For nearly two decades, Beth Holloway lived with uncertainty surrounding her daughter Natalee’s disappearance. But in 2023, she finally received the answers she had spent years searching for.
Now, the case is back in the spotlight following the release of Netflix’s three-part documentary, Taken: Natalee Holloway, which takes a closer look at the young woman’s disappearance and the fight for justice.
Natalee vanished in May 2005 while visiting Aruba. Her mother, who was in Alabama at the time, immediately traveled to the Caribbean island, determined to find out what had happened. Beth soon crossed paths with Dutch national Joran van der Sloot.
Although she had suspicions about him from their very first encounter, it would take another 18 years before he admitted to killing her daughter.
In an interview with NBC News about the documentary, Beth said: “I finally have a conclusion. There’s a finale.
“It took me 18 years to get the answers. But justice takes a lot of work, and I felt like now’s the time to tell, for the first time, a comprehensive and conclusive story of what happened to Natalee and her journey of 20 years.”
“Taken: Natalee Holloway” on Netflix
Looking back at her first meeting with van der Sloot, Beth said: “My initial interaction with Joran was another moment of, ‘He knows. He knows what happened to her.’”
The long-awaited admission eventually came in 2023, while van der Sloot was already serving time for a separate murder case.
She described his confession as “a long time coming” during her conversation with NBC News.
“The torturous part is the not knowing, and as shocking and as torturous as it is to hear this, it is finally a relief to know that’s what I had been searching for for 18 years.
“I had to know, no matter how brutal it was. I needed to know what happened.”
Van der Sloot was ultimately given a 20-year prison sentence in the United States. Under the arrangement reached between the American and Peruvian authorities, that sentence would run concurrently with his existing prison term in Peru, rather than being served separately, according to UNILAD.
He remains incarcerated in Peru. He is not expected to be released before 2045.
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