Sorry, what? Natalee Holloway’s killer claims supernatural visitor gave him ‘purpose’ in jail

‘I suddenly saw a white light and I looked in that direction and there was someone standing there’

2 minutes ago

Kieran Galpin | Entertainment

Natalee Holloway’s killer, Joran van der Sloot, is a fan of outlandish theories and claims, as evidenced by Taken: Natalee Holloway, but those stories continued well past that awful 2005 incident.

Over the course of Netflix’s new three-part documentary, we watched Joran tie himself up in knots with fabricated stories, outright lies, and wild goose chases to send Natalee’s mum, Beth, on.

Over the years, he claimed that Natalee was dropped at her hotel, that she fell asleep on the beach, that she was sitting by the ocean when he left, that she had a seizure and died, and that he sold her into slavery. None were true, as revealed by his 2023 confession about Natalee Holloway’s murder.

Credit: Netflix

In a sea of strange Joran van der Sloot stories, this is up there

In a 2013 interview with Dutch media, which was a full decade before his confession, Joran van der Sloot spoke about life in prison. He was found guilty of killing Stephany Flores after she’d stumbled upon his connection to the Natalee Holloway case.

In the interview, he talked about finding “purpose” from within his jail cell. Did it come after soul-searching? Nope, he got a visit from a psychic medium…

“I was sitting in my cell, severely depressed. I suddenly saw a white light and I looked in that direction and there was someone standing there. I thought: Maybe there is someone inside. But it was a Dutchman who started speaking to me,” he explained. “He introduced himself as the paranormal medium Robbert van den Broeke. He said that he had come to reassure me and: ‘I don’t want you to do crazy things.’ I am afraid that you want to harm yourself.”

Credit: Paolo Aguilar/EPA/Shutterstock

Joran claimed that Robbert knew personal details about him, and that he gave the killer a code word, “white horse”, to prove the visit was real.

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“My lawyer then requested that code from Robbert van den Broeke via email. It was correct. The code was ‘white horse’. I had never heard of that man. I really didn’t know who he was before he appeared to me,” he claimed.

Though he admitted that the story was unbelievable, he maintained that it had happened, explaining: “I shouldn’t be afraid, he said, improve myself, let go of my fears. He was working on me. I have never experienced anything like this before. I will never forget this. For the first time in my life, I feel love. I feel from the very core of my being that I must share this with others.”

Robbert van den Broeke. Credit: YouTube

He said it pushed him to accept his life as it was and gave him the “purpose” of helping young men struggling with gambling addictions. He said, “What I did must never happen again”, but was not referring to the murders.

To really top off this bizarre and obviously fake story, Dutch media got a comment from the medium in question.

“There are many people who see me appear. I felt that I could give Joran peace and security, and suddenly it was as if I were present there; I saw his cell. I communicated with him through thoughts. I felt a lot of love flowing towards him again; it was as if old pains could be processed within him,” Robbert van den Broeke said.

“Deep down, Joran is a vulnerable and sweet person who has lacked a lot of love. I feel very strongly that I have a connection with Joran, because he is an example of someone who has been harassed and demonized for years. This has put him in a kind of oppression. If hatred had never been sown towards him, this would never have happened.”