transcript

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[00:06] This is Crimes House. Hidden camera footage, explosive interviews, a teenager who got away with murder, and a young woman who never came home. High school is tough for so many different reasons. There's the social dynamics, academic pressures, extracurriculars, throw puberty into the mix, and it can be all out chaos. Some people sink in the face of those challenges, but others seem to thrive under pressure. Natalee Holloway was one of those people. In the spring of 2005, she had just graduated with a stellar GPA and a full ride to college. She had more than earned her spot on the senior trip to Aruba. But what should have been a chance to celebrate with her best friends turned into a nightmare when she met a local boy named Yoran Vandersloot? What came next changed the island of Aruba forever and became one of the most notorious cases in true crime history. This is the murder of Natalee Holloway. People's lives are like a story. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. But you don't always know which part you're on. Sometimes the final chapter arrives far too soon, and we don't always get to know the real ending. I'm Carter Roy, and this is Murder, True Crime Stories, a Crime House original powered by PAVE Studios. New episodes come out every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Thank you for being part of the Crime House community. Please rate, review, and follow the show. And for ad-free access to every episode, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. Welcome back to another episode of Murder Mystery Fridays, where I'm covering cases with questions that I can't get out of my head. The ones where the evidence points in multiple directions and every theory feels like a possibility. Remember, these episodes are also on YouTube with full video to search for Murder True Crime Stories, and be sure to like and subscribe. Today I'm talking about one of the most well-known true crime cases in modern history, the murder of Natalee Holloway. It's one of those cases that you can't help but follow when it's happening and still sticks with you all these years later. Today, I'll explain how the 18-year-old mysteriously disappeared during her high school graduation trip to Aruba in 2005. The investigation that followed was one of the biggest news stories of 2005, garnering worldwide attention and sparking plenty of controversy. Over 20 years later, shocking developments brought Natalee's name back into the headlines, while leaving some of the case's biggest questions still unanswered, all that and more coming up. In May of 2005, 18-year-old Natalee Holloway was on the trip of a lifetime. She just graduated from Mountain Brook High School in Birmingham, Alabama, with a 4.15 GPA and full scholarship to the University of Alabama, where she planned to study pre-med. All to say, Natalee had worked extremely hard the last four years and was more than ready to let loose. And that's exactly what she did when she arrived on the island of Aruba on May 26th. She was there on her high school's unofficial graduation trip, accompanied by 124 fellow graduating seniors and seven adult chaperones. Natalee and her classmates spent the first three days mostly at the beach, the pool, and hanging out at the hotel casino. The legal age for drinking and gambling in Aruba is 18, and the students were taking full advantage. Sunday, May 29th, was Natalee's last day in Paradise. It started with a concert on the beach, featuring Lauryn Hill and Boys To Men. After that, the party moved to the casino, and finally a bar called Carlos and Charlie's, that was about a five to ten minute drive from the hotel. After the bar closed, Natalee and a friend named Jessica Caola, grabbed some street food outside before heading back to their hotel. They were both tipsy from a night of partying, and when Jessica turned around, she saw Natalee darting off away from the food truck. She got into what Jessica described as a white car, which was later identified as either a gray Honda or a silver Nissan. At the time, Jessica assumed Natalee must have found someone to give her a ride back to their hotel. Over the course of their trip, they'd learned that taxis were hard to come by in Aruba, especially after the bars closed. Plus, Natalee was known to be responsible and reliable, so Jessica wasn't worried about her. She figured she'd just see her back at the hotel. Even when Natalee didn't show up, her roommates weren't too concerned. The students had been sleeping over in each other's rooms the whole trip and keeping the party going after the bars closed. In fact, the group had been having such a good time, the hotel already decided their school was not welcome back the next year. So Natalee's absence didn't really sound any alarms until the following morning, when it was time to head to the airport. The plan was for everyone to meet in the lobby before 10 a.m. so all the students could head back to the airport for their flight. But Natalee was nowhere to be seen. When the chaperones checked her room, her suitcase and passport were there, but Natalee wasn't. At that point, the chaperones called her mother, Beth, back in the States, and as soon as Beth heard that Natalee was missing, she sprang into action. Beth was in Hot Springs, Arkansas when she got the news. So the first thing she did was call 911 and later the FBI. The next thing she wanted to do was get to Aruba ASAP. There weren't any commercial flights that could get her there fast enough, but luckily, Beth knew who to call. She and Natalee's father had divorced a long time ago, and in the year 2000, Beth had married a man named George Jug Twitty. He was a big wig in the Birmingham, Alabama metals industry, so the family had some pretty solid connections. One of those connections was able to arrange a private jet for Beth and Jug. They took along two of their friends, who they thought might be helpful in the search. They left the remaining seat on the jet open for Natalee. They landed in Aruba around 10 PM that night on May 30th, 2005, just about 12 hours after everyone realized Natalee was missing. Beth's plan was to get whatever information they could from the local authorities. She and Jug did speak with the Aruban police that night, but they definitely weren't happy with what they heard. The police didn't seem as concerned as the Twiddies were, so Beth and Jug decided to do their own digging, and almost right away, they learned about the last time anyone saw Natalee. Some of her classmates, who are now back home in Alabama, told the family that they saw Natalee talking to a cute, tall Dutch guy before her disappearance. For some context, Aruba used to be a Dutch colony, and even though it's now a separate country, it's still part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the island has a big Dutch population. All to say, the mystery guy talking to Natalee wasn't necessarily a tourist. And luckily, Jug had a nephew on the trip who remembered him introducing himself as Euron during a game of poker at the Hotel Casino. Euron was around the same age as the Mountain Brooks students and had apparently been hanging around the group all week. In fact, they'd all been gossiping about who might hook up with him, but not everyone was impressed. One student, Brian Reynolds, remembered Euron nearly getting into a fight with one of his friends and Brian had to break it up. This was just a few hours before Natalee vanished. Brian also remembered that before the fight almost started, Euron was talking to Natalee. Well, not only that, but some of Natalee's classmates said they spotted Euron in the white car that Natalee got into, the one outside of Carlos and Charlie's. And he wasn't alone. There were also two other guys they didn't recognize. Beth and Jug knew they needed to find this mystery guy right away. So Beth asked a hotel employee if she knew a tall Dutch teenager named Euron who hung around the casino. Not only did the employee recognize the description, she knew his full name. Euron van der Sloot. He was a 17-year-old local, and according to the hotel employee, he quote, tends to prey upon young female tourists. Which made Beth and Jug wonder, could he have hurt Natalee? After learning about Euron, Beth and Jug tracked down his address. He lived in the nearby town of Noord, and that night, they along with the Aruban police paid him a visit. Euron's father, 53-year-old Paulus Vandersloot answered the door. Paulus was an attorney and aspiring judge in Aruba, while Euron's mother, Anita, was an art teacher. According to Paulus, Euron wasn't home, but he brought the group to where they might be able to find him at the nearby Wyndham Casino. Oddly enough, Euron wasn't there either, so the group headed back to the Vandersloot House, where Euron had mysteriously appeared. He was there with a friend, 21-year-old Deepak Kalpo. At first, Euron denied knowing Natalee or even recognizing her name. But after some questioning, he changed his tune and admitted that he was with Natalee on Sunday night when she was last seen. According to him, here's what happened. After they met at the hotel casino where Natalee was staying, Natalee invited him to Carlos and Charlie's. Later, he got a ride there from Deepak and Deepak's 18-year-old brother, Satish Kalpo. Euron said Natalee had too much to drink and was aggressively coming on to him. After the bar closed, she wasn't ready to go back to her hotel and wanted to drive around with Euron, so they all piled into the Kalpo brothers' car. They ended up parking at a nearby lighthouse where the local teens liked to hang out. Euron said Natalee performed oral sex on him in the car. After that, Euron insisted he took Natalee back to her hotel. He even watched as she fell over drunk, stumbling back into the lobby. Euron said he saw a security guard helping her out. So he left. Euron even agreed to go to the Holiday Inn with Beth and Jug to point out the security guard who'd helped Natalee, but when they got there, Euron couldn't find him. Well, Beth thought that was pretty suspicious, but there wasn't much she could do. She needed the police to officially open an investigation. But the next day, Euron still wasn't questioned by police. And the twiddies said the police initially didn't seem to care very much about finding Natalee. Beth even recalled that local detective Dennis Jacobs insisted on having a bowl of frosted flakes before he took her statement. And Natalee's dad, Dave, who arrived on the island on the morning of June 1st, two days after Natalee went missing, had a similar experience. He said that when he went to the police to ask about Natalee, that same detective asked, quote, how much money do you have? Beth and Dave agreed that the police seemed to think Natalee was just off partying somewhere. But the authorities told a very different version of the story. They said they agreed with the Holloways from the beginning that Euron and the Calpoes were suspects, but they were just trying to wait for them to slip up instead of arresting them right away. They hoped this would help lead them to Natalee. The Iruban police claimed that starting on the third day of Natalee's disappearance, Euron and the Calpoes' phones were tapped, their emails were monitored, and they were surveilled everywhere they went. Multiple sources close to this case, including members of law enforcement, confirm that the Iruban police did not open a missing persons investigation until three days after Natalee disappeared. By the way, on June 2nd, the police officially opened an investigation and announced a $55,000 reward for information leading to Natalee's return. Meanwhile, her photo was plastered all over the news in Aruba and all around the world. In Dave's words, quote, Natalee had become everybody's child. And just a few days later, it seemed like the police finally got their first lead. On Sunday, June 5th, 2005, nearly a week after Natalee was last seen, police picked up 30-year-old Nick John and 28-year-old Abraham Jones. The two men had worked as security guards for a hotel near the Holiday Inn where Natalee stayed. But their contracts ended the day before Natalee vanished, and they denied that they had ever seen her. In Aruba, suspects don't have to be charged with a crime until 116 days after their arrest, unless a judge finds that there isn't enough evidence to hold them longer without charges. So the two security guards, while arrested, weren't officially charged with a crime, and the police didn't reveal exactly why they arrested them either. Their lawyer told the media that the arrests seemed to be based on vague witness statements about seeing Natalee get helped by two security guards at her hotel. But these two guys didn't even work at the Holiday Inn. This made Beth furious. She felt like the police were looking in all the wrong places, and she wanted to let the world know how she felt. So Beth started giving TV interviews, openly accusing the Aruban government of covering for the Vandersloot family because Paulus was a high-ranking lawyer on the island. And not only that, but it seemed like Yoran got away with a lot of troublemaking. At 17, he wasn't old enough to legally drink or gamble, and yet everyone in Norde, police included, seemed to know he was a regular at the bars and casinos. Even more concerning, Yoran had a history of violence. In his early teen years, Yoran became aggressive towards his two younger brothers, hitting them and even destroying one of their cell phones. At that point, Yoran also started lying to his parents. Whenever they caught him, he'd spin more lies to get out of it. Instead of punishing him, Yoran's parents sent him to therapy, but it didn't seem to work. And before long, it got to a point where he wasn't just lashing out at his brothers anymore. Once, Yoran got into a fight with an unhoused man and threw him off a low bridge into the water below. Another time, he allegedly pushed a classmate through a glass display case at a movie theater. And eventually, Yoran got so bad that his parents moved him into a detached apartment behind their house. While this made things more peaceful at home, it also had a big unintended side effect. Yoran now had unchecked freedom to come and go as he pleased. And it seemed like no one had the power to stop him. On June 5th, 2005, the same day the two security guards were arrested, the Aruban government requested help from FBI diving teams to search for Natalee offshore. And they thought that maybe something had happened and her body was left out at sea. The Aruban government also announced thousands of civil service workers would be let off work early on Monday, June 6th, to join in a massive search for Natalee. But all that momentum finally seemed to move the needle forward. On Wednesday, June 9th, 2005, ten days after Natalee vanished, all three of the prime suspects, 17-year-old Yoron Vandersloot, 21-year-old Deepak Kalpo and 18-year-old Satish Kalpo were arrested. But there was a problem. The police didn't have enough evidence to charge any of them with Natalee's disappearance, which meant that 116-day clock was ticking. Another issue was that plea bargains don't exist under the Aruban legal system, so trying to get one of them to take a deal in exchange for turning on the others wasn't an option either. At that point, the only thing detectives could do was question them repeatedly, hoping to get something incriminating out of them. Eventually, all three suspects did change their story about what happened that night with Natalee, but they all changed it to the same news story. Like the way Yoron first told it, he and Natalee danced together at Carlos & Charlie's until it closed, then got a ride from the Calpo brothers. This time, the boys said the Calpos dropped Yoron and Natalee off at a beach half a mile north of Natalee's hotel. Then the Calpos went home, leaving Yoron and Natalee alone. Natalee was extremely drunk, passing out repeatedly on the beach, but didn't want to go back to her hotel, so Yoron eventually left her there and just walked home. Now, that would have been just about two miles, so it definitely wasn't out of the question, but the police weren't so sure about it, especially because nobody came forward to say they'd seen Yoron walking on that route in the middle of the night. In fact, Yoron's parents couldn't confirm what time he got home, either. But at this point, the police felt like they weren't going to get anything else out of Yoron. So eventually, they brought in the FBI to consult on the interrogation and create a psychological profile of the suspects. That's when they got some chilling insights into Yoron's mind. According to the FBI, Yoron had a lot of superficial charm, but they believed he could be explosive if rejected or told no. He dominated his parents, who treated him like the boss of their household and never corrected his behavior. And not only did he go to casinos before he was legally allowed, but on at least one occasion, Paulus even gave his son money for his underage gambling. FBI profiler Mary Ellen O'Toole later recalled some more disturbing traits. She said, quote, I saw that cold bloodedness about him. He did have some traits that I'm used to that I've worked with before. He was very glib and charming. He was an extroverted person, and he could turn on the charm. To be clear, when Mary mentioned traits she's worked with before, she was referencing her past work on high-profile cases involving mass murderers and serial killers. And that profile was extremely concerning. But it still didn't provide any clear evidence against Euron or the Kalpos. However, one thing was obvious by then. Those security guards weren't involved. On June 13th, two weeks after Natalee vanished, both of them were released without ever being charged with a crime. And five days later, the police were on to another person of interest when they thought may have helped Euron cover up what he'd done. On June 18th, the police spent five hours questioning Euron's father, Paulus Vandersloot. Five days after that, on June 23rd, they took him into custody too. The authorities didn't explain why Paulus was arrested, but they did confirm he would be held separately from Euron in jail, but it didn't lead to any charges. Three days later, on June 26th, Paulus was released. But even then, Beth was sure Paulus had something to do with Natalee's disappearance. Once Paulus got out, Beth confronted him as well as Euron's mother, Anita, at the family's home, accusing them of covering for their son. Although they admitted that Euron was a troubled teen and that they hadn't been able to stop him from drinking and gambling, the VanderSloot said they had no idea what happened to Natalee. But Beth noticed that Paulus was sweating so heavily during this conversation that Anita had to wipe him down with a kitchen towel. Beth took it as clear evidence that he was lying. Still, Paulus stood by his son's story, and there was more bad news coming for the Holloways. On July 4th, a judge ordered the Calpo Brothers to be released after deciding there just wasn't enough evidence to keep them locked up. The judge did allow prosecutors to continue holding Yoron, but only for 60 more days unless they could charge him. The pressure was on. But as the weeks ticked by and Yoron's interrogations continued, nothing new emerged. So, Natalee's parents tried an old-fashioned way of loosening lips? Money. On July 25th, they announced they were raising the reward for Natalee's case to one million dollars. That was life-changing money in the United States and even more so in Aruba. And the very next day, it looked like someone might actually get that reward. On July 26th, a gardener named Carlos came forward, claiming he saw Yoron blocking the road near the Marriott Hotel a little before 3 a.m. the night Natalee disappeared. Carlos led police to a vacant lot near the Marriott, where he said he'd seen Yoron, the Calpos, in two large mounds of dirt. And by the time police arrived, the mounds of dirt were gone, but there was a pond there, so the authorities decided to drain it. Unfortunately, the lead went nowhere. There was nothing but trash at the bottom. Chances were the tip was made up in hopes of claiming the reward. There were a few more dead-end leads over the summer, and by mid-August, the police were getting desperate. Time was running out to hold Yoron without charging him, but Yoron did offer up some information that got the Calpo brothers re-arrested on August 26th, 2005. During his time behind bars, Yoron admitted that Natalee had passed out multiple times while he was fondling her, which could be charged as sexual assault. If that was true, the Calpos could be charged as accessories to sexual assault for being in the car while it happened. It was enough for the police to take the brothers back into custody, and they were hoping this would get the Calpos to confess, to finally tell them what happened the night Natalee disappeared. It didn't work, and not only did neither of the Calpo brothers turn on Yoron, but a judge ordered that they and Yoron were to be released on September 3rd, 2005. They had to remain available to police, meaning they could be arrested if they went anywhere outside the kingdom of the Netherlands. And that suited Yoron just fine, because that meant he could just go back to his homeland. On September 6th, Yoron left Aruba to start college in the Netherlands. Then on September 14th, an appeals court removed the restrictions altogether, allowing the suspects to travel as they pleased. Beth and Dave were furious, but they weren't giving up on finding their daughter. Dave hired a PI to keep looking for Natalee. While Beth took a more hands-on approach, she thought that punishing Aruba's tourism industry was the only way to keep Natalee's case from being forgotten. So in November of 2005, she joined Governor Bob Riley of Alabama in calling for the entire United States to boycott Aruba. After nearly six months of living in an Aruban hotel while bashing the country on American TV, Beth wasn't very popular on the island anymore, she'd even fallen out with her most loyal Aruban allies, but she didn't really care if everyone hated her as long as they kept looking for her daughter. Her husband seemed to feel differently, though. In a letter to Alabama's governor, Jug Twitty advised against a boycott, thinking it would only make things worse with Aruban officials. It seemed like the investigation was pulling Jug and Beth apart. At the same time, it forced her and Dave to work together, which they continued to do in February 2006, when they tried a new way of holding the Vandersloots accountable. On February 17th, Beth and Dave sued Paulus and Euron Vandersloot in civil court seeking unspecified damages. At first, it seemed like this was just symbolic, after all the Vandersloots were still in Aruba. But here's the thing. Beth and Dave knew Paulus and Euron were going to New York. Turned out, Euron was doing an interview with Fox News' Greta Van Susteren, which aired from March 1st to March 3rd, 2006. Beth had been on Greta's show on the record a bunch of times, but now Euron, who had turned 18 since Natalee's disappearance, was getting a chance to tell his side of the story, and he went through with it even after he and his father got served after landing in New York. During that tell-all, Euron stuck pretty close to the story he told while in custody about going with Natalee to the beach, then leaving her there. But now, Euron said Satish picked him up in Deepak's car and drove him home, meaning Euron had lied about walking the two miles back from the beach in the middle of the night. As for why Euron would leave a drunk foreign teenager alone on a beach in the middle of the night, well, he had an explanation for that, too. According to Euron, he repeatedly tried to take Natalee back to her hotel, but she refused, saying she wanted Euron to stay with her on the beach all night. Euron claimed he didn't know anything bad had happened to her until he got a call from his father the following night. At that point, Deepak, Satish, and Euron agreed to lie and say they'd taken her back to the Holiday Inn. Throughout the three-part interview, Euron seemed to go out of his way to criticize the Holloways, Natalee, and their supporters. Euron even accused the Aruban Police of hitting him during one of his interrogations. And for a while, that was it. Over the next few months, the Aruban Police got new tips, but none led to any arrests or meaningful leads. So once again, the case went cold. And it only got colder as time went on. In August 2006, the Holloway's civil suit against Euron and his father was dismissed. Beth seemed to think an American court would be more favorable in pursuing justice and damages, but the judge ruled that there wasn't a good reason for the suit to proceed in New York rather than Aruba. By December, the case had worn the family so thin that Beth Holloway and her second husband, Jug Twitty, officially separated and divorced in 2007. At that point, it seemed like Euron was feeling pretty confident that he'd never face official charges in the case, because that's when he made a shocking decision. In April 2007, Euron published a book about the case, and it was something else. Although Euron stuck to his new story about leaving Natalee alone on the beach, there was an interesting wrinkle, because he also referred to himself as a, quote, pathological liar. Surprise, surprise, later that month, on April 20th, 2007, the Iruban police searched the Vandersloots' home again. They didn't really explain why, but they were extremely thorough, even digging up the family's backyard. Inside the house, they seized diaries and a computer. Less than a month later, on May 12th, 2007, almost two years after Natalee disappeared, the Kalpo residence was also searched again. No big announcements were made at the time, but the authorities must have gotten something new, because on November 21st, 2007, Joran was arrested a third time while in the Netherlands. The Kalpo brothers, who were in Aruba, were also arrested again. All three men were suspected of sexual assault and murder. But apparently the authorities didn't have much evidence, and on December 1st, the Kalpos were released again. Joran followed on December 7th. Then on December 18th, the authorities gave up and officially ordered the investigation closed. But the story wasn't over. Not even close. A few months later, in February 2008, a Dutch news program aired some hidden camera footage that appeared to show Joran confessing to disposing of Natalee's body. It was all part of a sting by a Dutch crime reporter who was convinced that Joran was guilty. He'd gotten close to Joran by pretending to be a friendly drug dealer. In the video, Joran was smoking weed in his new friend's car, and while he still insisted that he hadn't killed Natalee, he admitted that she died while he was with her. He said that after they had sex on the beach, she started shaking and suddenly died. Then Joran said he panicked and called a friend for help. They loaded Natalee onto the friend's boat and dumped her body in the ocean. Without even making sure she was actually dead. The video was incredibly incriminating, but according to Joran, he was just high and telling his friend what he wanted to hear. The Dutch court seemed to agree. A judge ruled that the hidden camera footage wasn't enough to justify a new arrest, especially in the absence of any corroborating evidence. But there was one silver lining for the Holloways. After the Sting operation aired, Joran reportedly went into hiding. He was supposedly afraid for his life after people all around the world saw his recorded confession. After that, the case went quiet for a while. Until there was another unexpected twist. On February 10, 2010, Paulus van der Sloot died of a heart attack while playing tennis in Aruba. He was 57 years old. Joran went back to the island for the funeral. While he was there, he apparently thought up another way to profit from his notoriety. In March 2010, he contacted Beth Holloway's lawyer and offered to tell the truth about what happened to Natalee once and for all in exchange for $250,000. Beth made a smart move. She went to the FBI. They encouraged her to go forward with the deal in case Joran actually revealed something real. Beth's representative told Joran that he'd get a 10% down payment on the $250,000 and the rest would be delivered after he revealed the location of Natalee's body. Joran agreed on May 10th, 2010. He received $10,000 in cash along with a $15,000 wire transfer to his Dutch bank account. The FBI didn't provide that money. Beth was on the hook for it. Joran led Beth's representative to a house in Aruba where he said he'd concealed Natalee's remains in the foundation while it was being built. He even managed to blame his recently deceased father, saying Paulus helped him bury Natalee. But records and satellite images proved that workers didn't even break ground on the house until way after Natalee vanished. So this was obviously yet another lie. Euron eventually confirmed in an email that he knew the information he provided was quote worthless, but he kept Beth's $25,000 anyway. At this point, Euron had committed extortion. Theoretically he could be arrested for that in Aruba, then extradited to the United States to face trial. But according to the FBI, they weren't ready to bring charges yet, so they decided to buy their time. With $25,000 burning a hole in his pocket, 22-year-old Euron left Aruba and headed to Peru, where another tragedy was right around the corner. In 2010, 22-year-old Yoron van der Sloot left Aruba and headed to Peru. According to his mother, he was supposed to return to the Netherlands for inpatient mental health treatment, but went to South America instead. Sure enough, he quickly lost the $25,000 he'd just extorted from Beth, Natalee Holloway's mother, and by May 30th, 2010, the fifth anniversary of Natalee's disappearance, he was pretty broke. But he was still hanging around the poker tables, looking for a chance to buy back in. But before he could get back to the cards, Yoron left a casino in Lima, Peru, with a 21-year-old woman named Stephanie Flores Ramirez, who he'd met just a few hours earlier. Stephanie was a promising young poker player, and she'd reportedly just won 5,000 Peruvian Solas, which is a little under 2,000 US dollars, in a tournament. Still, she wasn't ready to go all in as a professional poker player yet. She was in her junior year at the University of Lima, studying business administration. In her free time, she loved to play soccer and honed her business skills by helping her four brothers run their event planning business. It's not clear why she left the casino with Yoron, but she followed him into his hotel room at about 5 a.m., a little after 7 a.m. Yoron briefly left, then came back with bread and two cups of coffee. But at 8:36 a.m., he left the hotel for good after telling the staff not to bother his girl in the room. In fact, he told him not to go into his room at all. It wasn't until three days later, on June 2nd, that hotel staff finally went inside and found Stephanie's dead body. She was face down with a broken neck and bruising on her body. Her credit cards were missing, along with the 5,000 soles she won playing poker. While this time, the evidence against Yoron was overwhelming. There was surveillance footage of him and Stephanie at the hotel, witnesses, and a body in the hotel room he booked. More than that, Stephanie's father was a retired race car driver who'd run for president in Peru. So the family was well known with high level connections to the government and law enforcement. Police immediately launched a manhunt across South America with every expectation of locating Yoron, especially because they already knew which way he'd gone. He'd tricked two Peruvian taxi drivers into taking him across the border into Chile, then cheated them out of payment. Now they were cooperating with the police. One day after Stephanie was found dead, Yoron was arrested about 2,000 miles away in Chile. A police convoy transferred him back to Peru where he arrived on June 5th. Yoron confessed to killing Stephanie, claiming he did it in a rage because she'd used his laptop without his permission and discovered information about his connection to the Natalee Holloway case. While that confession was reported as fact in US tabloids, it raised eyebrows in Peru. Killing in a sudden fit of rage carried only a 3-5 year sentence there, while premeditated murder could bring up to 35 years. So it seemed like Yoron came up with his confession specifically to get a shorter sentence. Plus, according to the police, a search of Yoron's laptop proved there was nothing on it about his connection to Natalee. What's more, they knew that Yoron wasn't exactly shy about his connection to Natalee. So even if Stephanie did find something, why would that make him angry enough to kill her? So they took his confession with a grain of salt. Instead, they believed Yoron planned the murder to steal Stephanie's poker winnings. And everyone else in Peru seemed to agree with that theory. On his way to be arraigned for first degree murder and robbery, Yoron was briefly marched past members of the public who pelted him with rotten vegetables. By June 10th, Yoron was so desperate to get out of Peru that he offered to trade information on the location of Natalee's body for extradition to Aruba. But neither the Peruvian nor the Aruban authorities were interested in this deal. They didn't trust Yoron to tell the truth, which meant he would stay in Peru and be tried there. It took 18 months, but on January 11th, 2012, Yoron pleaded guilty to charges of murder and robbery. He received a 28-year sentence, close to the maximum, and was ordered to pay 200,000 soles of restitution to Stephanie's family. At the time, that was about $75,000 US dollars. Accounting for time served while awaiting trial, that meant Yoron could be extradited to the US in 2038. At that point, he would face the extortion charges that he'd finally received after what happened with Beth. It offered some sense of closure to see Yoron behind bars. Not only that, but the day before Yoron's sentencing, an Alabama judge declared Natalee dead. Dave had requested this while Beth objected. Dave wanted Natalee's little brother to be able to use her college fund, and he wanted to be able to take Natalee off his family health insurance plan, constantly having to see little reminders like that was agonizing for Dave. And he still had his two little girls with his second wife, Robin, to think about. The one thing that he and Beth did agree on was that this wasn't the end of the search. Unfortunately, it ended up pushing them even further apart. In 2018, Beth sued Oxygen Media for $35 million over a docu-series called The Disappearance of Natalee Holloway. She claimed she was tricked into providing a DNA sample for comparison with remains found in Aruba without telling her it was for a television show. She also claimed the show raised her hopes under false pretenses by letting her believe they might have found Natalee's remains. In reality, the series was scripted and the producers knew the bones they were testing weren't her daughters. According to the lawsuit, the producers knew the bones weren't even human. They turned out to be pieces of a wild boar skull allegedly planted by a supposed witness who appeared in the documentary. The stars of that documentary were Dave and his private investigator. Clearly, Natalee's parents were no longer on the same page at this point, to say the least, but on January 10th, 2020, some sources claimed both parties agreed to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning it can't be filed again. And that's where things stood until 2023, when the case took a final surprising turn. That May, the new president of Peru agreed to temporarily extradite Yoron van der Sloot to the United States, although he would have to return to finish his sentence in Peru. Yoron arrived in the US in June 2023. Finally, American prosecutors had some leverage over him. There were mountains of evidence in the extortion case, so if Yoron wanted any kind of leniency, he was going to have to give them something in return. On October 18th, 2023, as part of a plea agreement, 36-year-old Yoron pleaded guilty to extortion and wire fraud charges. He was sentenced to 20 years to be served concurrently with his 28-year sentence for killing Stephanie Flores. That meant he'd be adding just seven years to his total sentence and be set for release in 2045 at the age of 58. The US could have insisted on a consecutive sentence, but Yoron gave prosecutors what they really wanted. His formal confession to murdering Natalee in recorded form. So here's the final story for now. Yoron claimed that the Calpo brothers left him and Natalee alone on the beach near the Marriott Hotel. Natalee rejected Yoron's attempts to have sex with her, so he then attempted to sexually assault her. Natalee fought back, kneeing Yoron in the crotch as hard as she could. Outraged at being rejected, Yoron kicked Natalee in the face hard enough to knock her unconscious. At that point, Yoron said he noticed a cinder block nearby, grabbed it, and used it to smash her head in. Although it was dark on the beach, he said he could see that her face was caved in. After that, he dragged her body into the ocean and pushed her in. Unfortunately, the statute of limitations for homicide in Aruba has since expired, so Yoron will never be charged with Natalee's murder. But ultimately, both of Natalee's parents believe Yoron is guilty, and that his final confession most accurately describes the murder itself. Beth issued a statement right after Yoron's confession. She said, quote, Yoron Vandersloot is no longer the suspect in my daughter's murder. He is the killer. For Beth, reaching the end of this nightmare was kind of closure. There was nothing she could do to bring Natalee back. But she did everything to make sure she got justice. Beth is the epitome of the saying, a mother's love knows no bounds. She moved mountains to ensure that Natalee wasn't forgotten. And thanks to her perseverance, she never will be. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Carter Roy, and this is Murder, True Crime Stories. Come back next time for the story of another murder and all the people it affected. Murder, True Crime Stories is a Crime House original powered by PAVE Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media, at Crime House on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review and follow Murder True Crime Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference. And to enhance your Murder True Crime Stories listening experience, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode ad free. We'll be back on Tuesday. Murder True Crime Stories is hosted by me, Carter Roy, and is a Crime House original powered by PAVE Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Murder True Crime Stories team, Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Natalee Pertsofsky, Lori Marinelli, Cassidy Dillon, and Russell Nash. Thank you for listening.