In 2012, Joran van der Sloot is convicted of murdering a Peruvian woman, and is the primary suspect in the 2005 unsolved murder of American student Natalee Holloway in Aruba. He is eventually sentenced to 28 years in prison.
TIMELINE:
1990 Van der Sloot’s family moves from Arnhem to Aruba, where he is an honor student at the International School of Aruba.
2005 17-year old Van der Sloot competes in doubles tennis with his father at the Moët et Chandon Anniversary Cup in Aruba.
May 30, 2005 American 18 year-old Natalee Holloway disappears while on a high school graduation trip with classmates to Aruba.
June 9, 2005 Van der Sloot (then age 17), along with the Kalpoe brothers, Deepak (then age 21) and Satish (then age 18), are arrested as suspects in the disappearance of Holloway.
September 3, 2005 Van der Sloot and the Kalpoes are released because of a lack of evidence. Van Der Sloot is required to stay within Dutch territory pending the results of the investigation.
September 5, 2005 Van der Sloot returns to the Netherlands to study international business management at the HAN University of Applied Sciences.
May 14, 2010 Van der Sloot enters Peru via Colombia to attend the Latin American Poker Tour.
May 30, 2010 On the fifth anniversary of Holloway's disappearance, Stephany Tatiana Flores RamÃrez, 21, dies at the Hotel TAC, in the Miraflores District of Lima, Peru. She is robbed and murdered.
June 2, 2010 A hotel employee finds Flores’ beaten body in a room, which had been registered in Van der Sloot's name.
June 3, 2010 Van der Sloot is arrested near Curacavà 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 Santiago.
June 7, 2010 Van der Sloot reportedly confesses to killing Flores RamÃrez, after hours of interrogation. He initially proclaimed his innocence
June 11, 2010 Lima Superior Court Judge Juan Buendia orders Van der Sloot held on charges of first-degree murder and robbery, determining that he acted with "ferocity and great cruelty".
January 11, 2012 Van der Sloot pleads guilty to the "qualified murder" and simple robbery of Flores.
January 13, 2012 Van der Sloot is convicted and sentenced to 28 years imprisonment for the murder must pay $75,000 to the Flores family. Hours after learning of the sentence, Van der Sloot is transferred to a maximum security prison, Piedras Gordas, located north of Lima.
June 10, 2038 Van der Sloot’s expected release.
Who is Joran van der Sloot? What is Joran van der Sloot’s lifestyle?
Joran van der Sloot (YOUR-ahn Van der SLOOT) is born to wealthy parents and described as reckless and spoiled and treats his actions as if they have no consequences. As a teenager, he becomes too unruly for his parents to handle, so they move him into separate quarters on their property to keep him from harassing his two younger brothers. As a teen, he regularly gambles on a $5,000 line of credit his father set up for him, partied with friends and tries to pick up women.
Who is Natalie Holloway?
Natalee Holloway is born on October 21, 1986, in Clinton, Mississippi, to parents David Edward Holloway and Elizabeth Ann Holloway. Holloway and her younger brother, Matthew, were raised primarily by their mother after her parents' divorce in 1993. Holloway graduated with honors from Mountain Brook High School, and before going on that fateful trip to Aruba, had plans to attend the University of Alabama to study pre-med.
What is Joran van der Sloot’s connection to Natalie Holloway?
Van der Sloot is the man suspected of killing Natalee in 2005 in Aruba. He is the last known person to see her alive, but claims that after they meet in a casino in Aruba and party, he leaves her drunk on a beach. As Joran's story becomes suspicious police make van der Sloot their prime suspect. They also arrest van der Sloot's father, believing that he may have helped his son hide the body and had aided in the boys' testimonies to police. Without enough evidence to detain either member of the van der Sloot family, and with their special legal connections, police let both father and son go. Van der Sloot has been arrested twice in the disappearance, but he has never been formally charged with Holloway's murder. Her body has never been found.
Van der Sloot’s lifestyle after Natalee Holloway’s disappearance:
In the years since Holloway's disappearance, van der Sloot maintains a lifestyle similar to those of his teenage years in Aruba, playing poker and picking up women. He goes from Aruba to Holland to Thailand - and according to acquaintances, leads a life heavy on money problems, gambling and marijuana consumption, but short on support from friends and family. He returns to Arnhem, the Netherlands, where he briefly studies engineering.
What is van der Sloot’s mental state?
Joran van der Sloot has a low tolerance for frustration and "doesn't value the female role," according to excerpts from a psychological investigation report given to a judge by prosecutors in his murder case in 2010. According to the document, van der Sloot, "does not tolerate when someone tries to contradict him. It generates in him a challenging attitude."
Describe the confession van der Sloot makes about the Holloway murder in 2007?
Dutch journalist Peter de Vries (de VREEZ) manages to get a taped confession from the then 22-year-old van der Sloot using a hidden camera. In the tape, a man named Patrick van der Eem, who poses as a drug dealer gets van der Sloot to say that, after he and Holloway had intercourse, they took a walk on the beach. Holloway, heavily intoxicated, began having a seizure. Scared, van der Sloot watched as the girl died in his arms. He then called a friend, who put the body on a boat and dumped it in the ocean. They determined that if a body didn't appear, there was no proof of a murder The taped evidence airs, but the video didn't hold up legally; Van der Sloot also insisted that he only told the story to seem tough.
Who is Stephany Flores?
Stephany Flores (STEF-ah-nee FLOR-ez) is a business student and the daughter of a Peruvian circus impresario and former racecar driver and is 21 years old when she meets Joran van der Sloot in a casino in Lima, Peru. They play poker together before they head back to van der Sloot’s hotel room.
What specifically is van der Sloot accused of/charged with?
Flores is found beaten to death, her neck broken, in the 22-year-old Dutchman's hotel room. Police say van der Sloot smashed in the face of Flores then strangled her, threw her to the floor and emptied her wallet. He flees to Chile, but is brought back to Peru 2 days later. He is charged with murder. Police find her DNA under his fingernails.
What happens during the Peru murder investigation? Does he confess?
Shortly after the murder, van der Sloot confesses to killing Flores, in a fit of rage after she discovered his connection to the disappearance of Holloway on his laptop while they played poker online. Van der Sloot is charged with the Flores murder in June 2010, and sent to Peruvian jail to await trial. Van der Sloot confesses soon after. Van der Sloot's attorney argued that the confession should be nullified on the grounds that it was made in the presence of a police-appointed defense lawyer.​
What happens in the trial? What is van der Sloot’s defense strategy?
Van der Sloot's lawyer tells the court that his client killed Flores because of the psychological trauma of being accused in the Holloway case. "Yes, I want to plead guilty. I wanted from the first moment to confess sincerely," van der Sloot says in court. "I truly am sorry for this act. I feel very bad."… His lawyer argues that the killing is tragically triggered by fallout from the very event that originally brought his client notoriety. The "persecution" suffered by Van der Sloot after the unsolved disappearance of U.S. teenager Natalee Holloway five years earlier scarred him psychologically with a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder.
What is the verdict?
On Jan 13, 2012 - Joran Van der Sloot is sentenced to 28 years in prison for the murder of a young woman in Peru exactly five years to the day after the disappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway in Aruba.
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What happened in 2010 between van der Sloot and the Holloway family?
Peru's government says that once Dutch citizen Joran van der Sloot completes his murder conviction in 2038, he will be extradited to the United States to face trial on charges he extorted and defrauded the mother of a young American woman for whose disappearance he is the chief suspect… U.S. prosecutors allege Van der Sloot accepted $25,000 in cash from Holloway's family in exchange for a promise to lead a lawyer for the family to her body in early 2010, just before he went to Peru.
Sources: Biography.com, Forbes.com, Huffington Post, ABCnews.com, People.com, CNN.com, NYdailynews.com, NBCnews.com, CBSnews.com, Telegram.com, SFgate.com, Crime.com.