Taken: Natalee Holloway director says why they refused chance to interview Joran van der Sloot

The director of Taken: Natalee Holloway has revealed they had the chance to interview killer Joran van der Sloot for the documentary, but turned it down. The three-part series looks into the case of the missing student, and the involvement of van der Sloot. 

18-year-old student Natalee Holloway travelled to Aruba with 124 other students as part of a graduation trip, in May 2005. She vanished on the final day of the trip. The last time she was ever seen, Natalee was driving off in a grey Honda with a then 17-year-old Joran van der Sloot, and brothers Satish and Deepak Kalpoe.  

Joran van der Sloot later confessed to the murder of Natalee Holloway. He is currently housed at Challapalca prison, but this sentence is regarding the murder of 21-year-old business student Stephany Flores Ramírez. He has never been prosecuted over Natalee’s death. 

The killer didn’t feature in Taken: Natalee Holloway on Netflix, but the director of the show has said that was a choice made by them, not by him. As we saw in the show, van der Sloot seemed to enjoy lying to journalists and authorities, and making up stories about what happened to Natalee. So, the show decided they didn’t want to give him the opportunity to do that even more. 

via Netflix

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Speaking to LADbible, director Dani Sloane said: “I think when you talk to Joran, when anyone talks to Joran, there’s obviously a piece of like ‘How can you believe what he’s saying?’ It’s very different when he’s hooked up to a polygraph so… there was definitely thought about it, consideration.

“At the end of the day, he’s in prison in Peru. He has told his side of the story in every which way, left and right. And we’ve finally gotten the truth. It’s potentially a can of worms to reopen that again and give him a platform to tell another story and just confuse the issue even more when he’s not hooked up to a polygraph and doesn’t have the FBI sitting across from him.

“Journalists have gone this route before with him and have gotten what they’ve gotten.”

Taken: Natalee Holloway is available on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news and drops, like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.