Joran van der Sloot, the man accused of murdering United States teenager Natalee Holloway has pleaded guilty to the murder of another young woman. On Wednesday, in Lima, Peru, van der Sloot stood in front of a Peruvian court and admitted that he killed Stephany Flores in May of 2010 in a hotel in Lima. Van der Sloot admitted to killing Flores when he went into a fit of rage because she learned of his connection to the Holloway disappearance case while she was using his laptop. It has been reported that van der Sloot broke the neck of Flores to kill her.
Van der Sloot, standing in front of the court, said, “I truly am sorry for this act. I feel very bad”. The lawyer for van der Sloot argued that his client suffered a “severe emotional reaction to extreme psychological trauma” in relation to the Holloway case, “something he says he never did and for which no evidence at all exists.”
The witnesses present in the courtroom said that van der Sloot did not exhibit any remorse. In fact, they said that he smirked a couple of times while talking with his attorney, who is from Peru.
Many think that van der Sloot is pleading guilty so he can receive a reduced sentence in the killing. The prosecutors for the case are seeking a 30-year prison term for the murder of Flores. The charges come with a 15-year sentence, with judges expected to sentence van der Sloot on Friday.
The sentencing for van der Sloot does not answer any of the questions regarding the disappearance of Natalee Holloway that her family has. Holloway was in high school in Alabama when she went missing on a class trip to Aruba. The last time she was seen she was leaving a bar with three men, one of them being van der Sloot.
Because of a lack of evidence, van der Sloot and his two friends have never been charged with a crime in Holloway’s disappearance and alleged murder.
The island in the Caribbean was searched extensively for Holloway, turning up no forensic evidence of her. The following is a quote from a book written by Beth Holloway, Natalee’s mother, called ‘Loving Natalee:’ “we all know they lied. But what they don’t know is that I’m willing to wait out all of their lies… I have the rest of my life to find out what happened to Natalee.”