Natalee Holloway “fought like hell” moments before Joran van der Sloot brutally murdered her and dragged her body into the sea nearly 20 years ago, the American teenager’s mother said in a new interview.
“Yeah, I said, ‘That’s her.’ She fought like hell,” Beth Holloway recalled of the time van der Sloot confessed to lashing out at Natalee after she kneed him between the legs while she resisted his sexual advances.
“I think he fought like a demon with his killer. She stood her ground,” Beth told CBS News.
Natalee Holloway was 18 years old when she disappeared on the last night of her senior trip to Aruba on May 30, 2005.
The Alabama native was last seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot, who later became the prime suspect in her disappearance.
Earlier this month, van der Sloot, now 36 and serving 28 years behind bars in Peru for the murder of another young woman in 2010, finally confessed that he kicked Natalee in the head and then smashed her face with a cinder block after she rejected him on a beach not far from their hotel.
Natalee Holloway disappeared on May 30, 2005.
“It’s just searing on the soul and it hurts deeply,” Beth said, listening to van der Sloot describe how he dragged her daughter’s mutilated body into the ocean.
“But you know you’re there in a functional role because this is the moment I’ve been looking for for 18 years. As difficult as it is to listen, it is not as torturous as not knowing. It was about time I knew,” she explained.
“She was killed simply for standing her ground,” Beth added to CBS.
“I was so proud of her.”
Van der Sloot’s explosive confession was part of a plea deal he made with US prosecutors in connection with a case for trying to extort $250,000 from Natalee’s family in exchange for information about the location of her body.
Ultimately, he led the family investigator on a wild goose chase before fleeing to Peru to avoid authorities, where he murdered Stephany Flores five years to the day Natalee disappeared.
As part of the settlement in the Holloway case, van der Sloot agreed to allow the teen’s family to hear his account of Natalee’s death in “real time.”
Beth Holloway speaks to reporters after Joran van der Sloot pleaded guilty on Wednesday.AP
The family agreed to the deal to “finally get the answers we’ve been searching for all these years,” Beth said.
Van der Sloot formally pleaded guilty to extortion charges on Wednesday, three days before what would have been Natalee’s 37th birthday, and just a few miles from the high school from which she graduated a few days before her death.
“You are a murderer!” Beth told van der Sloot in her victim impact statement.
“Remember that every time the prison door slams shut. You are a murderer. “You didn’t get what you wanted from Natalee (sexual satisfaction), so you brutally killed her.”
Joran van der Sloot confessed to beating Natalee Holloway to death almost 20 years ago.REUTERS
Natalee’s father, Dave Holloway, called his daughter’s killer “evil personified,” CBS reported.
The 20-year sentence for extortion imposed on Van der Sloot will now run concurrently with his current murder charge in Peru, where he will return to serve the remainder of his prison sentence.
Despite his confession, van der Sloot will not face charges in Aruba for Natalee’s murder, because the statute of limitations for murder charges on the island expires after only 12 years, CBS noted.
A spokesman for the Aruba prosecutor’s office said the investigation into the Holloway case is still open and that authorities “will follow up on any serious leads.”
Beth Holloway photographed with Natalee just days before her murder. AP Joran van der Sloot is already serving 28 years in a Peruvian prison for killing a woman in 2010. Getty Images
During his formal statement, van der Sloot apologized to Natalee’s family and stated that he was a changed man since becoming a born-again Christian.
But Natalee’s younger half-sister, Kaitlyn Holloway, told The Post that she believes the killer’s words were “bullshit.”
“I don’t think it was a sincere apology considering all the damage it’s caused,” the 20-year-old scoffed.
Speaking to CBS News after the court proceedings, Beth Holloway seemed sad but optimistic now that she can consider her daughter’s case resolved.
“I have peace,” he said.
“I felt very victorious.”
With post cables
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Source: vtt.edu.vn