Natalee Holloway case: Everything to know about Alabama high school graduate's disappearance and murder in Aruba as ‘Taken’ streams on Netflix

Netflix's ‘Taken: Natalee Holloway’ features new interviews with her mom, friends, FBI agents who worked on the case, and the Aruban police chief at the time.

A documentary on an 18-year-old Alabama high school graduate, Natalee Holloway, is streaming on Netflix. ‘Taken: Natalee Holloway’ features new interviews with Holloway’s mother, Beth, as well as her friends, FBI agents who worked on the case, and the Aruban police chief at the time.

Natalee Holloway disappeared from the Caribbean island of Aruba in May 2005. (Natalee Holloway Resource Center/Facebook)

“In 2005, Natalee Holloway vanished in Aruba. This true-crime series traces the years-long search that led her mother face-to-face with the alleged killer,” Netflix says of the documentary.

As the show streams, here’s a look at the Natalee Holloway case.

The Natalee Holloway case

Holloway disappeared from the Caribbean island of Aruba in May 2005. She was 18 at the time. She went missing during a trip with school friends, and was reportedly last seen with a Dutch citizen.

The high school graduate from Mountain Brook, Alabama, was last seen outside the Oranjestad nightclub Carlos'n Charlie's, entering a car with Joran van der Sloot and brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe. Extensive searches involving Aruban authorities, FBI agents, Dutch military personnel, and volunteer teams were held, but her remains were never found.

Van der Sloot and the Kalpoes were arrested and released in 2005 in connection with the case. They were arrested a second time in 2007 after Aruba's then-chief prosecutor Hans Mos said he had received new evidence in the case. Van der Sloot, who was attending college in the Netherlands at the time, was brought back to Aruba. However, judges ruled that the new evidence was not enough to keep them in custody.

In October 2023, Van der Sloot admitted that he bludgeoned Holloway to death. He appeared in an Alabama court, where prosecutors said that he confessed that he killed Holloway for refusing his sexual advances.

Van der Sloot’s confession was part of a plea deal in which the suspect pleaded guilty to trying to extort $250,000 from Holloway’s family in exchange for information on her death. He claimed that her death has haunted him for years.

In Birmingham, Alabama, Judge Manasco sentenced Van der Sloot to 20 years in federal prison on Wednesday, October 18 – a sentence that will continue to run concurrently with his 28-year sentence for murdering Stephany Flores in Peru.

Holloway’s mother, Beth, addressed Van der Sloot directly during the sentencing, saying, according to the Daily Mail, “You terminated her dreams, her potential, her possibilities, when you bludgeoned her to death in 2005. You didn't get what you wanted from Natalee, your sexual satisfaction, so you brutally killed her.

“I paid my daughter's killer money. That's shocking. I don't think anyone can really wrap their mind around what that means... I have no doubt she would have made all her dreams come true. She really would have,” she added. “By the way you look like hell, Joran. I do not see how you're gonna make it ... You are a killer and I want you to remember that every time that jail door slams.”