Taken: Natalee Holloway is a new three-part Netflix documentary about the disappearance of 18-year-old Natalee Holloway, who vanished during a trip to Aruba in 2005. The series revisits the case through the eyes of her mother, Beth, who has never spoken in such detail about her ordeal before, along with the people who spent years searching for answers. One question has followed the case for more than two decades: What really happened to Natalee, and what became of Joran van der Sloot, the man who admitted killing her but was never actually punished for it?
Joran van der Sloot is a Dutch man who was 17 when Natalee Holloway disappeared during what should have been a celebratory holiday with friends; he was one of the last people known to have seen her. Natalee had traveled from Alabama to Aruba with classmates to celebrate their high school graduation, and was due to fly home on May 30, 2005. She was last seen leaving a bar in Oranjestad with van der Sloot and two other young men, brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe.
All three were questioned and arrested during the investigation, but none was charged in connection with her disappearance at the time. Natalee’s body has never been found, but van der Sloot has confessed to her murder. In 2023, van der Sloot admitted that he killed Natalee in Aruba.
According to a transcript of his account, he said they were walking on a beach when she rejected his advances. He said he kicked her and hit her with a cinder block, then pushed her body into the sea. The confession came as part of a U.S. case against van der Sloot.
He had tried to extort money from Natalee's mother, Beth Holloway, by promising to reveal the location of her daughter’s remains and reveal to her what had happened. He pleaded guilty to extortion and wire fraud and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. However, van der Sloot was never convicted of Natalee’s murder.
The U.S. case was about extortion and wire fraud, and he has not been charged with her killing. So although he confessed, it is more accurate to say he admitted to killing Natalee than to describe him as a convicted murderer (at least in the case of Natalee). Van der Sloot is in prison in Peru, where he is serving a 28-year sentence for the 2010 murder of Peruvian student Stephany Flores Ramírez.
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