Joran Van der Sloot Gets 28-Year Sentence for Peru Killing

USA Today- Joran Van der Sloot, a key suspect in the disappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway in 2005, has been sentencded to 28 years for killing a Peruvian woman he met at a Lima casino.

The court, taking into account the time he has spent in jail, says he would be eligible to be freed in June 2038.

The prosecution has requested a 30 years sentence, but the court said it had reduced it by two years because of Van der Sloot's "sincere confession" that led to a speedy conclusion of the case.

Van der Sloot, 24, pleaded guilty on Thursday to killing of Stephany Flores, 21, last year in a rage at his hotel room in the Peruvian capital.

Van der Sloot was implicated in the disappearance of 18-year-old Holloway during a class trip to Aruba.

On Thursday, a county judge in Birgmingham signed an order declaring Holloway legally dead.

Van der Sloot was briefly charged in her disappearance, but the case was never prosecuted.

He faces federal charges in Birmingham for allegedly trying to extort $250,000 from the Holloways for information about Natalee's whereabouts.

Dutch Youth Lives Under Shadow of Holloway Case 5 Years Later

(CNN) -- It was supposed to be a celebration -- sun, fun and relaxation on a tropical island for recent graduates savoring the heady taste of approaching adulthood.

But instead, the trip to Aruba by a group of Birmingham, Alabama, high school seniors ended in tragedy, as one of their members, 18-year-old Natalee Holloway, never returned home. Questions surrounding her fate are unanswered five years later.

Now, Joran van der Sloot, the youth twice arrested and released in Holloway's disappearance -- seen by many as a privileged playboy who has displayed no remorse or concern over her whereabouts -- has been named a suspect in the stabbing death of a woman in Peru, allegations that hint at a chilling pattern. Van der Sloot was arrested Thursday in Chile following a manhunt.

"It's fair to say that he's a pretty easy guy to point a finger at, a pretty easy guy to say, 'I'm confident suspecting him,'" said Joe Tacopina, who represents van der Sloot in the Aruba case. "And he's earned some of that and some of it he hasn't earned. He's been through the wringer. He's been detained twice in Aruba. There's been absolutely no credible evidence in that case whatsoever ... he was never charged with a crime there. Don't forget that."

Holloway was last seen in the early hours of May 30, 2005, leaving an Oranjestad, Aruba, nightclub with van der Sloot and two other men, brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe. She was visiting the island with about 100 classmates to celebrate their graduation from Mountain Brook High School in suburban Birmingham.

Holloway failed to show up for her flight home the following day, and her packed bags were found in her hotel room.

Van der Sloot and the Kalpoes were arrested and released in 2005 in connection with the case, then arrested a second time in 2007 after Aruba's then-chief prosecutor Hans Mos said he had received new evidence in the case. Van der Sloot, then attending college in the Netherlands, was brought back to Aruba. But judges ruled the new evidence -- which included an Internet chat the same day Holloway disappeared with one of the three youths writing that she was dead -- was not enough to keep them in custody.

In the years since Holloway vanished, van der Sloot has consistently denied any involvement in her disappearance, police said.

"He's just totally, totally dragged us all through hell," Holloway's anguished mother, Beth Twitty, has said.

In 2008, a videotape surfaced on Dutch television. In it, van der Sloot tells a man he thought was a friend he had sex with Holloway on the beach after leaving the nightclub, then she "started shaking" and lost consciousness. He said he panicked when he could not resuscitate her and called a friend who had a boat. The two put Holloway in the boat, van der Sloot said, and he went home. The friend told him the next day that he had carried the body out and dumped it into the ocean.

"I don't lose a minute of sleep over it," van der Sloot said.

He later claimed the account was a lie, saying he told the man what he wanted to hear. A court ruled there was not enough evidence to re-arrest him. Aruba chief prosecutor Peter Blanken said the story was "unbelievable and not true."

But it's been van der Sloot's cavalier attitude toward the case that has fueled criticism, as well as conflicting statements he's made. He told Fox News in a 2008 interview he sold Holloway to human traffickers for $10,000, then in a taped interview denied it.

At the time his name first surfaced in the Holloway investigation, suspicion swirled around his parents, particularly his father, an Aruban lawyer training to be a judge. Paul van der Sloot was briefly taken into custody in 2005 on suspicion of involvement in the Holloway case. Authorities said he told his son that police had no case without a body. He was released after three days of questioning.

Holloway's parents, however, have said they met with Paul van der Sloot and continue to believe he had the answers to questions regarding their daughter.

"I remember the day I met with Paul at the prison," Dave Holloway has said. "And the thing that stuck out in my mind was I asked him all the questions, why he hid from the news media. And the last question that I had was, was he involved, and he said no. He said, 'Dave, I can understand your position, but you've got to understand mine. Joran's my son and I'll do everything I can to protect him.' And I believe it."

Van der Sloot's mother, Anita, has said her son told her he was on the beach with Holloway but left her there because she wanted to stay. She has maintained her son's innocence.

However, Tacopina said van der Sloot's relationship with his family has suffered in recent years.

"Joran in the last several years has gone in a very different direction, has not behaved in a way that is acceptable to anybody," he said, referring to van der Sloot's being paid for versions of events in the Holloway case. "It border-lined on pathological, it really did, and quite frankly I think he hurt a lot of people."

Tacopina cautioned against jumping to conclusions, saying that many times a new lead was thought to be the key to the Holloway case but didn't pan out. In March, for instance, a Pennsylvania couple told authorities a picture they took last year while snorkeling off Aruba showed something that looked like a skeleton. Authorities called off a dive team's search after two days, saying they found nothing that resembled the image depicted in the photograph.

Murder Suspect Returns to Peru to Face Charges

Santa Rosa, Peru (CNN) -- Murder suspect Joran van der Sloot arrived Friday in Peru to face charges that he killed a Peruvian woman as police in Lima said they had identified the weapon that killed 21-year-old Stephany Flores Ramirez.

Flores' body was found Wednesday in a Lima hotel room registered to van der Sloot, a Dutch citizen who was twice arrested and released in connection with the 2005 disappearance of an American teenager, Natalee Holloway, in Aruba.

Investigators also found a baseball bat in the room, two law enforcement sources -- who said it was the murder weapon -- told HLN's "Nancy Grace."

Chilean authorities delivered van der Sloot to their Peruvian counterparts in the border town of Santa Rosa, where he was greeted by hecklers and dozens of media personnel jostling for position to get a better picture of the Dutch citizen.

Paperwork showed that van der Sloot entered Chile the same day Flores' body was found, Chilean police told CNN. He was captured in Chile on Thursday and flown Friday aboard a military aircraft to the border to be expelled, said Macarena Lopez, a spokeswoman for Interpol.

The Chileans drove Van der Sloot across the border to a Peruvian police station. He made a 100-foot walk from the car to the station as journalists pushed past a police line and a handful of hecklers rained loud and angry obscenities on the suspect's head.

Van der Sloot was taken inside the station for processing. From there, he was to be taken to the nearby town of Tanca and then flown to Lima.

Holloway was on a high school graduation trip to the Caribbean island of Aruba in 2005 when she disappeared. Van der Sloot was arrested twice in connection with the case but released both times. He denied any involvement and has not been charged.

The family of Stephany Flores Ramirez, the woman found dead in van der Sloot's hotel room, said Friday they had mixed emotions about the suspect's capture and return to face charges in Peru.

"I cannot say that I was happy," brother Enrique Flores told CNN's Rafael Romo. "I feel a little relief in this pain that I have and that my family has. This pain that won't go away ... We want this action not to happen again."

Stephany's sister-in-law Carolina Jorge was more outspoken.

"We need justice for our family, for Natalee's family," she said.

Stephany's father, Ricardo, was more wistful and philosophical.

"My daughter had everything in life," the businessman and race car driver said. "Perhaps my error was to show her the pretty side of the world. I didn't show her that there was the other side to the world -- the evilness."

The family said they thought Stephany had been abducted until authorities found her body. Her burial was Thursday.

Van der Sloot's former attorney, Joseph Tacopina, told CNN it was too early to reach any conclusions.

"I just think we need to take a step back before we get to the 'I told you so' stage, and let's see what the evidence is here," Tacopina said Thursday.

Tacopina said he is not representing van der Sloot and no longer has a good relationship with the family.

Van der Sloot also faces an arrest warrant on charges of extortion and wire fraud in Alabama, U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance said Thursday. The charges are unrelated to the killing of the Peruvian woman and deal with an attempt to sell details about Holloway for $250,000, Vance said.

Van der Sloot, 23, was traveling alone in a taxi near the Chilean central coastal city of Vina del Mar Thursday when he was detained, said Douglas Rodriguez, spokesman for the Chilean Investigative Police.

TV images showed him emerging from a black police SUV at the police station. His hair, which had been dark in previous images, was red and worn in a close-cropped crew cut.

There is "incriminating evidence" linking van der Sloot to the killing of Flores, said Peruvian criminal investigator Cesar Guardia Vasquez.

The woman's bludgeoned body was found in Room 309 of the Hotel Tac in the Miraflores section of Lima, police said. She suffered blunt trauma to the head, breaking her neck, and to her torso and back, Peruvian police said Thursday.

Van der Sloot had been staying at the hotel since arriving from Colombia on May 14, police said. Room 309 was booked in his name, authorities said.

A hotel guest and an employee witnessed the pair entering the hotel room together at 5 a.m. Sunday, Guardia said. Police have video of van der Sloot and Flores together the previous night at the Atlantic City Casino in Lima, he said.

Two Peruvian cab drivers said in an interview on CNN affiliate America TV that they drove a man matching van der Sloot's description to a city on the other side of the Chilean border.

"He paid me and I took him to Arica, to the border," cab driver Oswaldo Aparcana said.

The man sat in the front seat and smoked many cigarettes, Aparcana said. The passenger told the cabbies he used to live in Aruba, said the other driver, Carlos Alberto Uribe.

Holloway, the Alabama teenager, disappeared May 30, 2005, five years to the day since the hotel videotape that officials say showed van der Sloot and Flores going into his hotel room. Both women are reported to have met van der Sloot at a night spot.

Ricardo Flores said police found his daughter's car about 50 blocks from the hotel. Inside the car, he said, authorities found pills like those used in date rapes.

Ricardo Flores said he did not believe his daughter knew the Dutch citizen beforehand.

Both of them speak English and they struck up conversation at the casino, he said.

Interpol had alerted its office in Chile and other bordering countries of the case and placed them on alert in case van der Sloot tried to leave that country, Peruvian Interpol Interim Director Gerson Ortiz told CNN.

Van der Sloot was arrested in Aruba in 2005 along with two other men, brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, in connection with Holloway's disappearance. They were later released.

In 2007, they were arrested a second time after Aruba's then-chief prosecutor, Hans Mos, said he had received new evidence in the case.

Van der Sloot, who was attending college in the Netherlands, was brought back to Aruba. But judges ruled the new evidence -- which included an Internet chat the same day Holloway disappeared in which one of the three youths said she was dead -- was not enough to keep them jailed.

In 2008, prosecutors sought unsuccessfully to arrest van der Sloot a third time after a videotape surfaced on Dutch television. In it, van der Sloot tells a man he considered to be his friend that he had sex with Holloway on the beach after leaving the nightclub, then she "started shaking" and lost consciousness. He said he panicked when he could not resuscitate her and called a friend who had a boat. The two put Holloway's body in the boat, he said, and then he went home. The friend told him the next day that he had carried the body out and dumped it in the ocean.

But an Aruba court ruled there was not enough evidence to re-arrest him. Aruban prosecutors said authorities had met with van der Sloot in the Netherlands, but in a two-hour interview he denied any role in Holloway's disappearance.

Flores Kin Was "Freaking Out" Over Van Der Sloot

(CBS) While Stephany Flores was missing but before her body was found, her family was "freaking out" when they realized whom Stephany was with, her sister-in-law says.

Then, Stephany's body was discovered in a hotel room police in Lima, Peru say was registered to Joran van der Sloot.

He's under arrest in Chile, to which authorities say he fled and will, they say, be brought back to Peru Friday.

Van der Sloot was arrested after Interpol issued an international arrest warrant.

As CBS News Correspondent Elaine Quijano reports, the Dutchman is the primary suspect in the murder of the 21-year-old Flores. He was apparently the last person to see her alive.

Investigators say they discovered her body lying face-down in the hotel room, her neck broken, her body fully-clothed, with no signs of having been sexually abused.

Police say witnesses saw the two together in a casino over the weekend, and again, entering his hotel room together around 5 a.m. Sunday.

He checked out alone, police say, just a few hours later, before leaving the country.

The Flores murder took place five years after the disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba.

Holloway's body was never found. Van der Sloot was arrested and questioned twice, but was never charged.

On "The Early Show" Friday, Flores' brother, Enrique Flores, told co-anchor Maggie Rodgriguez the family was shown surveillance video of Stephany and a man in the casino, which is owned by a family friend. They were also given the man's name and passport number.

As soon as they got to the Flores family home, Enrique's wife, Carolina Jorge told Rodriguez, she Googled van der Sloot - ironically, in Stephany's room and, when it dawned on the family who van der Sloot is, they all "got scared, and (were) freaking out. And an hour later, they found her in the hotel."

Enrique says Stephany was a "lovely girl" who always had a smile on her face.

Adding to van der Sloot's troubles, police in Chile say he stole $5,000 that Stephany had won in the casino the night they met.

Also, late Thursday in Alabama, the FBI announced van der Sloot is being charged in the United States for allegedly trying to extort $250,000 from someone related to the Natalee Holloway case, in return for disclosing the location of her body -- information that, Quijano reports, investigators now say was false.

Van der Sloot Arrest "Not Enough" for Holloways

(CBS) Joran van der Sloot is now on his way back to Peru to face charges in the murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores.

Investigators say Flores was found on Sunday by a hotel maid face-down, her neck broken, in a hotel room registered under van der Sloot's name.

Five years ago, 18-year-old Natalee Holloway went missing on the island of Aruba and van der Sloot was the chief suspect in that case, as well. He was never formally charged in Holloway's death.

On "The Early Show" Friday, Natalee's stepfather, "Jug" Twitty and Carol Standifer, a close friend of Natalee's mother, Beth Twitty, discussed Flores' murder.

Twitty said he hopes Flores' investigation in Peru is conducted better than Natalee's in Aruba was.

Twitty said, "We could have had the answers in the first couple of days down there had they done their job right. And this should have never happened what's happened in Peru. And I actually lay blame on the one person in particular, that's the (police commissioner, Jan van der Straten), in charge at that time. Because he knew what happened. And it just happened to be political connections and friendship that kind of let Joran slip off the hook."

As for the Holloway family, Standifer said Beth Holloway is "overwhelmed" now at the news of Flores' death.

"She's just really very disturbed," Standifer said, adding, "Every Memorial Day weekend, it's hard for her and it's hard for all of us who went through this because it brings it back, and we remember what happened."

Could the arrest and possible prosecution of van der Sloot be enough for the Holloways?

Twitty told "Early Show" co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez, "It's a start. It's not enough. I think what Beth has worked so hard for, and will continue to work hard for, is to find out what happened to Natalee. And to find if it there are remains from Natalee. That's what we want."

Rodriguez pointed out the FBI is also charging van der Sloot with extortion after he allegedly accepted $250,000 to reveal the location of Natalee's body -- the information he provided turned out to be false, authorities say.

Standifer said she's not surprised by these charges, nor about any of the other news she's heard about van der Sloot.

She said, "There's nothing that could happen that would be shocking because we've had such unusual events happen throughout the last five years."