Joran Van der Sloot admits he killed Natalee Holloway almost two decades after her disappearance

Joran van der Sloot, the man long suspected of killing Alabama teen Natalee Holloway, has pleaded guilty almost two decades after Holloway disappeared in Aruba, according to a court filing. Van der Sloot pleaded guilty to extortion and wire fraud charges during Wednesday’s hearing. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison alongside his ongoing 28-year prison sentence in Peru for the 2010 murder of Stephany Flores. 

“Joran van der Sloot is no longer the suspect in my daughter’s murder,” Holloway’s mother Beth Holloway told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Birmingham, Alabama, per CBS News. “He is the killer.”

The 36-year-old Dutchman confessed to killing Holloway while she was on a high school graduation trip, her mother said. 

“He said that after killing her on the beach in Aruba, he put her into the water and that was the last that he ever saw her,” Beth Holloway told reporters. “I’m satisfied knowing that he did it, he did it alone and he disposed of her alone.”

Van der Sloot was charged in 2010 with trying to extort a quarter-million dollars from Beth Holloway in exchange for information about her missing daughter’s remains, according to CBS News. He wasn’t extradited to the U.S. until June of this year, when Peruvian officials allowed his temporary release to the U.S. to face the extortion and wire fraud charges. Van der Sloot is slated to return to Peru to finish his 28-year prison sentence, per CNN. He will then return to the U.S. to start his 20 year prison sentence for the extortion and wire fraud charges.