The prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance and death of Natalee Holloway is expected to finally reveal what happened to her after reaching a plea deal with federal prosecutors.
Jordan van der Sloot, a Dutch national, is charged with trying to extort $250,000 from Natalee’s mother Beth Holloway in exchange for information about her missing daughter’s disappearance.
A grand jury indicted him for wire fraud and extortion in 2010 and he was extradited to the US this June to face charges.
A plea and sentencing hearing had been scheduled to take place on Wednesday before US District Judge Anna Manasco in Birmingham, Alabama.
However, the hearing has now been rescheduled with the Holloway family’s attorney revealing that a plea deal has been reached.
Under the terms of the deal, van der Sloot is expected to plead guilty over the extortion plot and finally reveal details about the Alabama teenager’s disappearance.
“It [the plea agreement] was conditioned upon Mr van der Sloot revealing details of how Natalee died and how her body was disposed of,” the family lawyer John Q. Kelly told NBC News.
It is not clear exactly what charges van der Sloot will plead guilty to.
He has previously pleaded not guilty in the case.
The possibility that he will finally reveal what happened to Holloway comes after an almost two-decades-long agonising wait for her family while van der Sloot remained the prime suspect in her disappearance.
Holloway was 18 when she went missing while on vacation with classmates in Aruba on 30 May 2005.
The suspect, then a 17-year-old student at an international school in Aruba, allegedly left with Ms Holloway and his two friends – brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpow – from a well-known party establishment on the island.
Joran van der Sloot was handed over to the US by Peru back in June— (Interpol Peru/AFP/Getty)
Her disappearance has never been solved and her body has never been found.
She was declared dead in 2012 by an Alabama probate court.
Over the years, van der Sloot’s story about Holloway’s last movements has constantly changed.
Court papers, seen by Fox News, revealed that van der Sloot once claimed he shoved Natalee to the ground so hard that he hit her head on a rock, killing her.
An undercover interview by two Dutch journalists in 2008 also caught van der Sloot claiming he met the Alabama teen in a nightclub – but that she later suffered a seizure while they were having sex.
He alleged that he called a friend to help him dispose of Holloway’s body, prompting speculation that he took her out on a boat.
Then, in 2010, federal prosecutors said that van der Sloot told a lawyer for Beth Holloway that the teen’s body was buried inside the foundation of a house in Aruba.
He allegedly asked for $25,000 to disclose the location, and then another $225,000 when the remains were found, an FBI agent wrote in an affidavit, according to AP.
Beth Holloway has sought justice for her daughter ever since her disappearance in 2005— (AP2010)
An attorney representing Beth Holloway took an agreement signed by her and the suspect and travelled to Aruba, where he gave van der Sloot $10,000.
Then, both men went to the site where he claimed Holloway’s remains were buried and Beth Holloway wired a further $15,000 to van der Sloot’s bank account.
However, van der Sloot is alleged to have revealed later emails to the attorney that he lied about the location of Holloway’s body, the affidavit said.
Van der Sloot is already serving 28 years in a Peru prison after being convicted of the first-degree murder of Stephany Flores, a Peruvian college student, in 2010.
In June, he was extradited to the US to face charges over the extortion plot.
He is currently being held in an Alabama prison.
If convicted in Alabamam he would return to the US in 2038 to serve up to 40 additional years in a US prison.
While the story of Holloway’s disappearance has changed again and again over the years, the expected plea deal could finally bring some answers to Holloway’s family.
