Where Is Joran van der Sloot Now? Inside His Life Behind Bars 21 Years After Killing Natalee HollowayJessica Sager,
Joran van der Sloot in 2005; Joran van der Sloot in 2023Credit: AP Photo/The News,Margarete Wever; ERNESTO BENAVIDES/AFP via Getty
It’s been oer two decades since Joran van der Sloot killed Natalee Holloway — and he spent nearly 18 of those years lying about what happened to her.
The Alabama teen went missing on May 30, 2005, while on a high school graduation trip to Aruba. Van der Sloot was the last person to see her alive and was arrested twice in connection with her disappearance. But his ever-changing story and a lack of evidence kept him from facing charges in her case.
After years of exhaustive searches, the Dutch national finally confessed to killing Holloway as part of a 2023 plea deal for attempting to extort her family for $250,000. The remains of the 18-year-old, who was pronounced dead in 2012, were never found.
“I remember thinking, ‘My nightmare is over,’ ” Holloway’s mom, Beth Holloway recalled in the 2026 Netflix docuseries Taken: Natalee Holloway. “Hard to hear, horrible to hear, but I had to hear it. The not knowing is the most torturous part.”
So, where is Joran van der Sloot now? Here’s everything to know about his life since Natalee Holloway’s disappearance, including the other violent crime he committed that landed him behind bars.
What did Joran van der Sloot do to Natalee Holloway?
Natalee Holloway; Joran van der SlootCredit: NETFLIX; AP Photo/Peter Dejong
Van der Sloot met Holloway at a local bar while she was on vacation in Aruba. In Taken, her friends recalled how she left in a car with the then-17-year-old and brothers Deepak Kalpoe, 21, and Satish Kalpoe, 19.
In his recorded 2023 confession, obtained by PEOPLE and played in the Netflix docuseries, van der Sloot claimed that he went for a walk on the beach with Holloway, where they laid down on the sand and kissed. When he tried to go further, Holloway told him no, but he groped her without her consent. Holloway kneed him in the groin.
Van der Sloot then kicked the teen “extremely hard” in the face until she was “unconscious, possibly ... even dead, but definitely unconscious.” He then took a “huge” cinder block that was next to her and “smash[ed] her head in with it completely.”
Where did Joran van der Sloot bury Natalee Holloway?
Though van der Sloot alluded to many potential locations of Holloway’s remains — including the concrete foundation of a house in Aruba he led her mother’s lawyer to during his 2010 extortion attempt — he would later admit that he had lied.
In his confession, the Dutch national claimed that he dumped Holloway’s body in the Caribbean Sea. Her remains have never been found.
What was Joran van der Sloot convicted of?
Joran Van der Sloot during a hearing at the Lurigancho prison in Lima on January 13, 2012.Credit: STR/AFP via Getty
On May 30, 2010, exactly five years to the day after Holloway’s disappearance, van der Sloot murdered Stephany Flores Ramírez in his Lima, Peru, hotel room.
Van der Sloot confessed to the slaying, recalling that he and Flores Ramírez, 21, got into an argument about Holloway and that Flores Ramírez struck him in the side of the head, ABC News reported.
“At that moment, impulsively, with my right elbow. I hit her in the face exactly on top of her nose,” van der Sloot said in a transcript of his confession. “I think she started to faint. It affected me so that I grabbed her from the neck and strangled her for a minute.”
Seeing that there “was blood everywhere,” van der Sloot said he removed his shirt and pressed it on Flores Ramírez’s face, suffocating her until she died. He was sentenced to 28 years in a Peruvian prison in January 2012, per the .
Did Joran van der Sloot ever confess to killing Natalee Holloway?
While van der Sloot claimed responsibility for Flores Ramírez’s death a few days later, it would be years before he admitted to killing Holloway.
In June 2023, van der Sloot was extradited to Alabama on one charge each of wire fraud and extortion in relation to extorting $25,000 from Holloway’s mom in May 2010 in exchange for the teen’s remains, according to a grand jury indictment. He also tried to get another $225,000 “upon positive identification of the remains,” but the location he provided the family’s lawyer turned out to be false.
That October, van der Sloot pleaded guilty in Birmingham, Ala., and confessed to killing Holloway as part of a plea agreement.
In a victim impact statement she read at his guilty plea hearing, Holloway’s mom told van der Sloot: “You have finally admitted that, in fact, you murdered her. You terminated her dreams, her potential, her possibilities, when you bludgeoned her to death in 2005.”
In a letter to the judge in the case, her dad, Dave Holloway, called van der Sloot “evil personified” and said he believed others aided him in disposing of Holloway’s body, per the .
What was Joran van der Sloot’s sentence?Joran van der Sloot in a mug shot following his arrest in Lima, Peru, 11th June 2010.Credit: Kypros/Getty
Van der Sloot was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for wire fraud and extortion and to 28 years in prison in Peru for murdering Flores Ramírez, according to the Los Angeles Times.
He will serve both sentences concurrently in Peru, but if he is released from Peruvian prison early, van der Sloot will serve the remainder of his 20-year sentence in the United States, per AL.com. He was also ordered to pay Beth $250,100 in restitution.
Though he confessed to killing Holloway, WVTM reported that it was unlikely he would ever face charges in Aruba due to the country’s 12-year statute of limitations for murder.
Did Joran van der Sloot apologize?
Joran Van der Sloot arrives for a hearing at the Lurigancho prison in Lima on January 11, 2011.Credit: ERNESTO BENAVIDES/AFP via Getty
At his guilty plea hearing for extortion, van der Sloot apologized to his and Holloway’s families, the reported. He told the court: “I am no longer the person I was back then.”
But Holloway’s mom didn’t believe he was remorseful, telling NBC News, “He doesn’t have that in his existence. Just to say the words? It’s fine. It didn’t mean anything.”
Where is Joran van der Sloot now?
Joran Van der Sloot on June 8, 2023 in Lima, Peru.Credit: ERNESTO BENAVIDES/AFP via Getty
Van der Sloot has been serving his sentence at Challapalca Prison since 2010. Four years after he was incarcerated, he married Leidy Figueroa, who sold goods inside the prison and gave birth to their daughter later that year, according to CBS News and KSL.
In Taken, the Dutch convict reportedly told an FBI agent that he was allowed to have animals in prison and that he even had a bunny, until he killed it after it scratched his daughter.
While in prison, van der Sloot was reportedly attacked by other inmates at least once in 2024, and former inmate Emil Quiñones told the New York Post that Natalee’s killer was “arrogant” and “cocky.”
“He walks around jail like he’s the boss,” he explained in April 2024. “Demands what he wants, treats other guys like s--t. He made a lot of enemies because he’s such an a--hole.”
In August 2026, van der Sloot requested a transfer to another prison in Peru, claiming that he had received death threats from other inmates. “I am the victim of psychological torture almost daily,” he wrote in the petition, per the NL Times. “And they threaten not only me, but also my family.”
Source: Crime
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