Joran van der Sloot, the man who confessed to killing Natalee Holloway, reportedly attempted to take his own life while incarcerated in one of Peru’s most notorious prisons.
Peruvian newspaper La República reported that the 38-year-old Dutch national was discovered early Saturday morning in his cell at Challapalca Prison, allegedly hanging from a strip of a blanket as guards arrived to deliver breakfast.
Prison officials later confirmed the incident “suggested a possible suicide attempt.” Van der Sloot was transported to the prison infirmary, where he was treated and remains under medical observation.
Authorities said he is currently in stable condition but is being closely monitored due to concerns about his mental health.
Van der Sloot is serving a 28-year sentence in Peru for the 2010 murder of Stefany Flores Ramírez, a 21-year-old business student he was dating at the time. Flores Ramírez was beaten to death in a hotel room in Lima, a crime van der Sloot later confessed to.
In 2023, his sentence was extended after he was convicted of drug trafficking inside the prison system.
The attempted suicide adds another disturbing chapter to the long and painful legacy surrounding Natalee Holloway. Holloway was an 18-year-old from Alabama who vanished in Aruba in May 2005 during a high school graduation trip.
She was last seen leaving a nightclub with van der Sloot and two local brothers. Despite years of international attention, arrests, and searches, her body was never recovered.
In 2023, nearly two decades after her disappearance, van der Sloot admitted to killing Holloway as part of a U.S. plea deal related to extorting her family. He described attacking her on a beach after she rejected his advances and disposing of her body in the ocean.
Because the statute of limitations had expired, he was never charged with her murder. As part of that case, he also admitted to sending emails in 2010 demanding $250,000 from Holloway’s parents in exchange for information, initially accepting $25,000 before providing false details.
Van der Sloot is currently held at Challapalca Prison, a high-altitude facility located between 4,600 and 5,000 meters above sea level in southern Peru.
Amnesty International has previously raised alarms about conditions at the prison, warning that the extreme altitude and isolation could pose serious risks to inmates’ physical and mental health.