"As far as I'm concerned, it's over," the mother of Natalee Holloway told reporters Wednesday. "Joran van der Sloot is no longer the suspect and my daughter's murder. He is a killer." In what NBC News calls "a stunning admission," van der Sloot confessed to beating 18-year-old Natalee Holloway to death on a beach in Aruba in 2005 and disposing of her body in the sea after she turned down his advances. The confession came as part of his guilty plea in a related extortion and wire fraud case. Judge Anna Manasco said the plea deal required van der Sloot to share everything he knew about Holloway's disappearance while her parents listened to his discussion with law enforcement in "real time," reports the AP.
He also had to take a polygraph test, and Beth Holloway told reporters she was "absolutely confident" he finally told them the truth; AL.com reports authorities confirmed he passed the polygraph. Court documents provide a partial transcript of his confession. Van der Sloot said "she asked to go back to her hotel but I was just trying to get dropped off a little bit further away from her hotel so we could, uh, walk back to her hotel and I might still get a chance to be with her." His friends dropped them off, and before they got to the Marriott Hotel, "I find a space ... where I lay her down, we lay down together in the sand and uh, we start kissing each other."
He says she started to resist and he didn't back off, so she kneed him in the crotch. He stood up and kicked her "extremely hard" in the face while she was on the ground. She was "unconscious, possibly even uh, even dead, but definitely unconscious" at that point, but he picked up a nearby cinderblock and used it to "smash her head in ... completely. Uh yeah, her face basically collapses in. Even though it's dark, I can see her face is collapsed in."
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He said he then pulled her body into knee-deep water and pushed her out to sea. "After that, I, I get out. I walk home," he said. "Even with this confession, though, he can't be tried here for Natalee's murder," Beth Holloway said. "But I am satisfied knowing that he did it, he did it alone and he disposed of her alone. I have what I need. Her case is solved." NBC News notes the statute of limitations for homicide is 12 years in Aruba. (Read more on the terms of his plea deal here.)
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