The prime suspect in the Natalee Holloway case said he 'took care of things' in an email sent shortly after her disappearance.
Holloway vanished on May 30, 2005 while on a trip to Aruba. She lived in Mountain Brook, Alabama and graduated from Mountain Brook High School on May 24, 2005, days before the trip, for which she travelled with other graduates.
She was last seen leaving a bar with Joran van der Sloot, now 35, who was later identified as a suspect in her disappearance - however, he was never charged in connection with her death.
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Holloway's remains have never been found.
But now, in a newly obtained email, van der Sloot claimed he and his father Paul van Der Sloot rented a boat and ‘took care of things’ shortly after Holloway vanished.
The email, which was seen by The Messenger, was sent two days after Holloway disappeared.
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Dutch native Van der Sloot, who was 17 at the time, emailed someone named “David G.” claiming: “My dad got a boat two days later. We went for a ride and took care of things. That’s all I’m going to say.”
The mystery of Holloway's disappearance remains one of the US' most chilling missing person cases after the cheerleader never showed up for her flight back home to Alabama from Aruba.
Her body never found and she was declared legally dead some seven years later in 2012.
A federal affidavit cited by Fox News read: "Van der Sloot went on to admit that he had been with Natalee on the night of May 29/30, 2005, and that he had thrown her to the ground after she had attempted to stop him from leaving her."
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While van der Sloot was initially arrested - given he was one of the last people seen with Holloway - he was subsequently released over a lack of evidence.
Van der Sloot has been in prison in Peru for over a decade after pleading guilty to the May 2010 murder of student Stephany Flores Ramírez , 21, whom he strangled at a casino in Lima five years after Holloway’s disappearance.
Van der Sloot was extradited to the US back in June to face fraud and extortion charges in relation to the disappearance of Holloway.
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Holloway's mother Beth announced the news in a statement: "Almost exactly eighteen years later, her perpetrator, Joran Van der Sloot, has been extradited to Birmingham to answer for his crimes."
The Peruvian government has since allowed American authorities to take in the Dutch citizen 'for his prosecution in the United States for the alleged commission of the crimes of extortion and fraud, to the grievance of Elizabeth Ann Holloway', Peru Minister of Justice and Human Rights Daniel Maurate Romero said in a statement.
"This action will enable a process that will help to bring peace to Mrs. Holloway and to her family, who are grieving in the same way that the Flores family in Peru is grieving for the loss of their daughter," explained Peru's ambassador to the US Gustavo Meza-Cuadra.
Gregory Robinson