Days after Joran van der Sloot confessed to fatally bludgeoning Natalee Holloway on an Aruban beach and dumping her body in the ocean in 2005, prosecutors on the Caribbean island revealed they have not shut the door on bringing charges there.
Although there is a 12-year statute of limitations for murder in Aruba, a spokesperson for the public prosecutor told reporters that their investigation into Holloway’s murder remains open and that the question of whether van der Sloot could face homicide charges “cannot be answered unequivocally.” Van der Sloot was not charged in the U.S. in connection with Holloway’s murder.
“Your question as to whether the suspicion against Joran van der Sloot is statute-barred cannot be answered with a straightforward yes or no,” the spokesperson told AL.com. “It depends on several factors within the investigation. The Police Force, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Aruba, and other investigative entities will follow up on any serious leads that could solve the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. The Holloway case is still an open investigation in Aruba.”
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The spokesperson told The Daily Beast that the office has requested the U.S. Department of Justice send over all court documents, transcripts, and other documents related to its investigation into van der Sloot.
Van der Sloot, a 36-year-old Dutch citizen, was sentenced to 240 months in a U.S. federal prison this week after he admitted he tried to extort Holloway’s mother in 2010, promising information about the 18-year-old’s death and the location of her remains in exchange for money.
As part of his plea deal in the extortion case, van der Sloot admitted he used a cinderblock to bash Holloway to death after she rejected his sexual advances, waded into the water with her body and let her go, and then went home to watch porn—apparently solving a mystery that has stayed in the headlines for nearly two decades.
Van der Sloot was not charged in the U.S. with murdering Holloway, who was from Alabama and on a graduation trip to Aruba when she vanished.
“You didn’t get what you wanted from Natalee, your sexual satisfaction, so you brutally killed her,” Beth Holloway said at the sentencing hearing. “You are the one in Aruba no one wants to be, the black mark on the island.”
Outside of court, Holloway’s mother did not offer much hope that van der Sloot would see charges in Aruba, where the 12-year statute of limitation on homicide charges has long passed. “Hopefully, maybe, they will look into that. I have what I need,” she said. “I don’t know about that.”
Van der Sloot’s lawyer, Maximo Altez, told The Daily Beast that he spoke to his client and that he is set to return to Peru next week to continue serving his 28-year sentence in Peru for the 2010 murder of another woman. Holloway’s family lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
