Joran van der Sloot gave bizarre explanation for lies about Natalee Holloway in prison interview

His versions of that night ranged from dropping her at the hotel to selling her

1 minute ago

Kieran Galpin | Entertainment

Though Beth Holloway was certain that Joran van der Sloot had killed her daughter, Natalee, he offered up various invented stories as he attempted to evade prison.

In Netflix’s new documentary, Taken: Natalee Holloway, which is about the 2005 disappearance of the 18-year-old, the Aruba local was pegged as the man responsible. Despite Beth Holloway’s persistence in finding out what happened, it took her 20 years and another dead teenager to finally get some closure.

“And I see right next to her there’s a huge cinderblock laying on the beach,” he admitted in 2023.

“I take this and I smash her head in with it completely. Her face basically collapses in. Even though it’s dark, I can see her face is collapsed. Afterwards I don’t exactly know what… I’m scared. I don’t know what to do. I decide to take her and put her into the ocean. So I grab her and I half pull and half walk with her into the ocean. I push her off… I walk up to about my knees into the ocean and I push her off into the sea. After that, I get out and I walk home.”

But before that, all Beth Holloway got was lies, lies ranging from dropping her off at the hotel to her body being buried in the foundation of a building.

Why did Joran van der Sloot invent stories?

Credit: Dinko Eichin/UPI/Shutterstock

The most obvious answer is because he didn’t want to get caught, but you can maintain your innocence without creating outlandish stories.

Still, over the course of 18 years, he claimed: Natalee was dropped at the hotel, she fell asleep on the beach, she was sitting by the ocean when he left, she had a seizure and died, he sold her into slavery.

In a 2010 interview with NBC’s Dateline, which was the first time he’d spoken out since killing Stephany Flores, Joran van der Sloot was asked why he accepted money from Natalee’s mum when he knew he wouldn’t give her what she wanted.

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Credit: Netflix

“I have had five years long that people have just been blaming me for something. And yeah, I have a lot of anger built up because of that also,” he said. “And yeah, at one point I just thought that, OK, you know, ‘You keep insisting that you want to give me this money. I’ve already told a lot of different stories. I’ll do it–I’ll do it again.’ And yeah, I know it’s very wrong–very wrong, what I did.”

He was then directly asked why he made up stories, but I wouldn’t say he answered truthfully.

Continuing with yet another invented scenario, he said: “There were–people were paying me to–paying me to–yeah, to make up stories, and I was really good at making up stories.

“Everybody keeps coming at you, asking you questions, asking you stuff and, you know, you don’t know something, and finally you start to think, ‘OK, well…(censored by network)…you. If you–if you want something, then I’ll tell you whatever you want to hear. Sure. I misused the situation for my own advantage and I feel bad about that. And if I could change that, I would take it back for sure.”

Though people were paying him for interviews, they were looking for the truth.