Guest Contributor: Controversial Natalee and Joran Movie Set for 2011 Release
Dutch filmmaker Paul Ruven has been filming Me & Mr. Jones since April and is portraying fictional events based on the Holloway case through the eyes of an undercover journalist who visits Aruba five years after Natalee’s disappearance. The central event of the movie follows the journalist and an undercover reporter as they break into van der Sloot’s house and make a “shocking discovery.” In Dutch news, the movie and its filming in Aruba have been a “sensitive” subject, a fact that should warn us about the potential inaccuracies and slanderous portrayals of this “fictional” film.
Taking Advantage of Real Tragedy to Create Drama
While still filming the movie according to its original script, Ruven decided to make changes as the Stephanie Flores case involving van der Sloot escalated. The film now incorporates Joran’s arrest in Peru for the first-degree murder and robbery of Flores. This development is a reflection of Ruven’s desire to include as many twists as possible, making a controversial and potentially popular film that could appeal to the curious or misinformed. At just five years after Natalee’s disappearance, it’s far too soon to be filming fictitious speculation on her and on van der Sloot’s involvement. Any “shocking discovery” in van der Sloot’s house cannot possibly be true to the actual progression of events and should not be widely disseminated to confuse the public.
Riding the Wave of Success
Beth Twitty, Natalee’s mother, wrote a book that was developed into a Lifetime made-for-television movie that depicted real events. The book, Loving Natalee: A Mother’s Testament of Hope and Faith, was incorporated into the movie, Natalee Holloway, to a satisfactory degree as Twitty fully supported this effort and made an on-camera appearance. Premiering in April 2009, it attracted 3.2 million viewers, making it the most successful Lifetime movie to date. Ruven seems to be taking advantage of the fact that the public is still shocked and horrified by Natalee’s disappearance and that people are invested in discovering the truth. The world just isn’t ready for a fictional re-working of Natalee’s tragedy and van der Sloot’s involvement.
Bio: Alexis Bonari is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident education blogger and performs research surrounding College Scholarships. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.
Appeals panel considers van der Sloot’s confession
By the CNN Wire Staff
August 20, 2010 6:39 p.m. EDT
(CNN) — A panel of Peruvian judges is considering whether to uphold the confession of Joran van der Sloot, who is accused of killing a 21-year-old woman.
The three-judge appellate panel is expected to hand down a decision in about a week.
“We believe we did a good job demonstrating that there wasn’t an official translator and that his attorney (at the time of the confession) did not have a document accrediting her as his attorney,” van der Sloot’s attorney, Maximo Altez Navarro, told In
Session on Friday.
Van der Sloot is jailed pending trial on charges of first-degree murder and robbery in the May 30 death in of Stefany Flores, a 21-year-old student.
Joran van der Sloot: Crazy Like a Faux
August 3, 2010
It seems that Joran van der Sloot, having claimed, fruitlessly, that his detailed confession to the murder of Stefany Flores was a) coerced, b) improperly translated/misunderstood by his translator, is now going for c) an insanity defense.
It won’t work.
Maximo Altez, Joran’s lawyer, has stated that Joran is a sick fellow. Well, (more…)
Van der Sloot showing ‘psychopathic tendencies:’ Peru doctors
AFP
July 19, 2010 6:15 PM
LIMA – Joran van der Sloot, the Dutchman indicted in the murder of a Peruvian woman and prime suspect in the disappearance of an American girl in Aruba, is showing “psychopathic tendencies,” a media-quoted medical report said Monday.
Van der Sloot, 22, is being held in a maximum security prison in Lima where he was examined by doctors from Peru’s Institute of Legal Medicine, who found him to be “impulsive and showing psychopathic tendencies,” El Comercio daily said on its website.
The medical report was turned over to judge Carlos Morales Corcova, who is presiding over the case, the daily added.
Van der Sloot is being held pending trial for allegedly beating to death 21-year-old Stephany Flores in his Lima hotel room in May. He is the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of 18-year-old Natalee Holloway in the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba.
A U.S. grand jury in the southern state of Alabama, where Holloway lived, indicted van der Sloot on June 30 for wire fraud and extortion — he allegedly asked Holloway’s mother for 250,000 dollars to tell her where to find her missing daughter’s remains.
Van der Sloot was twice arrested in the Holloway case and spent three months in jail but was never charged. Holloway’s body has never been found.
He traveled in May to Lima, where he allegedly killed Flores when she stumbled on his computer files with information on the Holloway case.
Joran van der Sloot in the blogosphere
Birmingham, Al (WIAT) Joran van der Sloot. Natalee Holloway. Stephany Flores.
One is sitting in a Peruvian prison. One was found murdered in his Lima hotel room. One is missing after being seen with him five years ago on a trip to Aruba.
Van der Sloot is in the middle of the complicated investigation of his alleged murder of 21 year old Stephany Flores. He remains the prime suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. Both of those circumstances are filled with questions and legal complications.
But there’s little doubt in the blogosphere where the intertwined stories of the three continue to light up the web.
Babble.com says it’s a site for parents. One of their current lead articles is entitled “Why the parents of Joran van der Sloot’s victims may never get closure”
Read past the article to the comments and you’ll possibly be startled by the ferocity of the response and the frustration and impatience with the slowness of the legal systems in both Peru and Aruba.
One sample: “Lying is Joran’s alibi. It worked when he killed Natalee, and he is hoping it will work again. Joran is a psychopath, and his mother believes the part he plays for her is “real” Joran. Oh momma.. the worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves…”
There are dozens of other sites commenting on, or even focusing on van der Sloot and his victims.
An example that precedes his current troubles in Peru is devoted to the five year old disappearance of Natalee Holloway, the Mountain Brook teen who disappeared on a trip to Aruba…after last being seen in van der Sloot’s company.
Blogs For Natalee has been collecting and updating information on the case for most of the five years since Natalee’s disappearance. It claims 435951 Posts in 8070 Topics by 2154 Members. It stresses it has no official connection to the Holloway family.
And then, there’s Facebook. In a world where anything and everything has a Facebook page, why should the van der Sloot case be any different.
Here’s a sampling:
http://http://www.facebook.com/pages/Joran-van-der-sloot/106167646085097
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stephany-Flores-Ramirez-and-Joran-Van-der-Sloot-Case/122041101165784?v=wall
Van der Sloot Update: Where is Stephany Flores’ Missing $11,000?
July 13, 2010
NEW YORK (CBS) Police sources in Peru have disclosed to CBS News that Stephany Flores, Joran van der Sloot’s alleged Peruvian murder victim, had won approximately $10,000 at casinos in the week leading up to her death and also had been given $1,000 from her father to purchase a laptop that she never got a chance to buy.
But police sources say that this money has never been found.
Flores reportedly kept her money in the glove compartment of her car. Police documents dated June 3 obtained by CBS News show the results of the search of Stephany Flores’ car: no money was found in it.
Did Joran van der Sloot take that money?
The sources say that this was the true motive for the brutal murder of Flores: van der Sloot was after her money. Police say this means that van der Sloot’s alleged murder of Flores was premeditated.
But in van der Sloot’s confession – which he subsequently recanted in a Dutch newspaper – police say he told them that he became enraged after Flores found information on his laptop about his links to the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway.
According to Peruvian newspaper La Republica, van der Sloot told police, “I did not want to do it. The girl intruded into my private life. She had no right. I went to her and I hit her. She was scared. We argued and she tried to escape. I grabbed her by the neck and I hit her.”
Crimesider spoke with ex-FBI agent Paul Lindsay, who worked for many years investigating serial killers. Lindsay believes that if reports of van der Sloot’s confession are accurate, van der Sloot created the story of the e-mail and the confrontation as a way to justify his actions.
Police say he smashed in the face of Flores, the student he met playing poker before leading her back to his hotel room. According to police, van der Sloot then strangled her, threw her to the floor and emptied her wallet.
Stephany Flores’ death occurred exactly five years after Alabama teen Natalee Holloway disappeared in Aruba, a case which van der Sloot is the main suspect. The Dutchman faces charges of first-degree murder and robbery for the May 30 death of Stephany Flores.
Will van der Sloot Ever See The Inside Of An Alabama Courtroom?
Birmingham, AL (WIAT)- As Joran van der Sloot sits in a Peruvian prison awaiting trial for murder, some wonder if he’ll ever set foot in an American federal courtroom to face extortion charges.
In addition to facing murder charges in the gruesome death of Stephany Flores in Peru, the prime suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway has also been charged with attempting to extort money from Natalee’s family.
Federal investigators say they caught van der Sloot in a sting operation, saying he tried to secure hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for information that would lead authorities to the location of Natalee Holloway’s body.
But with a murder trial that could send him to prison for up to 30 years, there’s concern van der Sloot may not stand trial for extortion in Alabama. Extraditing van der Sloot is a complicated process.
Former US Attorney Doug Jones, who has seen a number of extradition cases, says there’s a good chance van der Sloot will be extradited. But he says there are a lot of factors to take into account.
Joran van der Sloot led high-stakes life in South America
Now under arrest for the murder of a woman in Peru, Joran van der Sloot — the prime suspect in the Natalee Holloway case — led a life of high stakes.
BY SIOBHAN MORRISSEY AND JIM WYSS
jwyss@MiamiHerald.com
Joran van der Sloot was a gambler.
Even as the young man was hounded by suspicions and cameras for his role in the disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway five years ago, he could be found at poker tables on two continents.
As he sat in a Chilean jail Thursday on charges that he murdered a young woman in Lima, Peru earlier this week, those who know him describe van der Sloot as an athletic and arrogant young man with a yearning for women and risk that led him across the globe.
Van der Sloot met Holloway when he was just 17 at a card table in Aruba. It was one of the last times she would be seen alive. Van der Sloot remains the prime suspect in that case. Five years to the day — on Sunday — video cameras would show van der Sloot leaving a poker tournament in Lima with 21-year-old Stephany Flores.
On Tuesday, she was found with a broken neck and wrapped in a blanket at a Lima hotel just a few blocks from the casino. Two days later, van der Sloot’s luck ran out when police in Chile detained the 22-year-old fugitive as he traveled between the resort town of Viña del Mar and the capital, Santiago.
Dressed in a black-hooded sweat shirt and with his brown hair closely cropped, van der Sloot was seen walking calmly and uncuffed into a Chilean police station escorted by three officers.
Van der Sloot’s attorney in New York, Joe Tacopina, cautioned against rushing to judgment.
“Joran van der Sloot has been falsely accused of murder once before,” Tacopina told The Associated Press. “The fact is he wears a bull’s-eye on his back now and he’s a quote-unquote usual suspect when it comes to allegations of foul play.”
Also Thursday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alabama received an arrest warrant against van der Sloot on wire fraud and extortion charges. Money was wired from a Birmingham institution in May to Joran van der Sloot after he requested $250,000 in exchange for the whereabouts of Holloway’s remains and the circumstances relating to her death, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorneys office.
The information he provided was false, the release said.
SEEN GAMBLING
Noah Acre was playing Texas hold ‘em in the Asia Pacific Poker Tour in Macau in 2009 when he saw van der Sloot sitting across the table.
Recognizing the tall Dutchman from the round-the-clock television coverage that the Holloway case generated, he recalls van der Sloot did not seem shy about his notoriety.
He wore a loud, multicolored jacket with the logo of L.A. Café — a seedy Manila bar and brothel — and was surrounded by an entourage of young men.
Acre asked van der Sloot why he kept dealing with the media after being burned by a Dutch journalist who released hidden-camera footage that seemed to show him confessing to disposing of Holloway’s body.
“Because they gave me money,” he responded.
“I am pretty good at sizing people up quickly,” Acre said of the man he spoke to several times during the week-long tournament. “He seemed like all he cared about was partying and getting girls. . . . The whole Natalee Holloway thing didn’t seem to weigh on him one bit.”
BIGGER PLANS
Things might have been different.
Van der Sloot, the eldest of three sons, had originally planned to attend university in Florida.
But after his arrest and subsequent release, he returned to his native Holland where he studied business. He didn’t stay out of the limelight for long. Hounded by tabloids and television cameras, he traveled to New York to give a televised account of his involvement with Holloway.
When Acre met him in Macau, van der Sloot claimed to live in Thailand. The same Dutch journalist who had taped him claims van der Sloot was in Bangkok selling Thai women into prostitution in the Netherlands.
As early as last summer, van der Sloot moved again.
“The last time I spoke to his mother, she said he was in South America,” Magda Frans, the secretary at the Aruba Racquet Club, told The Miami Herald.
Joran and his father, Paulus, played doubles tennis at the club, she said.
The night before he was arrested for the first time in Holloway’s disappearance, he played doubles tennis with his father in the Moet & Chandon Anniversary Cup tournament, Frans said.
“They lost,” she said.
The match took place at 7:30 p.m. June 8, 2005. Some 10 hours later, Aruban police arrested him. The day was supposed to be memorable for other reasons: He was to graduate with honors that evening from the International School of Aruba.
It was a double blow to his mother, Anita, who taught at the school.
When reached at her home, Anita van der Sloot sounded composed and tried to politely dismiss inquiries about her son.
She has two other sons, Valentijn and Sebastian. She is now a widow. Her husband died suddenly last February playing tennis.
“I don’t know anything,” Anita told The Miami Herald. “I haven’t been in contact with Joran for a long time, not since his dad died.”
Peruvian authorities say van der Sloot traveled to Argentina and Colombia before arriving in Lima on May 14 for the Latin American Poker Tour.
Stephany Flores’ father, Ricardo, said Thursday he hoped van der Sloot’s capture would bring solace to others beyond his family.
“This is not just about my daughter,” he told reporters in Lima. “There is also the case in Aruba that is pending and we don’t know how many more.”
On MySpace and Facebook pages that appear to have been created by van der Sloot, the young man seems to have the tastes of most men his age.
He is a fan of the South Park television show, scantily clad women, the late rapper Notorious B.I.G. and President Barack Obama.
He’s also a member of a Facebook page called “If I could turn back the time” where users share their biggest regrets. If van der Sloot had any, he didn’t show his cards there.
PG on fact finding Holloway : “No evidence of negative role of the van der Straten ‘
July 10 , 2010 , 12:10 ( GMT -04:00 )
ORANGE CITY – There is no evidence that the alleged relationship between former commissioner Jan van der Straten , and the family Van der Sloot , played a negative role in the investigation into the disappearance of Natalee Holloway . This allowed Attorney General Rob Pietersz know yesterday afternoon .
by our reporter
Alex Lacle
Statements by former Justice Minister Rudy Croes (MEP ) in late 2008, the Public Prosecutor (OM) in response to an inquiry to start the initial phase of the investigation into the disappearance of Holloway . According to Croes would Van der Street research during the crucial early stages have deliberately hindered . ” The statements of Croes could not be proven , “says Advocate General at Taco Stein Amigoe . ” A relationship between Van der Straten and van der Sloot appeared not to be there . ”
In a comment to this newspaper says former commissioner Jan van der Straten ” delighted ” to the conclusions of the report. ” I and my family are seriously affected by the remarks of Croes and the subsequent media coverage . My good name is besmirched . ” Moreover, he stresses that what the grief his family has done in the dwarfed by the grief of the family Holloway . Van der Straten was its alleged role as a direct person , earlier by the Public informed of the findings of fact . Whether the former police chief also been informed of the contents of the full report, he would not say . ” It is so agreed with the prosecution . I’m going to say anything about the content . ” Stein said Attorney General Van der Straten ” just know ” about the content of the final report but had no access .
At the start of the inquiry was announced that the results in outline be published after completion of the review. In February this year it was announced that the final report of the National Criminal Investigation was at the OM . Attorney General Pietersz , who instituted the inquiry in early 2009 , then did not respond “because the report should be discussed internally first . With the recent report about this case to the Prosecutor dismissed . ” We see no reason to continue it . ”
Joran
The Holloway case was recently back in the spotlight by the arrest of Joran van der Sloot in Peru . The 22 -year-old sitting there in custody on suspicion of robbery in Stephany Flores on May 31 Remarkably , the murder of Flores exactly five years after the disappearance of Natalee Holloway committed. Holloway disappeared in 2005 after a night out in nightclub Carlos and Charlies . Joran was the last seen her . He is still the prime suspect in this case.
What makes van der Sloot tick?
Birmingham, Al (WIAT) What makes Joran van der Sloot tick? Perhaps more urgently, is he a crazed pyscho killer preying on young women?
Although two grieving families, one in Peru and one here in Alabama, would like answers of their own, a team of Peruvian psychologists will be grilling van der Sloot at Lima’s Castro Castro prison this week.
According to Peru.com, a team of experts were to visit the accused killer this week as part of the criminal proceedings unfolding against the Dutchman.
RadarOnLine.com says Van der Sloot’s Peruvian attorney said that the defense will submit their own psychological profiles on van der Sloot, dating back to his childhood.
As previously reported here on CBS42.com, van der Sloot’s own mother has questioned his sanity.
Van der Sloot is accused of murdering 21 year old Stephany Flores….found dead in van der Sloot’s Lima hotel room after spending time with him in a casino. Peruvian police have a ton of evidence including security camera video showing Flores going into the room but only van der Sloot coming back out. They also have a confession in which van der Sloot walked them through the murder scene. That’s a confession he is now trying to have thrown out claiming coercion and improper legal representation.
Van der Sloot is also the prime suspect in disappearance in Aruba of Mountain Brook teenager Natalee Holloway five years ago. The last person known to be with Natalee? Joran van der Sloot. He was questioned but never charged by Aruban authorities.
