More than two decades after Natalee Holloway vanished on a high school graduation trip to Aruba, the man who confessed to killing her is back in the spotlight thanks to a new Netflix docuseries — and her mother is still fighting to see him formally charged with her murder.
Joran van der Sloot admitted to bludgeoning the 18-year-old Alabama teen to death as part of a 2023 proffer agreement, nearly 20 years after Natalee was last seen leaving a nightclub with him. With Netflix’s three-part docuseries Taken: Natalee Holloway now streaming, viewers are once again asking where van der Sloot is, how long he will remain behind bars and when he will be released.
When Will Joran van der Sloot Be Released?
Van der Sloot is currently in custody at Challapalca prison in Peru. He is serving a 28-year sentence for the 2010 murder of 21-year-old Peruvian college student Stephany Flores Ramírez, which is running concurrently with a 20-year U.S. federal prison sentence for extortion and wire fraud. Under that arrangement, he is expected to be released in 2045.
Joran van der Sloot’s Crimes Explained
Holloway disappeared on May 30, 2005, while celebrating her high school graduation in Oranjestad, Aruba. She was last seen leaving the Carlos’n Charlie’s nightclub and getting into a car with van der Sloot and brothers Deepak Kalpoe and Satish Kalpoe. Van der Sloot was quickly named a suspect after the accounts he gave to authorities didn’t line up.
All three men were arrested in June 2005 on suspicion of kidnapping and murder, then released without charges that September. They were arrested a second time in November 2007 and released one month later. Aruban officials reopened the case in 2008 after Dutch crime reporter Peter R. de Vries released hidden-camera footage in which van der Sloot described Holloway’s death, but the case fell apart when officials couldn’t corroborate his statements.
Five years after Holloway vanished, van der Sloot killed Flores Ramírez in Lima, Peru. He fled to Chile but was arrested in June 2010. That same month, he was indicted in the United States on federal wire fraud and extortion charges tied to a March 2010 meeting with Natalee’s mother, Beth Holloway, during which he demanded money in exchange for information about Natalee’s disappearance.
Van der Sloot pleaded guilty to the federal extortion charges in 2023 and was sentenced to 20 years. As part of the plea deal, he finally admitted to killing Natalee and agreed to share information about her death. Aruba enforces a 12-year statute of limitations for homicides, meaning the window to convict him there has expired.
Where Is Joran van der Sloot Now?
Van der Sloot married Leidy Figueroa in July 2014 at the Peruvian prison where he is still serving his sentence. His attorney confirmed to CNN that Figueroa was an accountant and had one child at the time of their wedding. The couple welcomed a daughter on September 30, 2014, just three months after they tied the knot.
His attorney confirmed to the Daily Mail in 2023 that van der Sloot was divorcing Figueroa and moving on. “Joran had a bunch of girlfriends,” his lawyer said at the time. “Lots of girls used to visit him.”
Inside Beth Holloway’s Continued Fight for Justice
Even with van der Sloot’s confession in hand, Beth says she is not finished pursuing accountability for her daughter’s death. “The nightmare’s over, right? But I’m not done yet,” she told Tudum after the November 4, 2026, premiere of Taken: Natalee Holloway.
Beth has spent the past two years working with Netherlands attorneys Royce de Vries and Annemiek van Spanje to file a murder complaint against van der Sloot with Dutch authorities. “I’ve been working busy behind the scenes, got the murder complaint,” she said. “And now we’re working on, hopefully, murder charges. So I’ve been busy, but one step at a time.”
She said she feels confident in her legal team, noting that Royce has a personal connection to the case because he is the son of Peter R. de Vries, the Dutch investigative journalist whose 2008 reporting documented van der Sloot admitting to his involvement in Natalee’s murder. “I know this is a legacy to his father,” Beth said of Royce. “He’s going to finish this job.” She added that a Dutch prosecutor is “obtaining all the documents” and “getting all Natalee’s case files.”
Beth has also reflected on what the long investigation cost her and why the word “closure” has never fit. “The not-knowing is the never-ending nightmare. And with that nightmare, you endure endless scammers, theories, investigations that are swirling around you, and they never cease because you can never say it’s over,” she said. She added that she now feels at peace “because the nightmare of not knowing what happened to Natalee is over, and the endless scammers, the endless taunting of her killer, they’re over.”
Getting formal murder charges against van der Sloot, she said, is her “new mission.”
This story was compiled with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists.
