(CN) — It wasn’t exactly closure, Beth Holloway said Wednesday outside the Hugo L. Black federal courthouse in Birmingham, but it was justice. “The never-ending nightmare” of her daughter’s 2005 disappearance can finally cease.
Joran van der Sloot, the primary suspect, confessed that he murdered Natalee Holloway during her high school graduation trip to Aruba, as part of a plea deal in his extortion case.
During the initial investigation, Aruban police determined Holloway left a nightclub with van der Sloot, a Dutch national, and two other men and never returned to her hotel room. Van der Sloot has long been the primary suspect in the 18-year-old's death but has never been charged. However, he was convicted of the separate murder of a Peruvian woman in 2010 and has been serving a 28-year prison sentence in Peru.
That same year, he was indicted on felony fraud charges in Alabama after demanding $250,000 from the Holloway family in exchange for information about her death and the location of her remains. A $25,100 advance payment was made, but van der Sloot never provided relevant information until after he was extradited to the United States earlier this summer and later agreed to a plea deal.
While reading a victim impact statement at his sentencing hearing Wednesday, Beth Holloway first disclosed that van der Sloot admitted he beat the teenager to death after she refused his sexual advances.
"You terminated her dreams, her potential, her possibilities,” Holloway testified Wednesday, moments before U.S. District Court Judge Anna M. Manasco sentenced van der Sloot to 240 months in a federal prison, to run concurrently with his Peruvian sentence. As part of the extradition agreement, van der Sloot will return to Peru to complete his sentence there.
After the hearing, Beth Holloway said van der Sloot’s confession was verified by a polygraph exam.
“Today I can tell you with certainty that after 18 years, Natalee’s case is solved and Joran van der Sloot is no longer the suspect in my daughter's murder, he is the killer,” she said.
Holloway said van der Sloot “described when and how he killed her.”
According to his confession, he and Natalee Holloway were left alone on the beach and they began kissing. He started touching her but she refused, told him to stop and then kneed him in the crotch.
In response, he kicked her in the face, leaving her unconscious. He grabbed a nearby cinderblock and used it to smash her head. Afterward, he dragged her body to the sea, then walked home.
Beth Holloway said in court Wednesday that other evidence suggests once he arrived home, van der Sloot watched pornography and masturbated.
Van der Sloot spoke in his own defense, apologizing to both the Holloway family and his own and adding, "I am no longer that person I was back then."
U.S. Attorney Prim F. Escalona said the 18-year saga was “filled with patience, perseverance and courage.”
“As a mother I cannot imagine the heartache, the sleepless nights and the tears that Beth and her family must have shed, wondering what happened to Natalee,” she said. “I hope today is not just about this sentence. I hope today will help all of us move forward, not in sadness, but in celebration of the incredible life that Natalee lived.”
Prior to her death, Holloway had accepted a full scholarship to attend the University of Alabama and planned to go to medical school.
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