Joran van der Sloot
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Joran Andreas Petrus van der Sloot (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈjoːrɑn vɑn dεr ˈsloːt]; born 6 August 1987) is a Dutch convicted murderer who killed Stephany Flores Ramírez in Lima, Peru in 2010. He is also the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba, which remains unsolved. He is currently serving 28 years in prison for the murder of Flores and is currently incarcerated at Challapaca Prison in Puno Province, Peru.
The disappearance of Natalie Holloway edit
Van der Sloot (then age 17), along with the Kalpoe brothers, Deepak (then age 21) and Satish (then age 18), was arrested on 9 June 2005, as a suspect in the 30 May 2005 disappearance of an 18-year-old American woman, Natalee Holloway, who was declared legally dead six years after she disappeared. The Kalpoes were released from custody on 4 July, but were re-arrested on 26 August on suspicion of rape and murder, while Van der Sloot remained in custody. All three suspects were released on 3 September because of a lack of evidence.
After his release, Van der Sloot was required to stay within Dutch territory pending the results of the investigation. On 5 September 2005, he returned to the Netherlands to study international business management at the HAN University of Applied Sciences. On 14 September, a higher court removed the travel restrictions. Gerold G. Dompig, former deputy commissioner of the Aruba Police Force, stated that the initial arrests were made prematurely under pressure from Holloway's family. Dompig charged that the family sidetracked the investigation by making it difficult for the police to collect evidence to solve the case.
Officially, the disappearance of Natalie Holloway remains unsolved. Some sources claim that van der Sloot raped and murdered Holloway and dumped her body at sea, while others claim that he and the Kalpoe brothers were involved in human trafficking and sold her into sexual slavery, possibly in Venezuela or Thailand. Neither claim has been fully substantiated.
Extorting the Holloway family edit
On March 29, 2010, Van der Sloot contacted John Q. Kelly, the Holloway family's legal representative, with an offer to reveal the location of Holloway's body and the circumstances surrounding her death, if he were given advance of US$25,000 against a total of $250,000. After Kelly notified the FBI, they arranged to proceed with the transaction. On May 10, Van der Sloot had a $15,000 wire transferred to his account in the Netherlands, following the receipt of $10,000 in cash that was videotaped by undercover investigators in Aruba. Authorities stated that the information that he provided in return was false because the house in which he said Holloway's body was located had not yet been built at the time of her disappearance. On June 3, Van der Sloot was charged in the U.S. District Court of Northern Alabama with extortion and wire fraud. U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance obtained an arrest warrant and transmitted it to Interpol. On June 30, Van der Sloot was indicted on the charges.
The murder of Stephany Flores edit
On 30 May 2010—the fifth anniversary of Holloway's disappearance—Stephany Tatiana Flores Ramírez, 21, died at the Hotel TAC, in the Miraflores District of Lima, Peru. On 2 June, a hotel employee found her beaten body in Room 309, which had been registered in Van der Sloot's name. He had departed from the hotel without returning the room key and left the television running. A tennis racquet, identified by the coroner as a possible homicide weapon, was recovered from the room. A hotel guest and an employee came forward to say they saw Van der Sloot and the victim entering the hotel room together, and the police obtained video of the two playing cards at the same table the night before at the Atlantic City Casino in Lima. Van der Sloot had entered Peru via Colombia on 14 May 2010 to attend the Latin American Poker Tour.
Ricardo Flores said that police found date rape drugs in his daughter's car, parked about 50 blocks from the hotel where she died. Her jewelry, money, identification and credit cards were missing, including about $1,000 her father had given her to purchase a laptop, and over $10,000 she had won earlier at the casino. Flores reportedly kept this money in her car, but a police search found no money in it.
After Flores' family reported her missing, police retrieved the hotel surveillance tape and obtained Van der Sloot's name and national identification number. Her brother's wife discovered Van der Sloot's background in a Google search about an hour before her body was found.
Peruvian officials named Van der Sloot as the lone suspect in the homicide investigation. Interpol issued an international arrest warrant for Van der Sloot, believing that he had fled the country to Chile, possibly intending to return to Aruba through Argentina. Van der Sloot was sighted entering Chile via the Chacalluta border crossing, north of Arica, on 31 May 2010.
On 3 June, Van der Sloot was arrested near Curacaví by the Investigations Police of Chile while traveling in a rented taxi on Highway 68 between the coastal city of Viña del Mar and the capital of Santiago. He was found with a laptop, foreign currency, a business card case, detailed charts of ocean currents around Lima, and bloody clothes.
On 7 June 2010, he confessed to bludgeoning Flores, but later tried to formally retract his confession, claiming that he had been intimidated by the Peruvian police and framed by the FBI. A Peruvian judge ruled on 25 June 2010 that the confession was valid, and on 13 January 2012, Van der Sloot was sentenced to 28 years' imprisonment for Flores' murder.