Portrait of a Monster: Joran Van Der Sloot, a Murder in Peru, and the Natalee Holloway Mystery (26 page)

Joran recalled that he and Bridgette then went for a walk along the pier in the harbor, where he asked that she give him a “blow job.” “I can’t remember if I was standing up or lying down on the ground when she gave me the blow job. I wanted to have sex with her, but I didn’t have a condom.”

Joran said his friend Freddy called him on his cell phone while he was out on the pier with Bridgette and asked him if he needed a ride home. Joran, Bridgette, and Freddy caught a ride home with a Mexican friend, Chato. During the car ride, Joran and Bridgette sat in the backseat, where Joran claimed that she performed oral sex on him for a second time. The four returned to Joran’s apartment behind his family’s house, where Joran and Bridgette lay on a sofa and began fooling around under a blanket. Bridgette had been drinking whiskey from a flask with Chato.

Chato asked if he could join them in a threesome, but Joran said that Bridgette declined. Joran said that after his friends left, he put on a condom and he and Bridgette engaged in intercourse. Joran swore to the officers that the sex had been consensual.

Police implied that Bridgette indicated that Joran had taken advantage of her drunken state and had forced himself on her. “I can’t tell you what condition Bridgette was in when I had sex with her,” Joran said, explaining that he had also been drinking whiskey from his friend Chato’s flask.

In response to the detectives’ questions, Joran said that he had sex with Bridgette on three separate occasions, including a recent encounter during which she spent the night at his apartment. “I had told my mother that Bridgette would be staying for the night,” Joran claimed.

During the questioning, detectives introduced the names of three other young girls, one as young as twelve, who had also come forward with claims against him.

Joran denied having sex with any of them. He claimed that one of the young women had had sex with his friend Freddy Zedan in the back of Freddy’s Honda, while he and another friend sat in the car drinking alcohol. “I gave Freddy a condom before he had sex with her,” Joran recalled.

Joran said the third girl police mentioned had been a girlfriend. “But we didn’t have a sexual relationship with each other,” Joran explained. “We had, perhaps, French kissed, but nothing further. She was only twelve years old. Her parents caught wind of the relationship and put a stop to it.”

Although the three young women had come forward with allegations of date rape, no formal charges were ever filed.

Helen LeJuez, an attorney for Beth Twitty, said the girls’ mothers would not permit the three to proceed with any criminal complaint for fear their daughters would become entangled in the media maelstrom now surrounding Natalee’s disappearance. Lacking parental consent, the authorities could not compel the young girls to testify.

At 10:00
P.M.
, Joran, in handcuffs, was escorted outside to a waiting police vehicle for the return trip to KIA. To his surprise, Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, his coconspirators, were also loaded into the same blue-and-white SUV.

For more than two weeks, the young men had been isolated from each other. Now, the police had purposely arranged for the three to travel together back to the Korrectie Instituut Aruba in Sint Nicolaas. They were going to be able to speak freely with each other and police planned to listen to every word.

The verbal hostility exploded. Joran accosted Deepak first, accusing him and Satish of being responsible for the sexual assault allegations Bridgette had lodged against him. In a venomous rant, Joran threatened to blame Satish for Natalee’s assault, and added that he was going to tell police that Deepak had paid Steve Croes, the party boat disc jockey, to lie about being a witness.

“How does it feel?” Deepak asked, taunting his Dutch friend about the arrest of Joran’s father.

Joran shot back, blaming the brothers for implicating his father during their interrogations.

“You can fix this in one fell swoop,” Deepak insisted. “You know you can.”

“Tell me what you mean, how can I fix it?” Joran asked.

“You just need to tell the truth,” Deepak repeated. “Tomorrow I complete the last of my eight days, and then I go home.”

“That’s what you think,” Joran retorted.

“I’m going home,” Deepak insisted.

“Just wait ’til I tell them stuff about you guys. Then we’ll see if you go home.” Joran snickered.

“I guarantee it,” Deepak said with a smile.

The back-and-forth continued with each side accusing the other of telling lies.

Joran threw out a veiled threat. “The police just told me, like, if you guys go after me, then I’ll go after you,” he said.

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha,” the brothers chuckled.

“We aren’t putting you in harm’s way,” Satish told Joran. “We’re just telling the truth.”

“You should try and keep your mouth shut!” Joran scolded the elder Kalpoe. “It’s your fault that my father is in jail.”

Joran blamed Deepak for getting his father arrested by telling police it was Paulus van der Sloot who had advised them “no body, no case.” “My father was only trying to help you guys and this is how you repay him?”

Joran also blamed the brothers for the arrests of the two black security guards. He relished telling them, “One of those guys is going to kill you because of that.”

Next, he accused Satish of cowardice, describing him as weak because he claimed to have seen the ghost of Natalee in his jail cell.

“I should beat the crap out of you for what you’ve done!” Joran said, returning to Deepak. “I’m not afraid to be locked up in jail. I swear, I’m gonna kill you!”

Deepak shot back. He told Joran that the police were keenly aware that he and Satish had nothing to do with Natalee’s disappearance and that he had read Joran’s statements and knew about the lie he had told police about him, that Joran had accused Deepak of burying the girl by the Fisherman’s Hut.

“You don’t give a shit about your family,” Deepak snapped. “You only care about yourself.” Deepak advised that threatening to kill him while in the company of two police officers was not wise. “Satish and I will only be in custody for eight more days, but you’ll be getting fifteen years!”

For the rest of the ride, Joran was silent. The two brothers exchanged small talk. Deepak’s reference to the police officers in the car had brought the fireworks to a fizzle. Weeks earlier, Joran’s father had advised the three that by telling the same story, everything would be all right. Sitting in the back of the police truck, Joran realized this pact was officially over.

It was every man for himself.

SIXTEEN

JUNE 3, 2010
SANTIAGO, CHILE

In Chile, as in all of South America, June was a winter month. The Casablanca Valley, in which Joran now found himself in a cab heading toward Santiago, was always temperate, however. By midday, the cooling low-lying clouds trapped each night by the snow-capped Andes to the east and the coastal range to the west had burned off, and the temperature was a pleasant 73°F. The taxi was nearing the toll plaza east of Curacaví, a small hillside town in central Chile known for its wine and chocolate.

Joran had been in the coastal town of Viña del Mar when he hired the cab. He was familiar with Viña del Mar. It was renowned for its nightlife and gambling, and was supposed to have been the final stop on the Latin American Poker Tour, before the powerful 8.8-magnitude earthquake that past February had compelled the organizers to relocate the event to Peru. Viña del Mar was an immaculate resort town with a climate similar to the Mediterranean, gorgeous palm-lined boulevards, high-end hotels, and casinos, including the historic Casino del Mar, the first and largest in Chile. It had been spared catastrophic damage from the quake and was, for the most part, back in business.

Three days had passed since Joran had bilked the Peruvian taxi drivers back in Arica. Since then, he had traveled nearly 1,200 miles down the Chilean coast to Viña del Mar. The morning fog hovered over the town as he climbed into the backseat of a private taxi he had hired to take him to the capital city of Santiago de Chile, about eighty-five miles southeast on Highway 68. Despite what he had told the cabdrivers, he somehow still had access to funds. Getting to Viña del Mar was easy. It was only five miles from the historic port city of Valparaíso. From there, a one-hour drive on a modern four-lane highway cutting through the magnificent Chilean Coastal Range mountains ended in Santiago, 2,100 feet above sea level.

Joran was filled with anxiety that morning. He had seen his picture in the newspaper, and he knew he was a wanted man. Still, he was determined to get to Santiago, hoping he could “disappear” among the five million people that called the city home. From there, he would be able to pursue escape options to either Aruba or Holland.

The cab sped through the vineyards and wineries of the Casablanca Valley. It passed tour buses of day-trippers out to enjoy a taste of a premium Sauvignon Blanc. Like northern California’s wine country, the rows of vines stretched from the highway’s edge clear to the mountain bases in the distance, fading from sight into the horizon. The bottles of wine produced by these grapes were enjoyed worldwide. Joran’s thirst, however, was trumped by his misery. Just before 12:30
P.M.
, the taxi entered the Zapata Tunnel, a one-mile-long mountain pass just west of Curacaví. On the other side, the highway widens into multiple feeder lanes as it approaches the massive toll plaza bisecting the road. Spotting the booths ahead, Joran crouched down in the backseat, trying to make himself invisible as the taxi driver slowed to pay the toll. But his height made hiding impossible and his odd behavior drew the attention of the toll collector.

All tollbooth attendants had been placed on high alert since Chilean authorities had notified them of a suspected murderer on the run from Peru the previous day. This passenger seemed to resemble the description that had been provided, and an alert witness contacted the highway authority. Within moments, blue-and-white police vehicles converged on the scene and Joran’s fugitive status came to an abrupt halt.

Officers didn’t know what to expect when they ordered Van der Sloot out of the vehicle. Many were surprised by his indifference. He looked almost relieved that this flight had come to an end and did not resist in any way.

TV news crews were waiting at the Borgoño police barracks in the Independencia district in the northern part of Santiago, fifteen miles from the toll plaza. Journalists had been tipped off that Stephany Flores’s alleged killer had been captured on Highway 68 outside of Curacaví.

Just before 3:00
P.M.
, reporters got their first look at “
El Holandés,
” the name given to Van der Sloot by the Peruvian press who had a hard time pronouncing his Dutch surname. Joran looked agitated as he climbed out of the black unmarked police vehicle and into the custody of three Chilean detectives. The officers were dressed in navy-blue windbreakers with the acronym “PDI” written in yellow block letters on the back and had police-issue nine-millimeter pistols holstered on their belts.

Reporters used to working the crime beat were surprised that Joran, a man suspected of a brutal murder, was not in handcuffs. He had also lost the country club good looks he had flaunted in photos from the previous five years. Joran looked like a street tough now, with an angry scowl. His head was shaved and he had dyed the remaining stubble a garish orange. At six feet four, he dwarfed the stocky Chilean officers leading him into the headquarters. Joran’s once slender frame had filled out, and he appeared muscular and fit in his khaki slacks and black hooded sweatshirt covered in colorful geometric designs, the brand name CIRCA written across its front in celestial-blue lettering.

A phalanx of media and curious bystanders watched through the black wrought-iron fence surrounding the sprawling police barracks.

“Joran! Joran!” a photographer yelled out, hoping to get the suspect to turn in his direction.

Joran didn’t try to hide his face from the cameras, as he had in Aruba. He looked confident and walked across the asphalt parking lot with a swagger.

Photographers lined the steps of the headquarters, snapping pictures like the paparazzi after a reclusive superstar. Joran, sandwiched between two officers, finally disappeared behind the barracks’ red wood door.

For more than five years, the Dutchman had endured the cameras, the microphones, and the questions. Today, he had nothing to gain, no financial upside to speaking to the press.

Since Natalee’s disappearance, Joran had cashed in on his supposed role in her tragedy. Although most news outlets wouldn’t pay him outright for these one-on-one interviews, they often paid him for any photo or video he was able to provide. The calculating side of Joran knew that the media outlets had no real interest in the pictures he offered. Paying for these souvenirs was the equivalent of paying him for his camera time, without blatant violations of propriety. His standard licensing fees for the materials was $25,000, including a titillating—and believable—story.

For the past five years, he had “confessed” to various versions of the truth about what had actually happened the night Natalee went missing: he had sold her into sexual slavery for $10,000; she had snorted cocaine and fallen off a hotel balcony and was disposed of in a swampy lake; and that his father was an accomplice to his silence.

None of his claims had ever been substantiated.

Inside police headquarters, Chilean investigators sat down with Joran to take some basic information. They had no plans to interrogate him, merely to process him before expelling him from the country.

The Chileans had decided to forgo an extradition proceeding, which can be a tedious, technical legal process involving international cooperation. They chose to handle the situation as a straightforward immigration matter.

All foreigners entering Chile were required to fill out basic paperwork, addressing two issues: What is the purpose of the visit? And what is the local domicile of the visitor? Joran had lied on both counts, claiming he had entered the country as a tourist, which he clearly wasn’t, and had provided no valid hotel reservations.