Suspect in disappearance of Natalee Holloway confesses again

By Rhonda Cook

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Dutch man suspected in the disappearance of 18-year-old Natalee Holloway almost five years ago in Aruba has confessed again to disposing of her body. Police don’t believe this account either.

Joran van der Sloot said in an interview with a Dutch tabloid journalist that he put Holloway’s body in a swamp but he did not kill her, according to news accounts. The television interview recorded last summer was not aired.

In 2008, van der Sloot made a similar confession to a friend, who secretly recorded his admission, claiming Holloway had a seizure on the beach, died and then he dumped her body into the ocean. Police discounted his story.

Van der Sloot also claimed at one time that he had sold Holloway to a man on a boat for $10,000.

In all three cases, van der Sloot later recanted, saying he had made up those stories to impress the person he was speaking to at the time.

Aruba's chief prosecutor, Peter Blanken, characterized van der Sloot’s stories as "very unbelievable," according to MSNBC. "The locations, names and times he gave just did not make sense."

Blanken told the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf that van der Sloot’s accounts were "held together by lies and fantasy."

Holloway was last seen May 30, 2005, the last night of a trip with members of her Mountain Brook, Ala., high school graduating class.

She was last seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot and brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, who all lived on the island off the coast of Venezuela. All three have been questioned repeatedly but investigators have not had enough evidence to arrest any of them, despite van der Sloot’s confessions.

Her body has not been found.

Holloway’s mother, Beth Holloway, told NBC’s "Dateline" this week that her family has “known for a long time it’s too late for Natalie. It’s too late for our family.”

But she wants others to know the dangers of international travel, especially for young people.

“I am in no way discouraging international travel,” Beth Holloway said.

But there is a “safer way to do it” and there are things she and her former husband could have done “to make Natalie safer.”