Joran van der Sloot admits to grisly murder of Natalee Holloway in 2005
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Joran van der Sloot has finally admitted to killing Alabama teen Natalee Holloway 18 years ago — bludgeoning her to death on a darkened beach with a cinder block after she fought off his sexual advances.
The shocking admission was revealed by prosecutors Wednesday in an Alabama courtroom before van der Sloot pleaded guilty to extorting money from the missing teen’s mother, Beth Holloway.
The Dutch citizen, 36, had long been the prime suspect in the 18-year-old’s disappearance.
The blonde-haired beauty went missing during a high school graduation trip with classmates.
She was last seen on May 30, 2005, leaving a bar with van der Sloot.
Although he isn’t charged in Holloway’s death, his confession has brought closure to a case that has captivated the nation for nearly two decades.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s over,” Beth Holloway told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Alabama.
“Joran van der Sloot is no longer the suspect in my daughter’s murder. He is the killer.”
The shattered mom also revealed that van der Sloot confessed to her that he went home and watched porn after taking her daughter’s life.
Van der Sloot confessed to the killing earlier this month as part of a plea deal for extortion and wire fraud after asking her family for $250,000 to reveal the location of her body.
He was sentenced Wednesday to 20 years in prison, to run concurrently with a 28-year sentence he is serving in Peru in the 2010 slaying of Stephany Flores.
“You changed the course of our lives and you turned them upside down,” Beth Holloway said at the sentencing, standing a few feet from her daughter’s killer.
“You are a killer and I want you to remember that every time that jail cell door slams.”
At one point, the brave mom even turned to stare directly at the man who callously stole her daughter’s life.
“You look like hell, Joran,” she said.
In van der Sloot’s confession prior to the sentencing, he detailed how he started kissing Holloway on the beach in Aruba after a date in a local bar, according to court documents obtained by The Post.
“I start feeling her up again and she tells me no. She tells me she doesn’t want me to — to feel her up,” he told his attorney, according to the docs.
“Uh, I insist. I keep feeling her up either way.”
The American teen kneed him in the crotch — enraging the killer, who said he knocked her out by kicking her “extremely hard” in the face.
Van der Sloot then grabbed a nearby cinder block, he said — reportedly confessing: “I smash her head in with it completely.”
He then carried her battered body knee-deep into the surf and let her float out into the sea, he said.
Van der Sloot had already been arrested in Aruba twice on suspicion of Holloway’s murder, but ultimately released for lack of evidence. Her body was never found but a judge had declared her dead.
Judge Anna Manasco required him to come clean on the teen’s death to get the deal.
“You have brutally murdered, in separate instances years apart, two young women who refused your sexual advances,” the judge said.
Holloway’s disappearance on what was supposed to be a celebratory trip with friends to Aruba drew widespread attention.
She was last seen leaving an Oranjestad bar with van der Sloot before their deadly walk along the beach.
Prosecutors in the extortion case said van der Sloot agreed to take $25,000 from Beth Holloway for disclosing the location of her body, with another $225,000 due upon the discovery of the remains.
In a 2010 sworn statement to the FBI, the confessed killer said Holloway’s body was buried under gravel behind a house near the Aruba Racquet Club — but later admitted it was a lie.
He fled Aruba, a Dutch territory, and popped up in Peru before authorities could arrest him in the extortion case.
Peruvian authorities later arrested van der Sloot in the 2010 slaying of Flores, who was killed after also rejecting his sexual advances, and he was convicted and sentenced to 28 years behind bars.
The government of Peru agreed to extradite van der Sloot to the US so he could face the extortion charges, with that case culminating in his guilty plea on Wednesday.
“The wheels of justice have finally begun to turn for our family,” Beth Holloway told reporters when van der Sloot returned to Alabama in June.
“It has been a very long and painful journey.”
In moving victim statements filed with the court in Alabama, both of the slain teen’s parents lashed out at van der Sloot.
“We are satisfied that our daughter died at his hands, and that he acted alone,” the teen’s father, Dave Holloway, wrote.
“Questions will forever remain about the extent to which others participated in depriving us of the opportunity to return Natalee’s remains to Alabama.
“Today marks some legal accountability,” he said.
“But we are convinced that a higher power will pronounce the ultimate judgment on this defendant and anyone else who helped him prevent us from bringing Natalee home.”
With Post wires
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