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Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. Just gotta throw in this quick plug. If you want to listen to any of our bonus content, ad-free content, Apple subscriptions, and Patreon.
Get it there. You can listen to all our stuff. We do two full bonus episodes a month. And all of the content is also completely ad-free, whether that's Murder With My Husband, Binged, or Rise and Crime. Everything will be ad-free. For those who are on Patreon and are not on Apple subscriptions, Rise and Crime, we are still getting on Patreon. It will be on there as I'm speaking, so there should be no more issues with that anymore. All right. What's your 10 seconds?
We'll make this a little quicker than last week's. Last week's I felt like was a long 10 seconds. So thanks everyone for sending in the suggestions about any type of Ironmans or any running things we got going on. I'm putting those into practice and I will do it before I die. Before I die, I am committed to doing an Ironman. I've been hurt, old, lazy. It's mainly just old and... Broken down. I just get hurt. Like...
i just can't do the same things i've been able to do anymore i'm not even that old i'm 29 but i haven't played golf in a few days or pickleball but i'm starting up again later this week so we should be good to go on that back in action need to get the body moving i also wanted to address we get a bunch of you know messages from everybody and we really appreciate them because we don't respond to everyone doesn't mean we don't see all them we try to look at as many as we can
It's just also super time consuming for us to respond to all of them as we're trying to get both podcasts out and maybe a surprise coming in a few months. I don't know. But we just want to let everyone know we really appreciate it and we love it. And just because we don't respond doesn't mean we don't see it. Unless you're mean to us then.
You're never getting a response from us. Then we didn't see it. Then we didn't see it. That's all I got for this week's 10 Seconds, so let's hop right into it. Our case sources this week are Loving Natalie, A Mother's Testament of Hope and Faith, Aruba, The Tragic Untold Story of Natalie Hathaway and Corruption in Paradise, Cold Cases, A True Crime Collection, Oxygen's The Disappearance of Natalie Holloway, CNN, NY Daily News, ChillingCrimes.com, NBC News, Deseret News, CBS News, Inside Edition, Huffington Post, and Today.com.
If Natalie Holloway's name doesn't ring a bell, her senior class photo might. The picture that plastered news channels back in 2005 showed a fresh-faced, yet mature-looking, 18-year-old blonde girl. She has these piercing blue eyes, and she's wearing this black off-the-shoulder top with a pearl necklace that will become an identifying marker. That's the picture that we're going to see in 2005.
That image of Natalie Holloway still haunts parents of young adults today. Because back in 2005, Natalie became synonymous with everything that could go wrong when you let your teenager vacation out of the country. What's even more chilling about Natalie's story is how it was handled by local authorities.
and how they let a man who they knew was guilty walk free. You might have heard Natalie's story, but Garrett surely hasn't, so today we're covering it. Let's do it. In 2005, Natalie Holloway is a senior at Mountain Brook High School in the Birmingham area of Alabama.
And truthfully, she's everything you could hope for in a teenage daughter. She's a straight-A student on both the Math and Spanish Honor Society. She participates in Bible Club, the dance team. And in what little free time she has, she volunteers with Habitat for Humanity, the Humane Society, and visits with patients at the American Cancer Society's Hope Lodge.
But Natalie is looking forward to beginning her next chapter after graduation. She received the President's Scholarship to the University of Alabama, where she plans to be pre-med. To say Natalie has a bright future ahead of her is a total understatement. And frankly, she deserves to blow off a little bit of steam after doing four years of high school the way she did. At least that's how her mother feels when Natalie approaches her about going on a senior class trip to Aruba.
She tells her mother, Beth, that there were about 125 other seniors going. They'll be accompanied by seven chaperones who will be there in case there's any emergencies with their passports, missed flights, and so forth. And Beth knows her daughter Natalie is responsible. Her only hesitation is a story from a former Mountain Brook senior who'd gone on the Aruba trip two years prior.
Allegedly, some of the locals had been harassing a few of the students at a bar called Carlos and Charlie's. But this isn't enough of a reason for Beth to say no to Natalie, especially because Aruba at this time is said to be one of the safest islands in the Caribbean. They run on a tourist economy. So Beth just reminds Natalie of the dangers and tells her to keep on high alert. And if she agrees to be careful, she can go on the trip. So, of course, Natalie is ecstatic.
On May 24th, 2005, Natalie and her fellow classmates put on their gowns and received their diplomas at Mountain Brooks graduation ceremony. Then two days later on May 26th, they board their flight to Aruba to begin the celebrations. Do you feel like your birthday comes up a lot in these cases? A lot. May 26th is, we say it all the time. I try to think about it because it comes up a ton.
And it's always in these cases and it kind of gives me a little bit of the heebie-jeebies. Maybe it's a cursed day. Yeah. No offense. Thanks, babe. The group stays at the Holiday Inn, which is right on the beach. And every day the students have pretty much the same schedule. They wake up late, lounge on the sand, take a nap, and then head to dinner, the casino, the bar, or likely all three.
Keep in mind, the drinking and gambling age in Aruba is 18. So for most of the students, this is a freedom they're getting to enjoy for the first time. It's like when we went to the Bahamas, remember? All those kids. All these. I mean, they were teenagers. They were 18 years old. And I was like, there is no way these kids aren't.
In high school. Yeah. Or just got out of high school and they totally... Gambling, drinking. Yeah, it was pretty funny. The only real supervision they have is once a day they have to check in with one of the seven chaperones on the trip to make sure everything is okay and that they're still accounted for.
But for the most part, the group is left to their own devices. The trip flies by and before Natalie knows it, it's May 29th, the final full day of their vacation. Oh no. Natalie, being the responsible young adult she is, packs her bags before dinner and makes sure her passport is somewhere safe.
They have to leave the hotel by 11 a.m. the next morning, so Natalie just wants to make sure she's ready. So that evening, before they hit the town for one final night out, Natalie decides to leave her cell phone in her hotel room. Remember, this is 2005, so cell phone service and Wi-Fi are not what they are today, especially when you're in another country. So her phone really serves little purpose here anyways.
Now, at some point that night, seemingly after dinner, Natalie and her friends make one last stop to the blackjack table in the hotel's casino. Natalie doesn't play, but she enjoys watching a friend of hers lose all of his money. And that's when a new player sits down at the table. A six-foot-tall, imposing guy that looks to be around their same age. He introduces himself to the group as Yorin.
He says he's a 19-year-old college student visiting from the Netherlands, which tracks because he has a thick Dutch accent.
He tells Natalie that he's also staying at the Holiday Inn, and after some more small talk, Natalie and her friends tell Yoran they're gonna move the party to a bar called Carlos and Charlie's. If this rings a bell, it should. It's the same bar Beth warned Natalie about before her trip. Oh, okay. But it's a quick 15-minute drive from the hotel, and apparently this isn't the first time students have partied there on this vacation.
At first, Joran says he's going to pass. He hears the bars are lame on Sunday nights. So Natalie says, okay, suit yourself. She says goodbye and takes off with a group of her classmates to Carlos and Charlie's anyways. But it seems like Joran has a change of heart because a few hours later, he shows up at the bar with two of his friends.
21-year-old Deepak Kalpo and his brother, 18-year-old Sadish Kalpo. Now, what happens at the bar that night varies depending on who you ask. Some students say they see Natalie drinking and dancing, even singing Sweet Home Alabama at the top of her lungs at one point. However, some of Natalie's close friends say she has one or two drinks but never seems very drunk.
They do say that she spotted chatting with Joran throughout the night. While some claim they're flirting, others say he keeps making a pass at Natalie and she keeps kind of shooting him down. So stories are all over the place. Either way, they all stay till the bar closes at 1 a.m. And now everyone is pouring out onto the street trying to find a taxi. That's when Joran's friend Deepak grabs his gray Honda and the guys offer Natalie a ride back to the hotel.
Natalie gets into the back seat, rolls down the window and shouts to some of her friends that she's hitching a ride back to the Holiday Inn with these guys. Then some people hear her shout Aruba out the window as they drive off.
The next morning, Monday, May 30th, the students are gathering in the lobby to catch the shuttles back to the airport. Only there's one person not accounted for. Natalie's friends say she never made it back to the room the night before. Is it a little weird? I'm not blaming any of the friends or anything, but because everyone's so young. But do you think it's a little weird that no one said anything before they were on the way to the airport or packing?
Or do you think it was like, ah, maybe it was probably like, maybe she'll show up. Like she has to show up. She has to know we're leaving. So I went on a senior trip with a couple of my girlfriends. Yep. We met some guys.
One of my friends left later that night and stayed out all night with the guy and we didn't say anything. I mean, she came back the next morning, but she didn't. I mean, we just went to bed and just assumed she'd be back. She'd be back. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. So I, I think like from the outside looking in maybe, but also I did the same exact thing. So I'd probably do the same thing. I mean, yeah.
You're so young, too. And also, the last thing you're thinking about is what can maybe happen in the true crime world, right? Plus, you have to think. I mean, her friends know Yorin. He was at the tables. Then they met the friends at the bar. They kind of hung out with them all night. Like, it's not like it was some stranger she had just met 10 minutes ago. For sure. So.
So Natalie's phone and all of her things are still in the room, which is wildly unlike Natalie. Remember, she had her bags packed ready to go early the day before. So when she still isn't in the lobby by 11 a.m., one of the chaperones calls her mother, Beth.
She knows it's not like Natalie to run late for something, and it's certainly not like Natalie to just not show up at all. Beth's gut is telling her that something is dreadfully wrong. One of the chaperones offers to stay behind and wait for Natalie to see if she shows up. Meanwhile, Beth calls the U.S. Embassy and the FBI to report her daughter Natalie missing in a completely different country. Dang, I didn't think about that. You have to call, you can't call 911.
It's a whole... It's a different country. It's a whole other process. And by the afternoon, she's on a plane headed to Aruba with Natalie's stepfather and two of his friends, which is just... What a nightmare. Worst case scenario. Yes. From the second Beth and her husband arrive in Aruba, they begin handing out photos of Natalie, hoping that somebody has spotted her. The words they keep hearing from the locals are, don't worry, everyone in Aruba knows everyone. Natalie will surely turn up, which is...
somewhat reassuring at first. Now their first stop is the Holiday Inn where Natalie was staying and Beth has been getting pieces of the story from different students who were on the trip with Natalie including the fact that she was last seen partying with a Dutch tourist named Joran. So this is the best and frankly the only clue that Beth has to work off of.
She approaches the front desk and asks if they have someone by the name of Jorin still staying there. The manager claims, oh, yeah, she knows Jorin. He gambles at the casino there all of the time. But he's not a Dutch guest. He's a local. And he happens to prey on female tourists all year.
No freaking way. So it turns out Joran is actually 17 years old, not 19 like he'd initially told Natalie. And he's not a college student. He's still in high school. He was born in the Netherlands, but his family moved to Aruba in 1990 when he was about three years old. In fact, there's a lot of Dutch families living in Aruba because it's part of the kingdom of the Netherlands. So the Dutch community on the tiny 20 mile island is fairly tight.
And Joran's family holds a pretty prominent status. Of course they do. His dad is an attorney and is actually in the process of becoming a judge when all of this is happening in 2005. His father is also very close with the police commissioner, another Dutch local, who happens to be Joran's godfather. Like, of course, right? Like, how else...
How else would this happen? The last person who lied about who he was and is known for kind of hanging around Taurus is also...
In with police. Yeah, inside connections with everybody. It seems like Yorin has quite an army on his side. Still, Beth feels confident that Yorin has played some part in her daughter's disappearance. At least knows where she went after the bar. She asks the hotel if they can get footage from the casino floor so they can identify Yorin. Sure enough, they find a video of him at one of the tables on Sunday night right before he left for Carlos and Charlie's.
A few hours later, after questioning some locals, they also have Joran's address as well as a license plate number for the car Natalie was seen leaving in, that gray Honda. So they get information fairly quickly.
Now they consider going to Joran's house alone, but figure they should probably get the local police involved first. They make a stop at the Nord police station, which is one of the closest to Joran's neighborhood. It takes them almost half an hour to convince the police to escort them. Jeez. But they finally give in. But when the police knock on the Vandersloot's door, which is...
Yorin's last name. They get Paulus, which is Yorin's father, and he claims that Yorin isn't home. He says he's at a poker tournament at the Wyndham Hotel, which is along the same strip as the Holiday Inn in Palm Beach, Aruba. So Beth, her husband, the police, and Paulus all head back to the strip of resorts ready to confront Yorin head on.
And when they get there, Joran is nowhere to be found. And Paulus is saying, oh, he's probably back at the house now. So already there's a bit of this wild goose chase happening. Like they confront his dad. He says, no, he's here. They go there. He's like, oh, no, no, he's probably back home now. But when they return to the Vandersloot's home, they do start to get somewhere.
Outside the house, the police begin questioning Yorin and his two friends, Deepak and Satish. Meanwhile, Beth is watching this all unfold from the car. And here's the story Yorin initially gives the authorities. He claims he met Natalie at the blackjack table the night before at the Holiday Inn. He then met up with her at Carlos and Charlie's later on.
He also said that Natalie was drinking pretty heavily at the bar. They were doing jello shots off of each other and buying 150 proof rum shots, which Natalie washed down with a whiskey Coke. According to urine, Natalie didn't want to go back to the hotel. Instead, she allegedly asked them to drive around a bit and said she wanted to go see some sharks.
So they took her to a lighthouse they knew of. And on the way, Joran and Natalie started fooling around in the backseat of Deepak's Honda. During all of this, he claimed she kept falling asleep and waking back up. So he says they leave this bar and they're supposedly heading back to the hotel. But then Natalie's like, no, no,
Aruba, I want to see some sharks. And on the way to go see the sharks, the two friends are sitting in the front seat and the driver's seat. And she's in the back seat going in and out of consciousness, fooling around with urine. Okay. So basically he did everything he could to make the story sound good for him. I mean, I don't, I think admitting that she's falling asleep and waking back up doesn't necessarily look good because then how can she consent? And I don't know if I believe that she was like, let's go see some sharks. Maybe. Maybe.
I don't know, maybe...
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But the creepiest part of all of this is he goes on to explain the kind of underwear Natalie was wearing. What?
Which then makes Beth realize, okay, he was with her intimately. Like if he saw her underwear. Eventually, Joran says Natalie was too drunk to keep hooking up with. So he had Satish drop her back off at the hotel. Deepak also confirms this and says, yes, we dropped her off and she stumbled back into the hotel. We even watched her hit her head on the way out of the car.
They say they offered to help her back inside, but she refused their help. And that was the last they saw of Natalie. So there's got to be cameras. If she did go back into the hotel, there's 100% cameras at this time, correct? Yes, because they had cameras in the casino. But we'll get there. This is the point in the story where Paulus stops his son. He's like, okay, Jaren, you've told enough. He tells him not to say anything more to the police without a lawyer.
Which is funny because he's a lawyer. Yeah, he's an attorney. So at this point, the little inquisition in front of the VanderSloot home comes to an end. And over the next few hours, Beth is sent back to the Holiday Inn to wait for the local police to get back in touch with her.
At this point, they've met with Homeland Security and a DEA representative, but she says there's not much either of them can really do for the family. Apparently, there's no U.S. consulate office there, no FBI office. They are at the mercy of the local police and the local police only, which I can imagine is pretty frustrating.
The next day is Tuesday, May 31st, 2005, and Natalie still hasn't shown up. Natalie has been missing for about 36 hours at this point when Beth is called to another police station on the other side of the island. She gets there, takes a seat in front of a detective, Dennis Jacobs, who seems to be in no rush to take her statement. He tells her before he can do anything, he needs to eat his lunch and shave. Then he'll hear her statement. Then he just walks out of the room.
Now, Beth is obviously on edge, nervous in so much. Just imagine being a mom, a mom who's like, my daughter's missing in another country. And now she's frustrated, pained even by the lack of urgency and cavalier attitudes the police have towards finding her daughter. She ends up waiting three hours for this officer to come back.
And when he finally returns, he tells Beth he won't be taking her statement at all today. She'll have to make the hour drive back tomorrow. That's another 24 hours that will slip by with Natalie in real potential danger. What is wrong with people?
When Beth finally does get inside Detective Jacobs' office the next day to give her statement, she can't help but notice a stack of torn up papers on his desk. Beth realizes she's looking at a torn up copy of Yorin Vandersloot's witness statement. So the police have been questioning him. They have taken an interest in him or at least have seemed to for optics.
But then they promptly destroyed those records. So it's at this point Beth feels certain that there's something going on here. What are you supposed to do? Like what can you do? Right? Like it's in another country. You don't. You're not a resident there. You don't really have any rights. You're not even a resident there. I mean, you have rights. But you know what I'm saying? Right. It's Aruba. It's not like you're visiting Canada or you're visiting somewhere in Europe even then. Right.
It's just, what are you supposed to do? And perhaps the police have been working behind the scenes to protect Joran van der Sloot or maybe even his father. But this suspicion gets put on the back burner when Detective Jacobs pitches a very strange theory about what he thinks might have happened to Natalie. Apparently, there's a known scam that happens around the island. There's these places called Chawler Houses around the island, which are essentially these drug dens.
Sometimes tourists are kidnapped and taken to these locations where the residents get them hooked on drugs and then use the tourist money to spend freely as their own. And when all of their money runs out, they've been known to get dropped back off the same place they were found. And Carlos and Charlie's happens to be one of these locations that this scam happens. Got it. The thing is, Beth knows Natalie would be useless in a scenario like this because she didn't bring her debit card to Aruba. Right.
No money has been deducted from her bank account. And this theory blatantly contradicts the story Yorin and his friends told that they hung out with Natalie and dropped her back off at the Holiday Inn early Monday morning. So now Beth's wondering, why are the police pushing such a bizarre and unlikely theory when it doesn't even match the evidence?
Is it to buy themselves more time so that they won't have to do any work if they believe Natalie will just reappear in a few days? Either way, Beth is realizing the police are not going to get her the answers she wants. If she's going to find her daughter, she's going to have to take matters into her own hands. When Beth returns to the Holiday Inn, she asks the front desk if they have any security footage outside the hotel. Anything that could show whether Natalie came back the morning of May 30th.
But she's told the camera footage isn't available. They do have it, but it's unavailable. Although, here's what's weird. Around the same time, she spots Paulus Vandersloot lurking around the lobby, also speaking with hotel staff, and he's asking for the same footage. Holy crap, man. I mean...
It just seems obvious. Right? We know exactly what's going on. By Thursday, June 2nd, Natalie's father, Beth's ex-husband, Dave, arrives in Aruba with his brother.
And they figure if the police aren't going to help, perhaps they should question Yorin directly. So they come up with the idea to approach Yorin where he studies at the International School of Aruba. When they get there, Dave speaks with the headmaster who offers up some strange information. He says, yeah, Yorin is here. In fact, he's been sleeping there.
which is strange in itself when his family has this big, beautiful house nearby. Then the headmaster goes on to say that Yorin and Paulus came to him and told him what had happened. They claimed he had dropped Natalie off at the Holiday Inn after a trip to the lighthouse, just like Yorin had initially claimed,
but they also said they were having trouble proving it because the cameras outside the hotel weren't working. So Beth was right. Paulus was looking for footage yesterday when he was in the lobby. Even stranger, as they're wrapping up their chat with the headmaster, he poses a bizarre notion.
Maybe Natalie went swimming that night and just drowned. Oh my gosh. Come on, man. Also, of course the cameras weren't working. Right. Why can I just not have a case where all the cameras are working, everything's nice and easy, we know exactly what happened.
And when Dave, Natalie's father, asks to speak to Yorin, the headmaster refuses. So either Yorin and Paulus have been going around town trying to proactively clear Yorin's name, or there's some greater conspiracy happening on this island where everyone seems to be at the beck and call of the Vandersloot family. It's all bizarre. Every lead they find, every corner they turn, someone's protecting Yorin and his family. Mm-hmm.
And worst of all, it's all keeping Beth and Dave from getting any real answers about their daughter. But later that evening, there's a new development that Beth and Dave desperately need. A hotel employee has recovered footage from the lobby from the morning Natalie disappeared.
Beth is escorted to an office where they watch the tapes in slow motion, searching for any sign that Natalie walked back through that lobby like urine had said he watched her do. And that's when they spot a blonde on the grainy video. They play it backwards and forwards again and again. But Beth knows it's not Natalie. It's one of her classmates.
Yorin, Deepak, and Sadish couldn't have dropped Natalie off back at the Holiday Inn. There's no footage of her ever walking through that lobby that morning. Beth is hoping that this is all the evidence the police need to start seriously looking into Yorin and the Kalpo brothers. But seeing what she has so far, she doesn't count on it. Which is why Beth realizes she needs to go public with Natalie's story.
By the end of the first week of Natalie's disappearance, media outlets have swarmed the island. Reporters from every channel gather to hear Beth and Dave give their side of the story. They also hear the false promises of Aruban officials. They are doing absolutely everything they can to find the missing American Natalie. A man who Beth has never even met before lies to cameras saying he's been working closely with the family to return their daughter to them.
For Beth and Dave, this must feel like the Twilight Zone. Meanwhile, endless tips about Natalie's possible whereabouts are flooding in. And there's one police think is worth exploring. There's a resort called the Allegro just a few doors down from the Holiday Inn. It's been under renovations. But someone reported seeing a blood stain inside the building and a body. Which...
Now you say this? After all this time, you know what I'm saying? Like, come on. I think everything is just done so differently in other countries. I mean, and obviously his dad and with all these connections, they're just like, well, sorry. It's also hard though because-
I could be wrong. I don't know enough about this, but I feel like when Americans get killed or go missing somewhere else, if pressed enough and gets enough attention, sometimes the government will get involved and then things get really serious. And it's like, then the other countries go, okay. Which is kind of what happened. We got to figure out what happened. The second they started talking to the media, the country was like, no, no, no, we're doing everything we can. We assure you. Or it's like anytime something happens in Mexico, everyone's like, okay, do I want to go to Mexico? You know? Yeah. It's like people, because...
I mean, a lot of this, yeah, some of these countries survive on tourism and stuff. And so if stuff goes wrong, they want to make sure they figure out why it went wrong, what's going wrong, what's happening. I think we're just so used to our justice system that whenever we hear a story with a different one that kind of works differently, we're like, what the freak is going on? Totally. So Allegro, the resort under renovations, they say that there's a body there. So police swarm the area thinking this could be it.
Only when they get there, there's no body and there's no blood. It's just another false alarm, but oddly enough, it does lead to an arrest and not of the people you'd suspect. On June 5th, two of the Allegro Hotel's former security guards, both native Aruban men on the island, are taken into custody. Their clothes are taken, their cars are impounded, their homes are searched for evidence. But why?
Because Joran van der Sloot and the Kalpo brothers said they saw those security guards approach Natalie outside the hotel right after they dropped her off.
To Beth and anyone else close to the investigation, it's obvious this whole thing is just a setup. A huge cover-up. Like the call-in about the body, everything is just, it's all one big cover-up. Still, these two men are branded publicly as the main suspects in Natalie's disappearance. And for a moment, it takes all of the focus off Joran van der Sloot exactly as he'd hoped, but only for a moment.
Because on June 9th, 2005, justice catches up to Uren, Deepak, and Satish. Finally, police arrest them in connection to Natalie's disappearance. Keep in mind, though, it's been 10 days since she went missing, which means they've had 10 days to cover up their tracks, get their story straight, and find lawyers. Still, Deepak's car, that infamous gray Honda, is impounded.
This came after tips that the brothers had been seen washing the car inside and out in the early morning hours of May 30th. Plus, Uren's private quarters at his parents' home are searched by police. It's during all of this that police decide there's not enough evidence to keep these two security guards locked up. So they're released on June 13th as the focus shifts more towards Uren and his friends. It's so interesting how quick this switch up is. Like what's pressuring them to now be like,
Oh, we got to figure out. Yeah, never mind. Who got involved that was then like, this case is getting too much press. Do something about it. I know. That's what I want to know. But during this time behind bars, Uren gives a new account of what happened with Natalie that night. Here's the thing. You knew this was going to happen as soon as the story starts switching up. It's just red flags. To me, you're guilty. Sorry.
This time he says he wanted to go back to the Holiday Inn to drop Natalie off, but instead around 1.40 a.m. that evening, Deepak dropped him off at his home instead. And then the brothers took Natalie back to the hotel without him.
He then says after Natalie was declared missing, his father, Paulus, insisted their phones and emails would be hacked so they should get their story straight and prepare their alibis. According to Yorin, Paulus told them not to worry because if there was no body, there was no case, which, if true, is wildly incriminating for Paulus. However, a few days later, Yorin changes his statement to the police again. So now he's throwing the two boys under the bus saying, Paulus,
They took her. I just went home and then she went missing. And my dad was like, you guys got to get your story straight. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. Now it's changing again. This time he says Natalie came back with him to his house. They had sex. Then they went to the beach near the fishermen's huts where they continued hooking up. He said he called Deepak at 3.30 a.m. to come pick him up. And they left Natalie there on the beach because he didn't want to go home yet.
So this is obviously a completely different story than he's given the other two times. Which I don't believe again. And it's getting harder and harder to sift through all of the lies. Now they just left her on the beach alone. Come on.
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But there's one thing that Deepak tells the police that is alarming. He says that Joran's father, Paulus, has offered to find him a lawyer, a good one, and that after the disappearance, he and Satish went to Paulus' house, where he counseled them on what to do in the days following. Shockingly, about 10 days later, on June 23rd, Paulus is also arrested in connection to Natalie's disappearance. This is after he also changed his story several times regarding that night.
Now, this is a huge deal because you have one of the biggest attorneys who is now a judge in training arrested as a potential accessory to homicide. Only it doesn't last for long. Three days later, on June 26th, a judge orders Paulus's release, claiming there's not enough suspicion for guilt. And in July 2005, the same goes for the Calpo brothers. They are released on a lack of evidence. But that doesn't stop New Tips from rolling in.
During this time, a gardener working at the Aruba Racquet Club close to the hotels says he saw something suspicious around 2.30 a.m. that morning, May 30th. He claims he spotted urine in the cow pose digging a hole near a pond there.
This sworn statement by the gardener, along with Yorin's insistence that he had been hooking up with Natalie in the car while the Calpo brothers were there, leads to the brothers' re-arrest. By August 26th, they're back behind bars with Yorin on suspicion that they acted together in the rape and murder of Natalie. What a maze. Yes.
Come September 1st, 2005, it seems like Beth and Dave are close to getting their daughter the justice she deserves. Good. I'm so glad that they just didn't quit and they just kept trying to escalate it and went to the media because...
It's very obvious. For a second there, they were at a loss, though. They didn't care. No one cared. I mean, no one knows exactly what happened, but they know who did it. Yeah. However, police follow the gardener's tip and drain the pond near the racket club, but there's still no sign of Natalie. While her body has not yet been found, Beth hears that the court is asking to collect DNA from urine and the cow pose. Her attorney says this is a good sign, like they're moving in the right direction. She's feeling optimistic. They're about to get an indictment. Mm-hmm.
But a few hours later, Beth's attorneys call back. There's been a change of course. Urine and the Calpos are instead scheduled to be released in two days' time. And on September 3rd, 2005, all three of them walk free. By October, Beth feels she's done all she can in Aruba, which...
Keep in mind, she's been in Aruba this entire time fighting for her daughter. Aside from making public appearances and doing interviews on things like the Dr. Phil show, there's little she can do to move the needle in the investigation. She decides it's time to pack her bags and move out of the Holiday Inn. She pays her $19,000 hotel bill and heads back to Alabama to return to her old life, unfortunately without Natalie.
As for Jorin van der Sloot, his only real consequence was he had to stay within Dutch territory in case of a reinvestigation, which meant he could move back to the Netherlands and continue his schooling there. Still, over the years, Jorin can't seem to keep his mouth shut about the case. In April 2007, Jorin, with the help of a reporter, published a book detailing his side of the case.
Then a former girlfriend of Joran's comes forward to say he'd spoken to her about the case and even made grotesque remarks like, you may be on the beach with someone who's able to get rid of a body. You know, I don't want to get into this and this is a whole nother thing, but kind of reminds me of the whole OJ Simpson thing a little bit. Really? Why? When he published a book and everything. Oh. Like that part. Yeah.
And I don't want to get into that because that's a whole, I have to do 15 episodes on that whole thing, but. They already did. It's called People vs. OJ on Netflix. Go watch it. I think it's hard because, you know, when we tell these stories, it's so fast, right? Like I'm talking to you 40 minutes, but when this was happening. Months, months. The true crime community, people in America were like,
Oh my gosh, these guys murdered an American student and they're just getting away with it. And now he's publishing a book. Like it was a big deal. That's absolutely blows my mind. And just when you think it couldn't get worse in 2008, Yorin does an interview with Fox News saying he sold Natalie into a human trafficking ring and she was later brought to Venezuela.
Why would he say that? In that same interview, he claimed he paid the Calpo brothers for their help and his father paid off a few police officers to cover up the crime. Why is he saying this? I'm really confused. I don't understand. He later retracts the statement saying it was all a lie. But he continues doing these interviews where he changes his story about what really happened with Natalie. Okay.
Basically, he never really stops playing the game. He just wants attention. That's all it is. Then in 2010, things start to really hit the fan for Joran. In February, his father, Paulus, dies of a heart attack on a tennis court in Aruba. He's only 57 years old.
Then in March, Yorin contacts Beth's attorneys with something wild. Yorin says if Beth pays him $250,000, he will reveal the location of Natalie's body to her as well as the true story about what happened. So he's basically, I don't want to say blackmailing, but kind of blackmailing the victim's family. 100%.
Now, Beth and her attorney know better than to entertain Yorin. Instead, they contact the FBI and set up a sting operation to try and nail him. Because if they can't get him for murder, then the least they can do is try and get him for extortion. So on May 10th, Beth wires a smaller amount of $15,000 to Yorin to see what she can get out of him. Meanwhile, undercover agents track Yorin taking out that cash. And weirdly, he does go on to fulfill his end of the bargain with Beth, but he doesn't get it.
Sort of. He claims that his father buried Natalie in the foundation of a house they were building. But when police look into this, they realize it's just another lie. You know, during research, I couldn't help but feel like, you know the Tindler swindler? Yes. It's almost like as if he had murdered someone.
And this is how he would act. Yeah. Like the lies, the changing of the story. Trying to get money out of people, trying to get attention for killing somebody. Saying crazy things and then taking it back and then painting himself as the victim. It's kind of crazy because you look at the Tinder swindler, Netflix, right? Yeah. And I mean, what he did wasn't okay. But killing someone and doing it for killing someone is just next level, right? He was doing it out of just...
Money. Money. And like, it was just a completely different situation. But he killed someone. I mean, I don't know the end of the episode yet. But Joran killed someone and is now trying to get money out of someone to tell where the bodies are. Like, that's so effed up. Yeah. That's so messed up.
So the house that he said she was buried under wasn't even under construction at the time of Natalie's disappearance. But before authorities figure this out and can actually file wire fraud and extortion charges against Yorin, he's already made his way out of Aruba. By the end of May 2010, he's in Lima, Peru, where he's about to repeat history. It's May 30th, 2010, five years to the day of Natalie Holloway's disappearance.
Yoran is at a casino in Lima when he meets a 21-year-old woman named Stephanie Flores Ramirez. She's a business student at the University of Lima and the daughter of a former presidential candidate. Wow. So she's fairly high profile. The two play poker until about 5 a.m. when they decide to leave together. They head to Yoran's hotel just a few blocks away. Back in his room, they play a few rounds of online poker when an instant message pops up on Yoran's computer. It
It's someone threatening Joran, claiming they know about his involvement in Natalie's disappearance. And that's when Stephanie starts to panic. Can you imagine? You're like alone with this guy, and then he gets a message about a girl's disappearance. That would be freaky. And Joran tries to cover his tracks.
A hotel employee later finds Stephanie dead in that hotel room. No, she's dead? He killed her? She appears to have been beaten with a tennis racket, which is still there. Oh my gosh. There are also signs of asphyxiation. However, Joran van der Sloot is nowhere to be found.
All of Stephanie's jewelry, money, credit cards, and ID are also missing. And an autopsy later reveals that Stephanie may have also been drugged and Yorin wasn't going to get away with this crime. Especially because of how high profile she was. And how high profile he is in another country for having murdered someone basically.
Despite having fled to Chile, police track Yorin down by June 3rd, 2010, and this time he openly confesses to killing Stephanie. I guess when you no longer have your dad around telling you what to say to police, it's a little bit harder. Meanwhile, Yorin is also facing charges in Alabama. On June 30th, 2010, a federal grand jury finally indicts him on those wire fraud and extortion charges.
In 2012, Yoram pleads guilty to killing Stephanie and is sentenced to 28 years in a Peruvian jail. That same year, Natalie Holloway is declared legally dead. Ooh, in a Peruvian jail. That does not sound fun. However, in 2015, Dave Holloway receives one more tip that might lead to his daughter's remains. Because keep in mind, they know who killed her.
He hasn't been convicted for it. They've declared her dead, but I mean, they still want her body. 100%. That year, a man named Gabriel contacts Dave to say he used to live with a guy in Aruba who was friends with Joran Vandersloot. His name was John.
And John seemed to have intel on what truly happened to Natalie, Dave's daughter, the night she vanished. Here's what he had learned. John met Joran sometime after Natalie's death and the two had started partying together. Over time, Joran felt comfortable enough with John to tell him what happened that night. Allegedly, Deepak and Satish had dropped Joran and Natalie off at the beach. John says Natalie and Joran strolled down to the ocean with to-go drinks they'd gotten at Carlos and Charlie's.
and that Yorin had slipped Natalie a date rape drug in hers. Got it. Perhaps not unlike what he did to Stephanie Ramirez. When they got to the beach and started hooking up, Natalie began foaming at the mouth because of what he claimed was an accidental overdose. Eventually, she died choking on her own vomit, but Yorin was too afraid to call the police, so he called his dad, Paulus, instead.
Wow.
Paulus told Yorin to never tell anyone about what happened, but according to John, he confessed to him anyway. And one day in 2010, Yorin asked John to help him out. He said the investigation was closing in on the area where they buried Natalie and he needed John's help to move the body. Yorin paid John $1,500 to dig up Natalie's body and cremate it. John then told Gabriel, who is the tipster, that he and Yorin borrowed a boat and spread Natalie's ashes out at sea.
Gabriel's tip leads Dave and a PI to an unspecified location in Aruba where they shockingly do find bone fragments that can be tested. However, Dave doesn't receive the results he wants. Out of the four samples they collected, only one is found to be human and unfortunately it does not match Natalie. So we have no idea where her body is.
Which begs a whole nother question. Whose was it? Because it's in the exact spot that Joran claimed to have buried Natalie and it doesn't belong to her. It was someone else that he had done this to for sure. Most likely.
Unfortunately, that answer, along with what truly happened to Natalie Holloway, that may never see answers. But Natalie's family is making small steps towards getting justice against Joran van der Sloot. In 2023, Peru agreed to transfer Joran to the states to face trial for those extortion and wire fraud charges.
Although in June of this year, he pled not guilty. As of this recording, a judge has granted Yorin's team the motion to delay his trial and his fate is still undetermined. Meanwhile, Natalie's family is still holding out hope that one day they will get the full story. If you have any tips regarding the disappearance of Natalie Holloway, you can direct them to tips.fbi.gov or contact the Birmingham FBI office. And that is the infamous story of Natalie Holloway.
Dang, that's horrible. And I wish that the family had more answers. I wish they knew where the body was because that's got to be heartbreaking. Well, and there's also so many stories like...
I've heard theories on this case of they were on the beach, he kills her, and then he calls his dad and they take a boat out and they feed her body to sharks. Like, there are so many different stories. Maybe the three of them got on a boat that night and all the brothers were involved. Like, there's just so many options and the story has changed so many times. You know what's hard too? I...
I bet if the police would have got involved in day one and day two instead of waiting so long and the mom had to push it so hard, probably a good chance that maybe they would have found the body. I don't know, but just possible. There was definitely frustration in the way that things were covered up and that it took a media uproar and for the case to be spread for something to happen. And isn't that just this sad moment?
Reality of true crime. Yeah, it's horrible. The more attention a case gets, the more likely it will be paid attention to. 100%. Which is why you always hear these families trying to get loud. All right, you guys, that was our case for this week. Keep in mind, there's another bonus episode coming if you want to check that out. And we will see you for next week's episode. I love it. I hate it. Goodbye.
