Family photo/Getty Stephany Flores (l) and Joran van der Sloot.
Stephany Flores died a horrific death, and Peruvian authorities say it was at the hands of Joran van der Sloot, the suspect in the disappearance of American tourist Natalee Holloway in Aruba.
Today, van der Sloot is serving a 28-year prison sentence in the murder of Flores, who was found dead in 2010 in his hotel room. Holloway vanished in 2005 but Van der Sloot has never been charged in her suspected death. Holloway, from Alabama, was only 18 years old and celebrating her high school graduation with a school class when she disappeared, according to ABC News, which is featuring the case on an episode of 20/20 on November 22, 2019.
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. ABC reports that van der Sloot is being held at “the notorious Miguel Castro Castro jail in Lima” for the murder of Flores.
Here’s what you need to know:
Stephany Flores Was Beaten to Death in a Hotel Room After Holloway’s Death Came up on the Internet
GettyDemonstrators ask for life sentence for Dutch national Joran Van der Sloot, after a hearing, outside the Lurigancho prison in Lima on January 11, 2011.
According to ABC, Stephany Flores was a college student who was the “daughter of a presidential candidate.” The cause of death? She was beaten and smothered to death.
Joran van der Sloot is accused of confessing to the crime and what he told authorities was grisly. Van der Sloot claimed that he met Flores at a casino in Lima, and they started playing poker in his room “when an e-mail popped up on his computer linking him to the Holloway case,” ABC reported.
The hotel in Lima as seen on June 8, 2010, where Dutch Joran Van der Sloot, 22, confessed having murdered 21-year-old Peruvian Stephany Flores on May 30.
This made Flores upset and she hit him, claimed van der Sloot, who also alleged that he “smashed her in the nose with his elbow. Blood gushed out and she nearly fainted from the blow…He then grabbed her by the throat and banged her head against the wall… He finally used his shirt to smother her.”
His lawyers claimed he was “emotionally distraught” because of the police pressure from the Holloway case.
According to CNN, Stephany was 21 years old, lived with her father, and was an “avid poker player.” Authorities later found surveillance video showing she was with van der Sloot at the casino and his hotel, where workers described him as looking like Brad Pitt. According to CNN, Stephany’s dad Ricardo Flores “is a politically connected former race car driver.” She was described as friendly, nice, and studying business administration.
“My father called me and said Stephany didn’t come home, help me,” Stephany’s older brother Enrique Flores told CNN. “So I went to the house and we started calling all the numbers of my sister’s friends that I had and we called the police.”
According to ABC, over the years, van der Sloot went to school in the Netherlands, and gave an interview to the network denying that he had harmed Holloway. In 2008, he was filmed by a Dutch crime reporter on hidden camera “describing Holloway’s death,” and the case was reopened, ABC 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.
At that point, he went to Peru and met and murdered Stephany Flores.
He received the 28-year prison sentence in 2012. Once his sentence is complete there, he faces extradition to the U.S. on charges of extorting Natalee’s mom.