Natalee Holloway

On May 30, 2005, eighteen-year-old Natalee Ann Holloway, a recent high school graduate from Mountain Brook, Alabama, disappeared during a senior class trip to Aruba. She was last seen leaving the nightclub Carlos'n Charlie's in Oranjestad in the early morning hours with Joran van der Sloot, a 17-year-old Dutch national living in Aruba, and two of his friends, brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe.

When Natalee failed to appear for her return flight, her mother Beth Holloway flew to Aruba to search for her daughter. The case quickly became international news, with extensive media coverage lasting months. Van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers were arrested multiple times but released due to insufficient evidence. Van der Sloot gave multiple conflicting accounts of what happened that night.

Natalee's body was never found despite extensive searches of Aruba's beaches, ocean waters, and inland areas. The Aruban investigation was criticized by the Holloway family and American media as mishandled. The case strained diplomatic relations between the United States, the Netherlands, and Aruba.

In 2010, van der Sloot murdered 21-year-old Stephany Flores in a Lima, Peru hotel room—exactly five years after Holloway's disappearance—and was convicted and sentenced to 28 years in prison. In 2023, he was temporarily extradited to the United States, where he pleaded guilty to extortion and wire fraud charges related to selling false information about Natalee's remains to her family. In October 2024, van der Sloot confessed to killing Natalee Holloway and pleaded guilty to her murder as part of a plea deal, finally bringing a measure of legal closure to the case after nearly two decades.