Remains of Body Found in Poker Murderer Case

Police on the southern Caribbean island of Aruba have discovered remains which may be those of Natalee Holloway, the US student who went missing 12 years ago while on a graduation trip – the prime suspect in the case being Joran van der Sloot, a poker player who is currently serving a 28-year sentence for the murder of Stephany Flores in his hotel room in Peru.

Van der Sloot was the last person seen with Natalee before her disappearance in 2005 and was questioned three times by police about her whereabouts, but was never charged due to lack of evidence – although he confessed in a secretly-taped interview in prison discussing Natalee’s mysterious vanishing:

“Yes, yes, yes, this is also where I am guilty and I accept everything that I have done.”

According to reports he has variously confessed to ‘dumping Holloway’s body at sea after she died from “some kind of seizure” during sexual intercourse, to selling her into sexual slavery. Each time he has retracted these confessions.’

This month police have been searching the island once again after receiving a tip-off after an informant – discovered by a private investigator hired by Natalee’s father Dave - put them in contact with someone "directly involved with Joran van der Sloot in disposing of Natalee's remains" according to press reports.

‘The remains were found after several trips to the island and a tip off to dig behind a house. DNA testing is now taking place to find out if the remains are Natalee's. The results are expected in several weeks,’ state the reports and Dave Holloway told the US show ‘Today’:

"I've put up a wall trying to find something that's not going to disappoint me. And when we determined these remains were human I was shocked.”

He added:

"Over the last 12 years we've had a number of disappointments… I know there's a possibility this could be someone else and I'm just trying to wait and see."

Dutchman van der Sloot, whose family made Aruba their home, had reportedly traveled to Peru in 2010 – five years after Natalee’s disappearance - to play live tournament poker at the Latin American Poker Tour, his bankroll for buy-ins and the trip apparently coming from another alleged criminal act related to the missing Holloway girl.

In the interim, as Charles Retmullerwrote last year, In 2009, an online poker player with the screen name of 'AANOTILTKK' scored a 5th place finish at a $300K GTD tournament at PartyPoker, taking home a prize of more than $13,000. For that entire year, the same player cashed for a total of $21,066. In the years prior to that, Officialpokerrankings.com lists the online earnings of 'AANOTILTKK' as $3,545 in 2008 and $13,190 in 2007.’

That player was van der Sloot, and after bludegoning Stephany Flores to death in his hotel room in LIma, he attempted to flee but was apprehended in Chile and extradited to Peru, Time magazine describing the murder of Flores as "the most important criminal event of the year" in 2010 because of van der Sloot’s involvement as the chief suspect in the Holloway case.

His murder of Stephany Flores, which took place exactly five years to the day of Holloway’s last sighting, came about after he apparently became angered when he found out that Stephany had conducted an online search, discovering that he was the prime suspect in Natalee’s disappearance five years previously.

In 2014 van der Sloot was allowed to marry in prison, and has since become a father, but should the remains found this week be those of Natalee Holloway, there is a distinct possibility that his 28-year jail stretch could be significantly increased should investigators prove able to tie him to Natalee’s death.