5 Disturbing Revelations From Joran Van Der Sloot's Natalee Holloway Murder Confession

A sense of closure has come with the Natalee Holloway murder case, as Joran van der Sloot has confessed to killing the young woman. However, the confession has come with many disturbing details.

In 2005, the Holloway family's life changed forever after Natalee disappeared in Oranjestad, Aruba, per ABC News. An 18-year-old Natalee was last seen driving off with a group of locals including a then-17-year-old, van der Sloot. From the beginning, van der Sloot claimed he had nothing to do with Natalee's disappearance. However, he and a group of friends were arrested in June 2005, but that didn't last long. By September 2005, they were released without charges. In February 2006, van der Sloot was interviewed by ABC News, and he maintained his innocence, he shared, "The last time I saw her, she was sitting on the sand by the ocean."

The twists and turns of the case did not stop. In March 2010, van der Sloot "allegedly demanded money — $250,000 with $25,000 paid upfront," from Natalee's mother, Beth Hollaway, in exchange for the location of her daughter's remains," per ABC News. Although Beth forked out the money, nothing came from this exchange. In 2012, Natalee was declared legally dead, but years would pass before any justice. In October 2023, 18 years after she went missing, van der Sloot confessed to killing the young teen and extorting Beth, per CNN. Although his confession has brought a sense of closure, new disturbing revelations have come with his confession.

Since Natalee Holloway's disappearance in 2005, Joran van der Sloot has constantly changed his story. When she first went missing in 2005, van der Sloot claimed he returned Holloway to her hotel unscathed, per ABC News. Years later, in 2008, his story changed as he told authorities that Holloway suddenly died while the two were allegedly having intercourse, per CNN. Now, 18 years after her disappearance, the Holloway family and the world are getting the truth about how the 18-year-old passed away, and it's truly tragic.

In documents obtained by TMZ, van der Sloot's confession to killing Holloway includes graphic details of how her death unfolded. He told his lawyer, in a transcript, "I start feeling her up again and she tells me no. She tells me she doesn't want me to – to feel her up. Uh, I insist. I keep feeling her up either way." After van der Sloot refused to stop, Holloway defended herself by kicking him in the crotch, so he kicked her "extremely hard," knocking her out. Van der Sloot didn't stop there, and it only got more disturbing as he revealed he grabbed a nearby cinder block and confessed, "I smash her head in with it completely." Van der Sloot then revealed he took Holloway's body into the nearby ocean, where she drifted off and was never found. His sinister behavior changed the lives of the Holloway family forever.

Natalee Holloway's parents, Beth and Dave Hollaway have had to come face to face with the worst possible situation any parent can endure. In 2005, when Natalee went missing, her entire family flew to Aruba with the ambition of finding her, per AL.com. After Natalee was declared legally dead in 2012, they held onto the hope that one day, her death would be brought to justice.

From the very beginning, her mother, Beth, had a gut-wrenching feeling that Joran van der Sloot committed the murder. In 2018, she told 20/20 (via ABC News), "I thought, 'You're it. Did I know what was to come? No. But I knew that I was gonna hang onto him [van der Sloot] 'til my last breath."

Call it parent intuition, but Beth wasn't wrong. In October 2023, van der Sloot confessed to killing Natalee in the 2005 murder. As if that wasn't hard enough, it was revealed that Natalee's parents heard the confession "in real-time," per AL.com. This must have been incredibly difficult and disturbing for the Natalee's parents, but Beth does feel a sense of closure from the confession. Following the confession, she shared in a statement, "I got the answer I've been searching for since 2005. Joran van der Sloot's confession means we have finally reached the end of this never-ending nightmare, and for me, that's even better than closure."

Joran van der Sloot confessed to brutally killing Natalee Holloway, and his behavior afterward showed how disturbed he is. In his October confession, Natalee's mother, Beth Holloway, was the only member of the family who spoke in court. Beth shared a tear-jerking statement directly to van der Sloot and shared details on what he did after he killed Natalee.

Beth began by sharing, "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 van der Sloot's confession, he admitted he pushed Natalee into sexual advances, but she refused to do so, which led him to kill her with a cinder block, per TMZ. Beth addressed the fact that Natalee refused his sexual advances, she shared, "You didn't get what you wanted from Natalee, your sexual satisfaction, so you brutally killed her...You are the one in Aruba no one wants to be, the black mark on the island."

In a disturbing detail in Beth's statement, she revealed that after van der Sloot killed Natalee, he went home to watch pornography, per AL.com. Beth shared how she felt sorry for van der Sloot's mother and grandmother before ending her statement on the endless possibilities Natalee had ahead of her had he not killed her. She said, "I have no doubt she would have made all her dreams come true. She really would have."

Joran van der Sloot not only killed Natalee Holloway but also a second woman, Stephany Flores, in Peru in 2010, to which he also pleaded guilty, per The Florida Times Union. Despite his terrible actions, van der Sloot claimed he was a changed man in his disturbing apology to the Holloway family.

According to AL.com, van der Sloot showed no emotion as pleaded guilty to killing Natalee and while Beth Holloway delivered her statement. However, he did speak for a brief period to address her family and his own and formally apologize for what he did. He shared, "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."

One of the most unsettling parts of his apology was how he explained he is now Christian and has changed for the better, per AL.com. He shared, "I am no longer that person I was back then." While he claims he may not be the same person he was years ago, he still took away two innocent lives and affected their families forever.

Without a doubt, Joran van der Sloot's confession to killing Natalee Holloway brings a sense of closure to the case. However, he will be serving his 20 years of conviction concurrently with his murder charges of Stephany Flores. According to Cornell Law School, "a concurrent sentence allows the defendant to serve all of their sentences at the same time, where the longest period of time is controlling." For the murder of Flores, van der Sloot was sentenced to 28 years in prison, meaning his time in prison for both murders will end in 2045 when he is 58 years old, per AL.com.

U.S. District Court Judge Anna Manasco considered rejecting van der Sloot's guilty plea in order to have a consecutive sentence with him serving 20 years for killing Holloway after his sentence for killing Flores, which would pretty much mean that he would spend the rest of his life in prison. However, Manasco was concerned that if she rejected the plea, she would lose his confession of killing Holloway, so she accepted his plea.

Although it is a bit unsettling knowing van der Sloot can be released in the future, one thing is for sure. If he is released from prison in Peru for the murder of Flores, he will still have to serve the rest of his 20-year sentence for murdering Holloway in the U.S.