What really happened to Natalee Holloway? The chilling case behind Netflix’s No 1 documentary
Teenager Natalee went missing on a trip with school friends in 2005 – it took her killer 18 years to confessNatalee Holloway vanished on a school trip to Aruba in 2005, in one of the most notorious missing person cases of the past two decades, and Netflix’s new documentary series, Taken: Natalee Holloway, has brought her story to a whole new audience.
The three-part series went to number one in the UK after landing on Netflix on November 4. Here’s what happened to Natalee, from the night she vanished to her killer’s confession 18 years later.
When did Natalee Holloway go missing?
Natalee, 18, was from Mountain Brook, Alabama, and had just graduated from high school. She travelled to the Caribbean island of Aruba with classmates for a graduation trip.
Was Natalee Holloway’s body ever found?
No. Despite years of searches across Aruba, including on land, at sea and at a landfill site, Natalee’s remains have never been found.
In his 2023 confession, van der Sloot said he put her body in the sea, which would explain why searches never found any trace of her.
In the early hours of May 30, 2005, the last day of the trip, she was seen leaving a nightclub in the capital, Oranjestad, with Dutch teenager Joran van der Sloot, then 17, and two of his friends. She never returned to her hotel and missed her flight home that day.
Read more: Stephany Flores Ramirez – Joran van der Sloot’s second victim
Natalee Holloway case timeline
June 2005: Van der Sloot is arrested as a suspect in Natalee’s disappearance. He is released in September for lack of evidence.
November 2007: He is arrested again after new evidence emerges, but is released the following month without charge.
February 2008: Dutch crime reporter Peter R. de Vries airs hidden-camera footage of van der Sloot claiming Natalee collapsed and that he disposed of her body. He later says he was lying.
May 2010: Van der Sloot demands $250,000 from Beth Holloway in exchange for revealing the location of Natalee’s body. He accepts $25,000 in an FBI sting, but the information he gives is false.
May 30, 2010: Five years to the day after Natalee vanished, van der Sloot kills 21-year-old student Stephany Flores Ramírez in Lima, Peru. He is later sentenced to 28 years in prison.
January 2012: A judge in Alabama declares Natalee legally dead.
June 2023: Van der Sloot is temporarily extradited from Peru to the US to face extortion and wire fraud charges.
October 2023: He pleads guilty and, as part of a plea deal, confesses to killing Natalee. He is sentenced to 20 years, to be served at the same time as his sentence in Peru.
What did Joran van der Sloot admit?
In his confession, van der Sloot said he attacked Natalee on a beach after she rejected his advances, and then put her body in the sea. Her body has never been found.
You can read more about what van der Sloot said in his confession.
Has anyone been charged with Natalee Holloway’s murder?
No. Because Natalee was killed in Aruba, US courts can’t prosecute van der Sloot for her death, and Aruba’s time limit for bringing a case has passed.
Her mother, Beth, is now working with Dutch lawyers on a murder complaint against him in the Netherlands.
