Eighteen years after 18-year-old Natalee Holloway went missing, Jordan Van Der Sloot admitted Wednesday in an Alabama courtroom that he murdered the teen.
Van Der Sloot made the admission while Holloway’s parents sat in the courtroom, TMZ reported. Van Der Sloot reportedly said he used a cinder block to bludgeon Holloway after she rejected his sexual advances, per the outlet.
Van Der Sloot was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Wednesday for extortion and wire fraud after he asked Holloway’s family for $250,000 to reveal where he buried her body, according to the report. He was not charged with murder.
Holloway was on a high school graduation trip with her classmates in Aruba when she disappeared, the outlet noted. Van Der Sloot was arrested on multiple occasions on the suspicion of murder but was released due to lack of evidence, per TMZ. (RELATED: Last Contact Of Missing San Diego Woman Included A Chat With A Police Officer)
WASHINGTON – JUNE 08: Beth Holloway participates in the launch of the Natalee Holloway Resource Center on June 8, 2010 in Washington, DC. The non profit resource center was founded by Holloway and the National Museum of Crime & Punishment and was created to assist families of missing persons. Beth Holloway’s daughter Natalee is the Alabama teen who disappeared five years ago in Aruba. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
“You changed the course of our lives and you turned them upside down,” Holloway’s mother, Beth, said in court on Wednesday, according to TMZ. “You are a killer.”
Van Der Sloot, who was extradited to the United States in June for the fraud trial, is also serving a 28-year sentence in Peru for the 2010 murder of Stephany Flores. The two sentences will be served concurrently.
Judge Anna Manasco told Van Der Sloot in court that his admission in Holloway’s death contributed to his sentencing for extortion, according to Fox News.
“You have brutally murdered, in separate incidents, years apart, two young women who refused your sexual advances,” Manasco said, per the outlet.