Joran van der Sloot can’t keep out of the public eye.
Twice arrested for the 2005 murder of American teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba, and twice released, van der Sloot is back in the news after making another confession.
Shortly after Natalee went missing, van der Sloot denied any involvement in her disappearance. But apparently he enjoyed the attention he got by being a suspect. In 2008, he appeared on Dutch television in a video in which he tells a friend that after leaving a nightclub with Natalee, he had sex with the 18-year old girl on a beach. She “started shaking” and lost consciousness. Van der Sloot says he panicked and called a friend to help him. The two men put Natalee’s body in a boat, and the friend dumped her in the ocean the next day.
But that was a lie. Van der Sloot admitted making the comments, but said he only told his friend what he wanted to hear; it wasn’t true.
Van der Sloot’s current story skips the friend with the boat. In the new version, van der Sloot himself dumps Natalee’s body in a swamp.
Police aren’t buying it. Prosecutor Peter Blanken says that he and Aruba police tried to verify the story, speaking to witnesses and checking facts. But they’ve determined it couldn’t be true.
So why would van der Sloot make another false confession? Blanken responds, “You should ask him. Maybe he wanted to be on camera or make some money.”