This case fascinates me. Superficially, it doesn't appear complex. A young woman, vacationing in Aruba to celebrate her high school graduation, goes to a bar on the last night of her stay. There she meets up with a young man whom, according to some accounts, she'd encountered earlier that evening in a casino. Around closing time, the young woman leaves the bar accompanied by the young man. With him, she gets into a car occupied by another two young men, and rides off into the night. She's never seen again.
It's the sort of thing that has happened many times before and, unfortunately, will happen many times again.
So what is it that makes this case so riveting?
Partly it's the cast of characters, principal among them Joran van der Sloot, the young man with whom Natalee left the bar and, for nearly five years, the main suspect in her disappearance.
After spending several years stoutly maintaining his innocence of any involvement in Natalee's fate, Joran decided, in late 2007, to confess. Or, rather, to embark on an odyssey of serial confessing. Or telling stories. Or something.
Not that he addressed any of these perorations to the police, or to any other law enforcement agency. The recipient of his first confession was the emissary of a well-known and highly-regarded Dutch crime reporter, Peter DeVries. The recipient of the next tale was Greta Van Susteren of Fox News. Now, it seems, Joran has told yet a third version of the events of May 29-30, 2005, to a Dutch television personality quaintly named, to Anglophone ears anyway, Terror Jaap.
So what was the nature of these confessions?
To Patrick van der Eem, DeVries's agent, Joran said that Natalee had convulsed and died on an Aruban beach, in his presence, and that he had called someone to help dispose of the body. That person took Natalee's remains (although we have no one's word but Joran's that she was actually dead and not just unconscious) out to sea and dumped them there. (Joran at first refused to identify his helper, but subsequently named the individual as one "Daury".) He also said that, before he summoned the helper, he concealed Natalee's body--again, if she was really dead--in some nearby mangrove bushes.
To Greta Van Susteren, Joran said that he had sold Natalee to a tourist for $10,000. Let's pause for a moment to indulge in hoots of scornful laughter. Wipe the tears of mirth from your eyes, compose yourself, and I'll continue.
Joran's confession to Terror Jaap, which will be broadcast in The Netherlands this coming Sunday, will--according to the promos--state that he and Natalee attended a party after leaving the bar, and that Natalee, very drunk and further addled by some enthusiastic snorting of coke, climbed onto a balcony railing and began doing a striptease. Joran adds that he reached up to hold Natalee by her hips, and when he released her, she fell from the balcony, struck her head, and died. Joran and a friend, whom he will apparently name in this interview, disposed of her body in an Aruban swamp. Whether he'll be recycling Daury for this occasion we'll find out in due course.
(I should note that it is reported that Joran received payment for his second and third confessions.)
The interesting thing about Confession Number One and Confession Number Three is that they contain common elements: Natalee in physical distress of some sort; Natalee's remains being disposed of in a body of water; and the presence of a helper for Joran. The (fatal?) head injury she suffers by falling, according to Confession Three, additionally harkens back to the very first story Joran told in 2005, which was that he and his friends, after having taken Natalee on a drive around the island, delivered her safely back to the Holiday Inn where she was staying, and that she had fallen getting out of the car.
In Confession Number Two, Joran says that the stranger to whom he sold Natalee took her away in a boat. In Confession Number One, Natalee's remains are conveyed out to sea in a boat.
On June 9, 2005, ten days after Natalee's disappearance, Joran (and the other two guys in the car, Deepak and Satish Kalpoe)were arrested. Looking back at old news stories, I was struck by the fact that the Aruban police promptly searched the mangroves in question and did a water search. This suggests that Joran--who doesn't strike me as one of the world's preeminent stand-up guys; he also suggested to the police that his good friend Deepak Kalpoe might have raped and killed Natalee--probably told the police right after his bust some story that approximated the one he told Patrick van der Eem. But this confession to law enforcement, if indeed that is what it was, was either retracted or deemed inadmissable because Joran was underaged and not represented by a parent or lawyer when he gave it. Or for some other reason not known to me. But the police apparently acted on the information given in it.
Now here's the big question: If Natalee died accidentally, either on the beach or by falling from a balcony, why the need to hide the body? Why did it never occur to Joran--or his helper, who surely had a cooler head--to call emergency services? Aruba isn't some primitive backwater; it has a hospital and a full complement of doctors, nurses, medical technicians, and other people equipped to provide health care. Certainly when Joran's father, Paulus van der Sloot, collapsed and died of a heart attack on a tennis court earlier this month, the Aruban EMTs showed up with remarkable dispatch.
In his confession to van der Eem, Joran said that his helper told him to go home and get some sleep, because he would need to get up in a few hours to go to school. This suggests that the person was older. I don't think a contemporary would have worried much about whether Joran made it to his math class, or whatever, in the morning. So was the helper his father, Paulus? Or perhaps someone high up in Aruban law enforcement; Paulus, in his capacity as a lawyer, had such contacts. Then again, the sole person Joran has identified (to date) as a helper was Daury. But the only Daury various news organizations were able to dig up on Aruba appears to be someone in Joran's general age group. When the reporters tracked him down, he stated resoundingly that Joran, at least in this regard, was full of schijt. Pardon my Dutch.
So what, precisely, is up with Joran? He had every opportunity to remake, or go on, with his life when he was released from prison in August 2005. His parents sent him to business school in The Netherlands. Although he didn't finish the course of study there, he manifested some entrepreneurial instinct: he told Patrick van der Eem his ambition was to become a big-time drug dealer. From The Netherlands he went to Thailand, and apparently matriculated at a Thai university. (He also found the time to frolic nude on a beach for a photographer, an image promptly and widely circulated on the Internet, though the less--in all senses of the word--said about Joran's physiognomy as revealed, the better.) No word on whether he is pursuing his studies in Thailand, though if he is, it would seem to be by correspondence. His current vocation, as we speak, appears to be confessing for money.
As for Joran's most recent confession? (It was actually made last summer, and is just now being broadcast.) The current Aruban prosecutor, Peter Blanken, claims that it's a fantasy. On the other hand, Gerold Dompig, chief of the Aruban police when Natalee vanished, says that Joran Version 3 is the closest in detail to what actually happened the night of May 29-30, 2005. How does Dompig know?
Fascinating.
It's the sort of thing that has happened many times before and, unfortunately, will happen many times again.
So what is it that makes this case so riveting?
Partly it's the cast of characters, principal among them Joran van der Sloot, the young man with whom Natalee left the bar and, for nearly five years, the main suspect in her disappearance.
After spending several years stoutly maintaining his innocence of any involvement in Natalee's fate, Joran decided, in late 2007, to confess. Or, rather, to embark on an odyssey of serial confessing. Or telling stories. Or something.
Not that he addressed any of these perorations to the police, or to any other law enforcement agency. The recipient of his first confession was the emissary of a well-known and highly-regarded Dutch crime reporter, Peter DeVries. The recipient of the next tale was Greta Van Susteren of Fox News. Now, it seems, Joran has told yet a third version of the events of May 29-30, 2005, to a Dutch television personality quaintly named, to Anglophone ears anyway, Terror Jaap.
So what was the nature of these confessions?
To Patrick van der Eem, DeVries's agent, Joran said that Natalee had convulsed and died on an Aruban beach, in his presence, and that he had called someone to help dispose of the body. That person took Natalee's remains (although we have no one's word but Joran's that she was actually dead and not just unconscious) out to sea and dumped them there. (Joran at first refused to identify his helper, but subsequently named the individual as one "Daury".) He also said that, before he summoned the helper, he concealed Natalee's body--again, if she was really dead--in some nearby mangrove bushes.
To Greta Van Susteren, Joran said that he had sold Natalee to a tourist for $10,000. Let's pause for a moment to indulge in hoots of scornful laughter. Wipe the tears of mirth from your eyes, compose yourself, and I'll continue.
Joran's confession to Terror Jaap, which will be broadcast in The Netherlands this coming Sunday, will--according to the promos--state that he and Natalee attended a party after leaving the bar, and that Natalee, very drunk and further addled by some enthusiastic snorting of coke, climbed onto a balcony railing and began doing a striptease. Joran adds that he reached up to hold Natalee by her hips, and when he released her, she fell from the balcony, struck her head, and died. Joran and a friend, whom he will apparently name in this interview, disposed of her body in an Aruban swamp. Whether he'll be recycling Daury for this occasion we'll find out in due course.
(I should note that it is reported that Joran received payment for his second and third confessions.)
The interesting thing about Confession Number One and Confession Number Three is that they contain common elements: Natalee in physical distress of some sort; Natalee's remains being disposed of in a body of water; and the presence of a helper for Joran. The (fatal?) head injury she suffers by falling, according to Confession Three, additionally harkens back to the very first story Joran told in 2005, which was that he and his friends, after having taken Natalee on a drive around the island, delivered her safely back to the Holiday Inn where she was staying, and that she had fallen getting out of the car.
In Confession Number Two, Joran says that the stranger to whom he sold Natalee took her away in a boat. In Confession Number One, Natalee's remains are conveyed out to sea in a boat.
On June 9, 2005, ten days after Natalee's disappearance, Joran (and the other two guys in the car, Deepak and Satish Kalpoe)were arrested. Looking back at old news stories, I was struck by the fact that the Aruban police promptly searched the mangroves in question and did a water search. This suggests that Joran--who doesn't strike me as one of the world's preeminent stand-up guys; he also suggested to the police that his good friend Deepak Kalpoe might have raped and killed Natalee--probably told the police right after his bust some story that approximated the one he told Patrick van der Eem. But this confession to law enforcement, if indeed that is what it was, was either retracted or deemed inadmissable because Joran was underaged and not represented by a parent or lawyer when he gave it. Or for some other reason not known to me. But the police apparently acted on the information given in it.
Now here's the big question: If Natalee died accidentally, either on the beach or by falling from a balcony, why the need to hide the body? Why did it never occur to Joran--or his helper, who surely had a cooler head--to call emergency services? Aruba isn't some primitive backwater; it has a hospital and a full complement of doctors, nurses, medical technicians, and other people equipped to provide health care. Certainly when Joran's father, Paulus van der Sloot, collapsed and died of a heart attack on a tennis court earlier this month, the Aruban EMTs showed up with remarkable dispatch.
In his confession to van der Eem, Joran said that his helper told him to go home and get some sleep, because he would need to get up in a few hours to go to school. This suggests that the person was older. I don't think a contemporary would have worried much about whether Joran made it to his math class, or whatever, in the morning. So was the helper his father, Paulus? Or perhaps someone high up in Aruban law enforcement; Paulus, in his capacity as a lawyer, had such contacts. Then again, the sole person Joran has identified (to date) as a helper was Daury. But the only Daury various news organizations were able to dig up on Aruba appears to be someone in Joran's general age group. When the reporters tracked him down, he stated resoundingly that Joran, at least in this regard, was full of schijt. Pardon my Dutch.
So what, precisely, is up with Joran? He had every opportunity to remake, or go on, with his life when he was released from prison in August 2005. His parents sent him to business school in The Netherlands. Although he didn't finish the course of study there, he manifested some entrepreneurial instinct: he told Patrick van der Eem his ambition was to become a big-time drug dealer. From The Netherlands he went to Thailand, and apparently matriculated at a Thai university. (He also found the time to frolic nude on a beach for a photographer, an image promptly and widely circulated on the Internet, though the less--in all senses of the word--said about Joran's physiognomy as revealed, the better.) No word on whether he is pursuing his studies in Thailand, though if he is, it would seem to be by correspondence. His current vocation, as we speak, appears to be confessing for money.
As for Joran's most recent confession? (It was actually made last summer, and is just now being broadcast.) The current Aruban prosecutor, Peter Blanken, claims that it's a fantasy. On the other hand, Gerold Dompig, chief of the Aruban police when Natalee vanished, says that Joran Version 3 is the closest in detail to what actually happened the night of May 29-30, 2005. How does Dompig know?
Fascinating.