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Joran van der Sloot’s confession in Natalee Holloway case provides long-sought answers, mother says

Beth Holloway speaks to media with her son Matt Holloway after the appearance of Joran van der Sloot outside the Hugo L. Black Federal Courthouse Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023, in Birmingham, Ala. Van der Sloot, the chief suspect in Natalee Holloway’s 2005 disappearance in Aruba admitted he killed her and disposed of her remains, and has agreed to plead guilty to charges he tried to extort money from the teen's mother years later, a U.S. judge said Wednesday. (AP Photo/ Butch Dill )
Beth Holloway speaks to media with her son Matt Holloway after the appearance of Joran van der Sloot outside the Hugo L. Black Federal Courthouse Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023, in Birmingham, Ala. Van der Sloot, the chief suspect in Natalee Holloway’s 2005 disappearance in Aruba admitted he killed her and disposed of her remains, and has agreed to plead guilty to charges he tried to extort money from the teen's mother years later, a U.S. judge said Wednesday. (AP Photo/ Butch Dill ) Beth Holloway speaks to media with her son Matt Holloway after the appearance of Joran van der Sloot outside the Hugo L. Black Federal Courthouse Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023, in Birmingham, Ala. Van der Sloot, the chief suspect in Natalee Holloway’s 2005 disappearance in Aruba admitted he killed her and disposed of her remains, and has agreed to plead guilty to charges he tried to extort money from the teen's mother years later, a U.S. judge said Wednesday. (AP Photo/ Butch Dill )

By The Associated Press 5 min read

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Beth Holloway was after one thing for 18 years: answers about what happened to her missing daughter.

She got them Wednesday when Joran van der Sloot, long considered the chief suspect in her daughter’s 2005 disappearance in Aruba, admitted in submitted court filings to bludgeoning Natalee Holloway to death on a beach and dragging her body out to sea.

Van der Sloot, 36, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to federal charges of attempting to extort money from Beth Holloway in 2010 in exchange for information about the location of her daughter’s body. The plea agreement included an unusual provision for van der Sloot to “provide all information and evidence” about what happened to Natalee Holloway and to let her family hear him in “real time” give his account to federal investigators.

Beth Holloway said in an interview with The Associated Press that the family made the decision to allow the plea agreement to “finally get the answers we’ve been searching for for all these years.”

Natalee Holloway, 18, went missing during a high school graduation trip to Aruba with classmates. She was last seen May 30, 2005, leaving a bar with van der Sloot, a Dutch citizen and student at an international school on the Caribbean island where he grew up.