Where is Natalee Holloway? Part four: what went wrong

In September 2005, about four months after the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, Joran Van der Sloot was approached on the street in Arnhem by an American journalist from A Current Affair. In the interview (at timestamp 04:28), Joran was asked:

Journalist: “Did you have sex with her (Natalee) that night?”
Joran: “That’s— First of all, that’s none of your business.”
Journalist: “It’s just a question.”
Joran: “Yes, but that’s absolutely none of your business.”

The topic of sex is clearly sensitive for Joran; he does not want to talk about it and blocks it with “that’s none of your business.”

Yet in his 2007 book De Zaak Natalee Holloway, Joran does give an account of what supposedly happened in the car while he, Natalee, and the brothers Deepak and Satish were on their way to his house. According to him, Natalee wanted to have sex with him:

Joran (p. 85): “It’s her (Natalee’s) intention that we have sex at my place. She didn’t ask me directly, but I could tell from her body language. She says things like my eyes are really beautiful and that she likes tall guys. Natalee doesn’t talk to Deepak and Satish. Without asking me who they are, she got in.”

It’s plausible that Natalee had a crush on Joran that night. Everything suggests she found him attractive. Joran presents it as if Natalee took the initiative and wanted sex with him. However, he undermines the credibility of these words by stating she didn’t actually ask him directly — he merely inferred it from her compliments.

Joran consistently shifts all responsibility onto Natalee. He minimizes himself to a follower who simply goes along with what Natalee wants and decides. That the opposite was (most likely) true has already become clear in the earlier parts of this analysis.

The boys had the plan. They took the initiative and brought Natalee Holloway with them — not the other way around.

Joran also adds in his book that Natalee did not speak to Deepak and Satish. Remarkably, this is also mentioned in the interview with the mother of Deepak and Satish:

Nadira Ramirez: “My son said that she (Natalee) didn't even introduce herself to them, like, hi, I'm Natalee or whatever. She didn't talk a word with my two sons.”

The double negation (didn’t + didn’t) signals sensitivity. The fact that Natalee didn’t introduce herself to the two brothers in the front seats, and didn’t — not a single word — talk to them, is exactly what their mother emphasizes. Deepak and Satish were apparently invisible to her. Meaningless. 

Joran and the mother find this significant, which is why they mention it. From Natalee’s perspective, though, her behavior isn’t so strange. The two brothers in the front were just driving around with Joran. She didn’t know them, or barely did.

She was there for Joran — not for the brothers. Right? 

Sex

Let’s address the elephant in the room right away.  Is it possible that all three boys were hoping to have sex with Natalee that night? Wasn’t that “the plan” mentioned in the previous blog post? Is it possible that Natalee had absolutely no idea what the boys were plotting? That she had no clue about the implications of Deepak’s earlier question: “Are you sure you want to come with us?” He didn’t ask: “Are you sure you want to come with Joran?” It was “come with us.” 

Us. We. All three.

There are quite a few elements that point in this direction. Why was Satish even there? What was he doing in that car? Why had he gone down to the bar? And—more importantly—why did they all have to get in the car? If the intention had been for only Joran to have a fling with Natalee, he could have easily crossed the main road with her to the beach. Or gone with her to her hotel. Or into the bushes. Anywhere they could have had a quick one-night stand. Then Natalee wouldn’t have had to get into the back seat to go to his house. And there probably wouldn’t have been talk of “a plan” at all. Deepak wouldn’t have had to ask Joran in Papiamento “what they were going to do.”

Here lies the possible tension: The boys want and expect something that the girl may not want or expect. It’s only a matter of time before the trigger comes — the spark that lights the fuse.

“Push me, and then just touch me, ‘til I can get my satisfaction”

The trigger comes. Natalee is sitting in the back seat next to Joran. Deepak is driving and Satish is next to him. Joran describes in his book how he and Natalee are chatting pleasantly.

Joran (p. 86): “She’s sitting with one of her legs against me. She’s wearing a short denim skirt and keeps her hand in front of her crotch, I think to prevent us from seeing her panties.”

He says “us.” So this also includes the brothers possibly seeing her panties. Maybe Natalee senses the boys occasionally glancing at her through the rearview mirror. But all in all, it’s a fairly modest scene. At this point in the book, Natalee and Joran haven’t even kissed yet. According to Joran, they are holding hands.

And then something remarkable happens:

Joran (p. 87): “Meanwhile Satish puts on a DVD with music videos. We see the clip ‘Satisfaction’ by Benny Benassi. It’s a clip with sexy women in bikinis using large power drills, saws and that kind of equipment. Because of the vibrations of the machines you see their butts and breasts shaking a lot. This is the x-rated version, which also shows explicit sex scenes.”

On the backs of the two front seats are screens on which Satish plays this porn. Joran and Natalee are sitting in the back seat watching these pornographic scenes.

According to Joran, Natalee reacts with: “Oh my God. What’s that?”

Natalee’s words show she did not expect this at all. She is shocked. Unannounced x-rated porn blasting under a heavy beat in a Honda with three strangers is not exactly my idea of something that instantly turns women on — quite the opposite. But it happens. And it immediately makes clear to Natalee what is going on in Satish’s mind at that moment. He is thinking about sex, while she wants to talk with Joran.

Joran: “I tell Satish in Dutch to choose another clip, because I don’t think it’s such a good song after all.”

“In Dutch.” A language Natalee does not understand. This again points to the plan the three had and its secretive nature.

Also note his explanation. Joran says he just didn’t think it was such a good song, and that’s why Satish should pick another clip. Reality likely aligns more with what Deepak (according to Joran) says: “Now she (Natalee) thinks we’re perverts.”

Perverts?

It’s striking that Joran puts the English word “perverts” in Deepak’s mouth. Deepak and Joran always speak Dutch or Papiamento with each other (see also p. 91, line 9), and as far as I could check, the word “perverts” does not exist in either language, not in that form.

But who could have used the word “perverts” perfectly? Absolutely: Natalee. It fits expectations that she called Joran and the brothers perverts, shocked as she was when porn suddenly played on the screens in front of her:

“Oh my God. What’s that? You guys are perverts!”

That’s when it probably dawns on Natalee: I thought we were just going to talk, that you would drop me off at my hotel — but you want sex with me.

In my view, this is the exact moment when everything goes wrong in the car. I refer to the first podcast with Ruud Tuithof, where we dissect this moment like with a scalpel, and where I suspect Natalee may have tried to flee from the car.

What’s especially important are the time jumps that appear in Joran’s various statements — in his book, but also in his FOX News interview. A jump in time almost always marks a moment a suspect absolutely does not want to describe, because something happened at that specific moment that must remain hidden at all costs. This is sensitive information × 1000. Things you simply do not talk about. And then, as a suspect, you always need a time jump:

Joran in his book (p. 87): “A little later, at ten past one-thirty, we stop at the gate of my house.”

“A little later” is a time jump. A vague time jump, too. Because what is “a little later”? Ten minutes? Half an hour? Forty-five minutes?

FOX News interview: “We actually did stop in front of my house. We got to my house and then, yes then I — then she said she wanted to go see sharks.”

“And then, yes then I — then” are three time jumps in a row. This marks a moment of extremely high stress — Joran’s mind is short-circuiting here.

This is likely the moment of conflict in the car, after the porn video played, when Natalee may have panicked.

Lies and truth

Joran states in his book that afterward Natalee no longer wanted to go to his house. I believe him. I think she was completely done with the little adventure and just wanted to get back to her hotel as soon as possible. Joran adds that Natalee then wanted to go to the beach because she wanted to see sharks. That, I don’t believe.

So sometimes I believe Joran. And sometimes I don’t.

Many people assume that guilty suspects (like Joran) lie about everything and never tell the truth. But that’s not the case. Joran needs the truth to make his story believable. Besides, the truth is anchored in our memory and surfaces automatically. Joran does try to twist facts and bend them to his advantage, but language moves fast and he has to keep track of so many things that he inevitably slips up — like with his use of “perverts.”

That word is partly true. It’s not there by accident. Someone said it. He’s just lying about who said it. I suspect it was Natalee, not Deepak, as he claims.

In statements, truth and lies constantly leapfrog each other. As an analyst you must learn to recognize the linguistic signals that reveal what is truth and what is deception. This allows us to go beyond simply deciding whether someone is being deceptive. We can start reconstructing events and forming hypotheses about what likely happened — which is incredibly valuable in cold case investigations and disappearances.

Black people are slaves

I’ll end with words Natalee is said to have spoken.

Joran (p. 88): “We’re kissing again and Natalee suddenly asks about Deepak and Satish: ‘Are they your slaves?’ — because they’re driving me around.”

Joran says he laughs a little and notes that it’s a strange question.

Natalee is then said to have said: “My parents have a plantation (in Alabama) and black guys work there. For me, black people are slaves.”

Did Natalee say that? Did she really make these absurd statements? I think she did.

Three reasons.

One: There are few linguistic indicators of deception. No explanation why, she owns her words (“my,” “for me”) and is straight to the point. Two: Her words are very specific. How she feels about black people is a detail Joran couldn’t actually know — it belongs to her way of life in Alabama. Three: Natalee’s statement completely aligns with what the brothers’ mother said: to Natalee, Deepak and Satish were invisible. They didn’t exist to her. She didn’t greet them or introduce herself.

If the brothers Deepak and Satish — who are men of color — assumed they might also have a chance with the pretty blonde American cheerleader from Alabama, this could have caused a short circuit in her mind.

You don’t have sex with a slave. What were you thinking, you perverts?

That Natalee may have seen the brothers not only as Joran’s “slaves” but also as “perverts” could have felt humiliating to Deepak and Satish. Especially because Natalee had sent the wrong signals when they all set out into the night together. She had gotten into the car with them. She had stayed in the car when the friend advised her to get out and use her common sense. She had confirmed that she wanted to go with them.

With them. Not just with Joran.

What else would the boys have been thinking about than sex with a blonde, half-drunk American cheerleader who would be flying back to Alabama the next morning?

Joran even openly admits this in his book (p. 85): “I thought what every seventeen-year-old boy would think at such a moment: sex.”

Refusing sex, insulting the brothers, panicking, kicking Joran in the balls. it’s not hard to imagine what happened next.

On to part five — where is Natalee?

Our ultimate goal in analyzing the Holloway case: to find Natalee’s body.

We know she never made it back to her hotel.
We know that Joran Van der Sloot killed her.
We just don’t know where her body is.

I am convinced her family wants to give her a final resting place.

Finding the answer to the main question of this blog — Where is Natalee Holloway? — is extremely difficult, but not impossible.

There will be a second episode of the podcast with Ruud Tuithof. In it, we will try to pinpoint as precisely as possible the location of Natalee Holloway’s body.