance.
Her whereabouts have been unknown since May 30, 2005, the indictment says.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Van der Sloot’s Father Died After Collapsing During a Tennis Game
In 2010, Radio News Netherlands reported that van der Sloot’s father, Paul van der Sloot, had died after collapsing during a tennis gameat the Tierra del Sol estate on the Dutch Caribbean island. He was only 57 years old.
Crime reporter Peter R. de Vries, to whom Joran once confessed, spoke to Paul van der Sloot several times and told Radio News Netherlands: “My intuition as a researcher told me that Mr Van der Sloot knew more about it, but wanted to protect his son, which is natural. His attitude struck me as tense, for instance when I referred to Natalee being dead. His response was, ‘Who says she’s dead? There is no evidence.’ And his son Joran said that when he was in prison, his father had smuggled a cellphone into his cell, so he could keep up with developments.”
The Dutch news site described Paul van der Sloot as “a lawyer who was training as a judge on Aruba and who was respected on the island.” He gave interviews to authorities but it’s never been established what he knew about his son’s actions that night.
According to ABC News, the last sighting of Holloway was leaving Carlos ‘n Charlie’s in Oranjestad with van der Sloot, then 17 and a Dutch citizen, and two of Van der Sloot’s friends, Deepak and Satish Kalpoe. Initially, the men said that they dropped Natalee off at her hotel and caused her no harm. Authorities suspected otherwise and arrests resulted but no charges. Holloway’s mother has never stopped in her quest to get answers from Van der Sloot about what really happened to her daughter.
“He’s a monster. I know that he was responsible for the demise of Natalee. And I’ll never, never not believe that,” Beth Holloway’s Natalee’s mom, told ABC. “I made a pledge that I will share everything that I have learned. So, that’s what I did.”
Aruban authorities closed the case. Natalee was never found despite deep-water searches.
2. Van der Sloot’s Mother Has Worked as an Art Teacher
An online biography for Anita van der Sloot Hugen says was born in 1956 in the Netherlands.
She attended the “Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, Academy of Fine Arts in Arnhem during the period 1974-1979 and graduated with a major in Art Education and a minor in Art History,” it reads. “During her Masters she taught student college prep courses and adult painting classes at the Marienburg Academy in Arnhem and the ‘Vrije Acedemy’ in Zevenaar, the Netherlands.”
From 1979 until 1990 she “taught full time middle and high school art at the Lorentz college in Arnhem which had an international department,” according to the biography. She moved to Aruba with her family in 1990 and “became more and more involved with the International School of Aruba and was hired in 1991 for their Fine Arts department.”
She then began involved in running a small glass studio.
“Anita participated in several group exhibitions, designed costumes and sceneries for theatre and gave several workshops in Caracas and Valencia, Venezuela. The last demonstration she gave was at Paseo Herencia, Aruba in November 2008 where she showed the process of glass beading. Together with other artists she sold her glass jewelry as a fundraiser for the donkey Sanctuary and the Terrafuse foundation,” the bio says.
3. Van der Sloot Once Claimed His Father Buried Natalee in a Home Foundation
Van der Sloot has given a series of shifting statements over the years about what happened to Holloway. According to ABC, Van der Sloot went to school in the Netherlands, and gave an interview to the network denying that he had harmed Holloway. According to Fox News, in 2006, he claimed that he “left Natalee alone on a beach.” In 2008, he was filmed by a Dutch crime reporter on hidden camera “describing Holloway’s death,” and the case was reopened, ABC reports.
In the 2008 tape, he says Natalee “had collapsed on the beach and that he had disposed of her body,” Fox News reports.
The statements couldn’t be corroborated. That same year, he told American television personality Greta Van Susteren that he “sold Natalee Holloway into sexual slavery,” but later denied it.
In 2010, Beth Holloway’s lawyer said that van der Sloot, using a false name, asked him for thousands of dollars to lead him to Natalee’s body. The lawyer described Joran to 20/20 as a gambler. After receiving money from the Holloways, the lawyer says that Joran claimed he threw Natalee to the ground and her head hit a rock. He claimed that his now deceased father had buried her in a home foundation. However, Van der Sloot later claimed that story was a lie too.
According to Daily Beast, Van der Sloot claimed Natalee’s body “was under the foundation of a house in Oranjestad, Aruba. The house was being built at the time Holloway disappeared in May 2005” and that his dad “buried her under the wall forms that had been set in place to pour cement.” However, building records turned up no permit or record of cement pouring. Authorities don’t think the statement was true.
According to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice in 2010, a federal grand jury indicted Van der Sloot, a citizen of the Netherlands, “on charges of wire fraud and extortion for soliciting money from Natalee Holloway’s mother on promises he would reveal the location of her daughter’s remains in Aruba and the circumstances of her 2005 death.”
The information he gave was false, the release states, adding, “The two-count indictment filed in U.S. District Court charges van der Sloot with extortion for exploiting Beth Holloway’s fear that she would never find her daughter’s body or know what happened to her unless she paid him $250,000. The indictment also charges van der Sloot with wire fraud for using false promises that he would reveal the location of Natalee Holloway’s body in order to induce Beth Holloway to make wire transfers of money.”
Van der Sloot is serving a 28-year prison sentence he received in 2012. Once his sentence is complete there, he faces extradition to the U.S.
4. Van der Sloot’s Own Mother Described Him as a Sneaky Liar
GettyJoran Van der Sloot in court for the murder of a woman in a Peruvian hotel.
In an interview, Joran’s mom didn’t very nice things to say about him. According to ABC News, she described him as a sneaky liar who could have been an actor.
She said he would sneak out of the house. She told ABC that her husband told Joran “If you know something, tell us, because you’re going to the police, and you tell the truth.”
Anita said Joran was mentally ill and told ABC: “Maybe he missed a chance to become an actor. Maybe that should’ve been a role in his life. I really don’t know. I can hardly believe that he can … fake this.”
5. Van der Sloot’s Dad Was Once Arrested in Connection With the Case
GettyNatalee on left, and her mom on right.
A 2005 article in The New York Times described how Paul van der Sloot was arrested after he left a prison to visit Joran with his wife. He was identified as a suspect in Natalee’s disappearance. However, he was never charged.
CBS News reported that Joran’s mom said her son had changed his story from claiming he dropped Natalee off at her hotel to admitting he was on a beach with her alone.
When her husband was arrested, Anita told CBS: “My husband is a man of integrity who has been working in the justice system 15 years and was taken without evidence. How can this happen? This is not about Natalee anymore. It’s about enormous pressure from the [United] States and the media.”