Five bombshell revelations from ‘Taken: Natalee Holloway’
Taken: Natalee Holloway on Netflix revisits the shocking 2005 disappearance of 18-year-old Alabama high school graduate Natalee, a true-crime case that has haunted those closest to her for over two decades as they scrambled for answers, truth, and justice.
She went missing during a graduation trip with her high school friends to Aruba, sparking a massive media circus. But her killer, Joran van der Sloot, evaded law enforcement for years until his confession nearly two decades later, in 2023. Despite the intense investigation and her mother’s relentless pursuit, Holloway’s body was never found.
Now, for the first time, Netflix offers rare, in-depth access to the unsettling real-life case, told by Natalee’s mother, Beth Holloway, her friends, FBI agents involved with the terrifying true crime, and the Aruban police chief at the time.
While rival streamers have covered the teen’s disturbing disappearance, here are five bombshell revelations from Taken: Natalee Holloway on Netflix.
Five disturbing details from Taken: Natalee Holloway
Natalee Holloway’s friends weren’t worried about her driving off with strangers, but Beth knew it in her “gut”
Madison Greer, a friend of Natalee Holloway, who appeared in the Netflix documentary, recalls, “When one of my friends saw Natalee in a grey Honda Civic with Joran and two Aruban guys driving, we were not really worried,” since they had already met van der Sloot during a night out. And interestingly, Natalee was last seen alive on May 30th, 2005, as she was leaving a nightclub and getting into a car with van der Sloot and brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe.
Greer recounts in Taken: Natalee Holloway that her friend looked lively and full of energy at the time, “hanging out of the car, and saying, ‘Aruba!’ People said ‘Aruba!’ back. And then, she drove off.” She explained that the island cabs were non-designated ordinary cars. As a result, they were not really concerned. “There’s no doubt in my mind that [Natalee] thought, ‘[The Kalpoe brothers were local taxi drivers, and they’re gonna take me where we want to go, and then [back] to the hotel.’”
Van der Sloot was reportedly a 17-year-old local and a college student from Holland, per Greer.
Although Natalee’s friends weren’t worried about the ordeal, when Beth learned about her daughter’s disappearance, she flew to Aruba and learned about van der Sloot’s details and his car. Beth didn’t waste a minute to confront van der Sloot at his home, where his father was present. “The only thing going through my mind was, ‘Find this guy, get Natalee, bring her home,” Beth said.
During the heated confrontation, van der Sloot alleged that he kissed Natalee on a beach before dropping her back to her hotel, where she hit her head while getting down, and security guards helped her inside. But Beth knew in her “gut” that he was a cold-blooded liar. “I don’t know what parts of that [account] are true, but I knew that he knew what happened to her. I decided, ‘Tag, you’re it.’”
“I looked at that grey Honda, and I thought, ‘Could Natalee be in that trunk?’”
Joran van der Sloot changed his version of the fateful night “40 times”
Gerold Dompig, the Arubian police chief at the time, was also interviewed on Taken: Natalee Holloway, who admitted, “Normally, underage suspects break down under interrogation. I was convinced that we were ready to try to get a confession. But Joran was very difficult to interrogate.”
During the initial investigation, Joran van der Sloot allegedly had no consistency in his version of the events and repeatedly made conflicting statements about his night with Natalee Holloway. “He liked being the dominant one, the centre of attention… he changed his story I think 40 times,” revealed Dompig.
Not long after, they discovered that van der Sloot’s father, Paulus, was a lawyer on the path to becoming a judge in Aruba. “That complicated matters seriously, because he had more visiting rights… His father being a judge in training was a problem for us, because he could give his son certain advice.” Dompig recalls his father allegedly giving sinister advice, “if there’s no body, there’s no crime.”
Although van der Sloot spent weeks in custody, he was ultimately released on September 3rd, 2005, due to lack of incriminating evidence. “The main thing that was lacking in this case was that we never found Natalee,” he says.
What took so long to arrest Joran van der Sloot
Despite primary suspicion on Joran van der Sloot, he wasn’t arrested until 10 days after Natalee’s disappearance, as revealed in the three-part true-crime docuseries. While the Kalpoe brothers were also arrested, Satish and Deepak were never charged in connection with Holloway’s case and maintained their innocence. But what exactly took law enforcement so long?
“We couldn’t find forensic evidence, but we had so much publicity – so much pressure on Aruba,” Gerold Dompig confessed in Taken: Natalee Holloway. “It was frustrating watching the news and wanting to have something happen,” Madison Greer added. “It made us all very angry that it was taking them this long. Why are we not arresting him?”
Before finally taking van der Sloot into custody, Aruban law enforcement first put handcuffs on two security guards to cross-examine the culprit’s initial statement. “Everybody looking from outside was only focused on Joran, but the investigation has a certain tactic: you first eliminate the noise. The security guard was the noise. But to exclude them, we have to investigate,” the then-Arubian police chief explains.
The security guards’ arrest confirmed van der Sloot’s lies, which ultimately helped them corner the primary suspect.
Beth’s lawyer got Joran van der Sloot for extortion and wire fraud
In 2010, Beth Holloway’s lawyer, John Q Kelly, reportedly received an email from Joran van der Sloot that read, “I will take you to Natalee. In return, I want to receive $250,000.”
Kelly says in the Netflix series, “I thought it was complete bullshit. I knew he had no intention of giving any truthful information whatsoever, but I told Beth there might be a play to get him trapped with extortion and fraud charges.” He explains that American authorities have no jurisdiction in Aruba, but they could extradite van der Sloot to the US.
After Kelly met van der Sloot in 2010 and gave him some of the money, Joran claimed that Natalee’s body was in a cement foundation of an under-construction house. “I pretended like I believed this. In theory, Joran took twenty-five grand, had a good laugh, and went about his merry way. It didn’t bother me at all, because I knew how it was going to play out,” Kelly added.
While it didn’t take long for the FBI investigators to track van der Sloot’s lies, van der Sloot was unexpectedly convicted of murdering another young woman and sentenced to prison in Peru before they could take proper action.
Joran van der Sloot confessed to killing a rabbit
The extradition order came in 2023, and FBI agents extradited Joran van der Sloot to Birmingham, Alabama. Retired FBI agent Alexandra Montilla says in Taken: Natalee Holloway, “We cannot indict him on charges of murdering Natalee, but we’ll get you on the extortion charges, and we’ll get you in Natalee’s backyard.”
Montilla was on the plane with van der Sloot when he was being flown to Alabama and describes him as “charismatic, easy to talk to.” “People were drawn to him… He comes off as a very educated man.” During the flight, he, who had married and had a daughter during his prison time, allegedly revealed that he “grabbed the [pet] bunny rabbit and ripped his head off like it was nothing,” when it scratched his daughter. He continued other conversations after casually letting that out.
Montilla said, “I’ve dealt with a lot of criminals, and as a female, I thought, ‘this is probably one of the most dangerous ones.’”