Joran van der Sloot has admitted to bludgeoning Natalee Holloway to death after they met at a bar in Aruba while she was on a high school trip – with a judge revealing that the killer disposed of her body in the water. 

The confession came as part of a plea deal in which van der Sloot pleaded guilty to trying to extort $250,000 from Holloway’s family in exchange for information about her death, which has haunted them since 2005.

On Wednesday morning, he was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Anna M. Manasco in Birmingham, Alabama. The sentence will run concurrently with his 28-year sentence for the murder of Stephany Flores in Peru, where he will serve out his time. 

Judge Manasco said at the hearing that the Holloway family ‘will not find’ their daughter’s remains as Van der Sloot placed them in the ocean. 

Holloway was 18 when she disappeared from the Caribbean island of Aruba in 2005 during a trip with school friends and was last seen with the Dutch citizen. 

Natalee Holloway murder suspect Joran van der Sloot’s has pleaded guilty to trying to extort $250,000 from her family 

Holloway´s body was never found, and no charges were filed in the case. A judge declared Holloway dead in 2012

Beth and her son Matt Holloway spoke to the press outside the courthouse after the hearing, saying that Van der Sloot said he acted alone

As part of his plea agreement, Van der Sloot, 36, agreed to tell detectives ‘everything he knows’ about Natalee’s disappearance, and her parents were reportedly allowed to hear ‘in real-time’ his confession. Van der Sloot reportedly took a polygraph test and passed it.

During his sentencing, Holloway’s mother Beth told the court that Van der Sloot murdered her daughter when she refused his sexual advances, and then went home where he watched pornography.

Addressing Van der Sloot directly, Beth said: ‘You terminated her dreams, her potential, her possibilities, when you bludgeoned her to death in 2005.

‘You didn’t get what you wanted from Natalee, your sexual satisfaction, so you brutally killed her.

‘I paid my daughter’s killer money. That’s shocking. I don’t think anyone can really wrap their mind around what that means… I have no doubt she would have made all her dreams come true. She really would have.’

She added: ‘By the way you look like hell, Joran. I do not see how you’re gonna make it … You are a killer and I want you to remember that every time that jail door slams.’ 

Van der Sloot, wearing an orange jumpsuit, addressed the court before his sentencing and apologized to the family. 

‘I would like to take this chance to apologize to the Holloway family, to apologize to my own family, to say I hope the statement I provided brings some kind of closure to everyone involved,’ the killer said in court. ‘I am no longer that person I was back then, I’ve given my heart to Jesus Christ.’

He was extradited to Birmingham in June from Peru, where he was serving a 28-year sentence after confessing to killing Flores in 2010.

The judge in the case called van der Sloot’s crimes ‘heinous,’ telling him: ‘You have brutally murdered two women who refused your sexual advances…  You knew the information you were selling was an absolute lie.’

‘You terminated her dreams, her potential, her possibilities, when you bludgeoned her to death in 2005,’ Natalee’s mom Beth told the courtroom

Natalee Holloway, left, poses with friends Lee Broughton, Madison Whatley, and Ruth McVay, left to right, in a photograph taken with Natalee’s disposable camera on the beach in Aruba

Beth and her son Matt Holloway spoke to the press outside the courthouse after the hearing, saying that Van der Sloot said he acted alone.

‘I still miss her every day, we finally got the answers we’ve been searching for.’ Beth said. ‘Finally today we get justice for Natalee.’

The hearing, attended by Holloway’s family and held a few miles from the suburb where Holloway lived, is a key development in the case that captivated the public’s attention for nearly two decades, spawning extensive news coverage, books, movies and podcasts.

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A heavy media presence assembled outside the federal courthouse nearly three hours before the hearing. Journalist Greta Van Susteren, who has followed the case from the beginning and opposes the deal, was seen entering the courtroom on Wednesday. 

‘I was told late last night that the federal judge in Alabama, despite Beth Holloway’s request that I speak at the sentencing of Joran van der Sloot, has denied the request; why doesn’t the judge, at such an important time, not want to have ALL the information in sentencing – she also is not getting a pre sentence report,’ the journalist wrote on X.  

Manasco indicated in a court order that she will hear victim impact statements, either submitted in writing or given in court, from Holloway’s mother, father and brother before sentencing van der Sloot.

In emails seen by The Messenger and allegedly sent by Van der Sloot to Holloway family lawyer Kelly in 2010, the killer wrote: ‘I want this monkey off my back just as much as I know Natalees (sic) parents want to bring her home. 

‘If you have someone come meet me in Aruba, I will do the right thing… this situation hurts everyone involved and will continue to do so until it’s over. I will take you to Natalee but I do not want it to be known the information came from me.

‘In return I want to receive 250,000$. If you are interested I will give you more details and we can arrange it.’

Van der Sloot, 36, was extradited to Birmingham , Alabama in June from Peru, where he was serving a 28-year sentence after confessing to killing Stephany Flores in 2010

A judge declared Holloway dead but her body has never been found

Holloway was last seen leaving a bar with the convicted killer, who was a student at an international school on the island at the time. Van der Sloot was identified as a suspect and detained weeks later, along with two Surinamese brothers, but was eventually let go by police. 

Van der Sloot gave different accounts over the years of that night in Aruba. Federal investigators in the Alabama case said van der Sloot gave a false location of Holloway’s body during a recorded 2010 FBI sting that captured the extortion attempt. 

A judge declared Holloway dead but her body has never been found.

The extortion charges are the only charges to have ever linked the Dutch citizen to Holloway’s disappearance. While he is not charged with murder, he remains the chief suspect in the case.

Following the 2010 emails, Van der Sloot said Holloway was buried in the gravel under the foundation of a house, but later admitted that was untrue, FBI Agent William K. Bryan wrote in a 2010 sworn statement filed in the case. 

The killer’s attorney in Peru, Máximo Altez, had previously told DailyMail.com that van der Sloot planned on making the extraordinary accusation that it was actually Natalee’s mother, Beth, who approached van der Sloot offering money if he took her to her daughter’s body.

Altez explained that his client is a ‘sick person’ and ‘compulsive gambler,’ who ‘needed the money to play at the casino’.

Van der Sloot (pictured in September 2005) has been serving a 28-year sentence for the murder of a Peruvian woman. Authorities in early June 2023 moved him from a maximum-security prison in the Andes to the detention facility in Lima

In 2010, the same year he was indicted in the U.S. for extortion, van der Sloot was arrested in Peru for the murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores, a business student from a prominent family who was killed five years to the day after Holloway´s disappearance.

Peruvian prosecutors said van der Sloot killed Flores while trying to rob her after learning she had won money at the casino where the two met.

They said he killed her with ‘ferocity’ and ‘cruelty,’ beating then strangling her in his hotel room. He pleaded guilty in 2012.

A 2001 treaty between Peru and the U.S. allows a suspect temporarily extradited to face trial in another country.

Natalee’s mother, Beth Holloway, said the family is ‘finally getting justice for Natalee’ in a statement released after Peruvian authorities agreed to the extradition.

‘It has been a very long and painful journey, but the persistence of many is going to pay off,’ Beth Holloway said.