Latest news with #NataleeHolloway
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
20 years after Natalee Holloway vanished, suspect's confession still leaves questions: PI
Graphic content warning Twenty years have passed since 18-year-old Natalee Holloway of Alabama disappeared on May 30, 2005, during a senior trip to Aruba with her high school friends, but the Holloway family's private investigator says there are still many unanswered questions in the case. In 2023, 36-year-old Dutch national Joran van der Sloot, the primary suspect in Holloway's disappearance and murder, confessed to bashing the teenager's head with a brick and dumping her body in the ocean after she refused his advances. "I smash her head in with it completely," van der Sloot said in an Oct. 3, 2023, interview with federal authorities. "Her face basically, you know, collapses in. Even though it's dark, I can see her face is collapsed in." TJ Ward, a private investigator hired by Holloway's family in 2005 and again in 2010, does not believe he acted alone. Lessons Learned In Natalee Holloway Disappearance Apply To Sudiksha Konanki Case: Retired Fbi Agent Read On The Fox News App "Twenty years, can you believe that?" he told Fox News Digital in an interview this week, marking two decades since the 18-year-old graduate vanished from Carlos'n Charlie's, a restaurant and nightclub in Oranjestad, Aruba. "She had a bright future. She got a scholarship to go to college for medical school – ubelievable." Ward does work for a voice analysis company based in Israel, which paid the private investigator to travel to Aruba after Holloway disappeared. There, he met with her parents as well as the FBI and Aruba authorities. Ward said he used the voice analysis technology on van de Sloot's existing interviews at the time and determined that he was lying to authorities and to the public. Beth Holloway Addresses Missing American College Student, Urges 'Full Circle' Safety Plan "We knew numerous times along the course of the investigation [and] over the last few years that Joran van der Sloot was not telling the truth," Ward said. "Thereafter, we started locating witnesses and talking and finding information that was going on with the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, and we knew a lot of the information that Van der Sloot was communicating was not true." Holloway was last seen leaving Carlos'n Charlie's with van der Sloot and two other men, brothers Satish and Deepak Kalpoe, on the evening of May 30, two decades ago as of Friday. The three men were considered early suspects in the case. News Anchor's Mysterious Disappearance Was Crime Of 'Jealousy': Private Investigator Police arrested van der Sloot but eventually released him due to a lack of evidence. Authorities eyed the same suspects again in 2007 after uncovering "new facts" but wound up releasing them once more. Holloway's remains have never been found. Timeline Of Alabama Teen Natalee Holloway's Death Five years to the day after Holloway's disappearance, van der Sloot killed 21-year-old Stephany Flores, a business student from a wealthy Peruvian family who crossed paths with the killer on May 30, 2010. Van der Sloot later confessed to killing her in a fit of anger after she learned about his connection to Holloway's disappearance. They had met earlier in her father's casino in Lima, and he beat her to death in his hotel room the following morning. Joran Van Der Sloot Has Confessed To Killing Natalee Holloway In June 2010, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Alabama announced an indictment on extortion and wire fraud charges against Van der Sloot for allegedly trying to sell information about the whereabouts of her body to her family. "Joran contacted Natalie's mother and Natalie's attorney, John Q. Kelly, in New York and said that for $250,000 he would tell Beth exactly what happened to his daughter," Ward said. "So John Q. Kelly, along with the FBI, arranged to set up a room in the Marriott with the Aruban authorities … and Joran van der Sloot came in and started telling Beth and John Q. Kelly that Natalie was buried under a house in the concrete. Well, they in turn gave him $25,000 cash, on film, and he then departed. He should have been arrested right then and there for the FBI for trying to extort Natalie's mother." Peru Allows Natalee Holloway's Killer Multiple Conjugal Visits For His Mental Health, Rehabilitation He then left the United States and later told Beth Holloway and Kelly that he lied. Van der Sloot is currently serving prison time in Peru for Flores' murder. He is expected to be released in 2036, at which point Peruvian authorities will extradite him back to the United States to serve his concurrent 20-year sentence for Holloway's murder. AUDIO: LISTEN TO JORAN VAN DER SLOOT'S CONFESSION "You have brutally murdered, in separate incidents, years apart, two young women who refused your sexual advances," Judge Anna Manasco told van der Sloot in court in 2023, referencing Flores' murder. Joran Van Der Sloot's Whirlwind Plea Deal: 'He Won The Game,' But Family Accepts Closure Manasco called the extortion and fraud charges "heinous" because the killer knew the information he was selling was a lie to make a profit. However, as part of the deal, she said federal prosecutors have agreed not to use his confession against him for any other purposes. "After 18 years, Natalee's case has been solved," Beth Holloway told reporters outside the courthouse immediately after van der Sloot's 2023 sentencing hearing in Holloway's death. "Joran van der Sloot is the killer." In a victim-impact statement during the hearing, Holloway's mother tore into van der Sloot, saying he taunted her family and caused indescribable pain before turning to him and saying, "You look like hell." Ward told Fox News Digital this week that Beth Holloway feels "kind of satisfied with the fact that he is in prison, and now he's gotten jail time in the United States, which he's going to have to do concurrent to the charges in Peru of the 20 years in the United States in the federal penitentiary. " Click Here For More True Crime From Fox News The private investigator added that he continues to stay in touch with Dave Holloway to this day and that they have not reached "a finalization of what happened." "Even though Joran van der Sloot confessed in 2023, we're not convinced that he was alone with what transpired with Natalee Halloway," Ward said. "But again, our conclusion, as of today, Dave Holloway and I are still looking and trying to gather information, which we believe that there's other people involved with Joran van der Sloot when she was on the beach in May 30, 2005." Ward said he does not believe van der Sloot acted alone, and he is still working to determine if others were involved. Fox News' Michael Ruiz and Adam Sabes contributed to this article source: 20 years after Natalee Holloway vanished, suspect's confession still leaves questions: PI
Fox News
3 days ago
- General
- Fox News
20 years after Natalee Holloway vanished, suspect's confession still leaves questions: PI
Graphic content warning Twenty years have passed since 18-year-old Natalee Holloway of Alabama disappeared on May 30, 2005, during a senior trip to Aruba with her high school friends, but the Holloway family's private investigator says there are still many unanswered questions in the case. In 2023, 36-year-old Dutch national Joran van der Sloot, the primary suspect in Holloway's disappearance and murder, confessed to bashing the teenager's head with a brick and dumping her body in the ocean after she refused his advances. "I smash her head in with it completely," van der Sloot said in an Oct. 3, 2023, interview with federal authorities. "Her face basically, you know, collapses in. Even though it's dark, I can see her face is collapsed in." TJ Ward, a private investigator hired by Holloway's family in 2005 and again in 2010, does not believe he acted alone. "Twenty years, can you believe that?" he told Fox News Digital in an interview this week, marking two decades since the 18-year-old graduate vanished from Carlos'n Charlie's, a restaurant and nightclub in Oranjestad, Aruba. "She had a bright future. She got a scholarship to go to college for medical school – ubelievable." Ward does work for a voice analysis company based in Israel, which paid the private investigator to travel to Aruba after Holloway disappeared. There, he met with her parents as well as the FBI and Aruba authorities. Ward said he used the voice analysis technology on van de Sloot's existing interviews at the time and determined that he was lying to authorities and to the public. "We knew numerous times along the course of the investigation [and] over the last few years that Joran van der Sloot was not telling the truth," Ward said. "Thereafter, we started locating witnesses and talking and finding information that was going on with the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, and we knew a lot of the information that Van der Sloot was communicating was not true." Holloway was last seen leaving Carlos'n Charlie's with van der Sloot and two other men, brothers Satish and Deepak Kalpoe, on the evening of May 30, two decades ago as of Friday. The three men were considered early suspects in the case. Police arrested van der Sloot but eventually released him due to a lack of evidence. Authorities eyed the same suspects again in 2007 after uncovering "new facts" but wound up releasing them once more. Holloway's remains have never been found. Five years to the day after Holloway's disappearance, van der Sloot killed 21-year-old Stephany Flores, a business student from a wealthy Peruvian family who crossed paths with the killer on May 30, 2010. Van der Sloot later confessed to killing her in a fit of anger after she learned about his connection to Holloway's disappearance. They had met earlier in her father's casino in Lima, and he beat her to death in his hotel room the following morning. In June 2010, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Alabama announced an indictment on extortion and wire fraud charges against Van der Sloot for allegedly trying to sell information about the whereabouts of her body to her family. "Joran contacted Natalie's mother and Natalie's attorney, John Q. Kelly, in New York and said that for $250,000 he would tell Beth exactly what happened to his daughter," Ward said. "So John Q. Kelly, along with the FBI, arranged to set up a room in the Marriott with the Aruban authorities … and Joran van der Sloot came in and started telling Beth and John Q. Kelly that Natalie was buried under a house in the concrete. Well, they in turn gave him $25,000 cash, on film, and he then departed. He should have been arrested right then and there for the FBI for trying to extort Natalie's mother." He then left the United States and later told Beth Holloway and Kelly that he lied. Van der Sloot is currently serving prison time in Peru for Flores' murder. He is expected to be released in 2036, at which point Peruvian authorities will extradite him back to the United States to serve his concurrent 20-year sentence for Holloway's murder. AUDIO: LISTEN TO JORAN VAN DER SLOOT'S CONFESSION "You have brutally murdered, in separate incidents, years apart, two young women who refused your sexual advances," Judge Anna Manasco told van der Sloot in court in 2023, referencing Flores' murder. Manasco called the extortion and fraud charges "heinous" because the killer knew the information he was selling was a lie to make a profit. However, as part of the deal, she said federal prosecutors have agreed not to use his confession against him for any other purposes. "After 18 years, Natalee's case has been solved," Beth Holloway told reporters outside the courthouse immediately after van der Sloot's 2023 sentencing hearing in Holloway's death. "Joran van der Sloot is the killer." "You are a killer, and I want you to remember that every time that jail door slams." In a victim-impact statement during the hearing, Holloway's mother tore into van der Sloot, saying he taunted her family and caused indescribable pain before turning to him and saying, "You look like hell." Ward told Fox News Digital this week that Beth Holloway feels "kind of satisfied with the fact that he is in prison, and now he's gotten jail time in the United States, which he's going to have to do concurrent to the charges in Peru of the 20 years in the United States in the federal penitentiary. " The private investigator added that he continues to stay in touch with Dave Holloway to this day and that they have not reached "a finalization of what happened." "Even though Joran van der Sloot confessed in 2023, we're not convinced that he was alone with what transpired with Natalee Halloway," Ward said. "But again, our conclusion, as of today, Dave Holloway and I are still looking and trying to gather information, which we believe that there's other people involved with Joran van der Sloot when she was on the beach in May 30, 2005." Ward said he does not believe van der Sloot acted alone, and he is still working to determine if others were involved.
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Yahoo
Lessons learned in Natalee Holloway disappearance apply to Sudiksha Konanki case: retired FBI agent
As the search for a missing American college student who vanished off a beach in the Dominican Republic continues, a retired FBI special agent says investigators can learn lessons from past cases like Natalee Holloway. "One mistake foreign authorities often make is relying too much on voluntary cooperation from persons of interest," Jason Pack, a retired FBI supervisory special agent, told Fox News Digital. "The FBI should be urging Dominican officials to immediately seize electronic devices, examine travel history, and conduct forensic analysis on locations where she was last seen," Pack continued. Pack, who is also a former leader of the FBI's Child Abduction Rapid Deployment Team and an acting legal attaché, said the FBI can't take over the investigation but will use diplomatic channels to push Dominican authorities to prioritize key investigative steps, provide forensic assistance, and coordinate intelligence-sharing that could uncover new leads. Missing American In Dominican Republic: Unpredictable Ocean Currents, Beachfront Pose Major Search Challenge The disappearance of Sudiksha Konanki, a pre-med student at the University of Pittsburgh, has been compared to Holloway's disappearance in 2005. Read On The Fox News App Natalee's mother, Beth Holloway, said there is one key difference between the search for her daughter 20 years ago in Aruba and the search for Konanki, the 20-year-old who vanished in the Dominican Republic last week: a U.S. embassy. "The family is so fortunate to have an American embassy there to work with," Beth Holloway, who has been an outspoken advocate for student safety since her daughter's death, told Fox News Digital in a previous statement. "I did not have that in Aruba." Both the young women vanished in Caribbean countries while on vacation. Natalee Holloway disappeared during a high school graduation celebration at a hotel in Aruba, while Konanki disappeared while on a spring break trip with her University of Pittsburgh friends at an all-inclusive resort in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Natalee Holloway was last seen alive on May 30, 2005, leaving a bar with Joran van der Sloot. He was the prime suspect in her disappearance for the following 18 years and finally admitted to killing her in an Oct. 3, 2023, confession made public after he pleaded guilty to the extortion case. American College Student Sudiksha Konanki's Disappearance In Dominican Republic: Timeline Konanki was last seen on surveillance camera with five other people entering the beach at the Riu República Hotel in Punta Cana after 4:15 a.m. Thursday, the Dominican National Police said in a statement. Surveillance video, obtained by Noticias SIN, captured the group striding towards the beach at the five-star resort. The footage is the last time authorities tracked Konanki before the Virginia resident disappeared. Konanki's disappearance has sparked widespread speculation about the events leading up to it, prompting law enforcement in both the Dominican Republic and the U.S. to investigate. Since her daughter's murder, Beth Holloway has been advocating on her behalf and said that the disappearance of Konanki, 20, should be a warning for travelers. "I have created the full-circle safety plan for travelers and citizens of all ages to remind them to spend as much time planning the end of their outing as they do planning where to go, what to wear and who they are going with," Holloway said. While early reports suggested Konanki may have drowned, experts say they believe she would have washed ashore or been found by now if that were the case. Authorities are officially urging the public not to jump to conclusions as the investigation unfolds. Police have spent days searching the coastline with boats, dive teams and helicopters. The FBI is involved, and the sheriff from her Virginia hometown said he would be sending two detectives to assist in the investigation. Fox News Digital's Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, Michael Ruiz and Ashley Papa contributed to this article source: Lessons learned in Natalee Holloway disappearance apply to Sudiksha Konanki case: retired FBI agent
Fox News
13-03-2025
- Fox News
Lessons learned in Natalee Holloway disappearance apply to Sudiksha Konanki case: retired FBI agent
As the search for a missing American college student who vanished off a beach in the Dominican Republic continues, a retired FBI special agent says investigators can learn lessons from past cases like Natalee Holloway. "One mistake foreign authorities often make is relying too much on voluntary cooperation from persons of interest," Jason Pack, a retired FBI supervisory special agent, told Fox News Digital. "The FBI should be urging Dominican officials to immediately seize electronic devices, examine travel history, and conduct forensic analysis on locations where she was last seen," Pack continued. Pack, who is also a former leader of the FBI's Child Abduction Rapid Deployment Team and an acting legal attaché, said the FBI can't take over the investigation but will use diplomatic channels to push Dominican authorities to prioritize key investigative steps, provide forensic assistance, and coordinate intelligence-sharing that could uncover new leads. The disappearance of Sudiksha Konanki, a pre-med student at the University of Pittsburgh, has been compared to Holloway's disappearance in 2005. Natalee's mother, Beth Holloway, said there is one key difference between the search for her daughter 20 years ago in Aruba and the search for Konanki, the 20-year-old who vanished in the Dominican Republic last week: a U.S. embassy. "The family is so fortunate to have an American embassy there to work with," Beth Holloway, who has been an outspoken advocate for student safety since her daughter's death, told Fox News Digital in a previous statement. "I did not have that in Aruba." Both the young women vanished in Caribbean countries while on vacation. Natalee Holloway disappeared during a high school graduation celebration at a hotel in Aruba, while Konanki disappeared while on a spring break trip with her University of Pittsburgh friends at an all-inclusive resort in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Natalee Holloway was last seen alive on May 30, 2005, leaving a bar with Joran van der Sloot. He was the prime suspect in her disappearance for the following 18 years and finally admitted to killing her in an Oct. 3, 2023, confession made public after he pleaded guilty to the extortion case. Konanki was last seen on surveillance camera with five other people entering the beach at the Riu República Hotel in Punta Cana after 4:15 a.m. Thursday, the Dominican National Police said in a statement. Surveillance video, obtained by Noticias SIN, captured the group striding towards the beach at the five-star resort. The footage is the last time authorities tracked Konanki before the Virginia resident disappeared. Konanki's disappearance has sparked widespread speculation about the events leading up to it, prompting law enforcement in both the Dominican Republic and the U.S. to investigate. Since her daughter's murder, Beth Holloway has been advocating on her behalf and said that the disappearance of Konanki, 20, should be a warning for travelers. "I have created the full-circle safety plan for travelers and citizens of all ages to remind them to spend as much time planning the end of their outing as they do planning where to go, what to wear and who they are going with," Holloway said. While early reports suggested Konanki may have drowned, experts say they believe she would have washed ashore or been found by now if that were the case. Authorities are officially urging the public not to jump to conclusions as the investigation unfolds. Police have spent days searching the coastline with boats, dive teams and helicopters. The FBI is involved, and the sheriff from her Virginia hometown said he would be sending two detectives to assist in the investigation. Stepheny Price is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business. She covers topics including missing persons, homicides, national crime cases, illegal immigration, and more. Story tips and ideas can be sent to
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Yahoo
Authorities must look at man last seen with missing student Sudiksha Konanki, Holloway investigator says
A private investigator who worked on the Natalee Holloway case says he does not believe the missing University of Pittsburgh student drowned in the Dominican Republic and believes authorities need to target the last man seen with her. University of Pittsburgh student Sudiksha Konanki, 20, appeared to vanish from her 5-star resort while on vacation with classmates from college. Konanki, a pre-med major, reportedly was last seen on camera with five other people going to the beach at the Riu República Hotel in Punta Cana after 4:15 a.m. Thursday. Dominican Republic officials told authorities that prior to her disappearance, Konanki was seen walking on the beach in the evening. Her clothes were found on a portable beach bed close to where she went missing. A young man who was with her at the beach is currently under investigation. American College Student Missing In Dominican Republic Didn't Drown, Natalee Holloway Private Eye Believes "Everybody thinks that she's in the water. I got a different feeling. She didn't drown. If she was put in the water, somebody put her there and I just learned some new information that her clothes were found," private investigator TJ Ward told "The Story." "I just got that information about 10 minutes ago. So, that's some new information and we need to look at. I'm real concerned about this individual that was last seen with her at 5:00 in the morning and I think they've interviewed him. I think they need to target him and try to see if he's going to tell the truth." Ward told "The Story" that he has special voice analysis technology that could determine if the man last seen with her is telling the truth. Read On The Fox News App "I think there's something more to this," he said. "His story has changed several times, which concerns me. I think that's why law enforcement is targeting in on him again and asking witnesses and people that are with them. So, there's a whole lot of information that has not been found yet." Ward worked the infamous case of Natalee Holloway, an American teenager who was killed while on a school trip to Aruba in 2005. Beth Holloway, Natalee's mother, spoke to Fox News Digital earlier about the investigation. "The family is so fortunate to have an American embassy there to work with. I did not have that in Aruba," she said. "Surely they are checking cameras from hotel, gas stations, traffic lights, store fronts and wherever they had dinner, any casinos they visited, the beach areas." Fox News' Michael Ruiz, Ashley Papa, Lorraine Taylor and Stepheny Price contributed to this article source: Authorities must look at man last seen with missing student Sudiksha Konanki, Holloway investigator says
