Portrait of a Monster: Joran Van Der Sloot, a Murder in Peru, and the Natalee Holloway Mystery (10 page)

Paulus and Anita van der Sloot were not married when Joran was born, believing they didn’t need a court document to honor their commitment. The couple met in Arnhem when Paulus moved to the city in the late 1970s to accept a job after graduating from Tilburg University, one of Europe’s most prestigious law schools. Instead of taking a government post, Paulus chose to join a private practice representing citizens who had conflicts with the government.

Anita, a gregarious and free-spirited young redhead who was fascinated by Eastern religions and philosophies, was completing her undergraduate studies in art education at Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, a fine arts academy in Arnhem. She found work at Lorentz College, teaching art to middle- and high school students while earning a master’s degree.

Paulus, on the other hand, was more reserved. He was four years older and stood nearly a foot taller than Anita, and was an introverted bookworm who was passionate about the law. He believed everyone should be afforded due process and was uncompromising in his principles. But he did have a lighter side. He played in a local brass band and shared Anita’s passion for traveling. The couple took a relaxed approach to having children, choosing to travel and see the world before facing the commitments of family life.

Anita was thirty when Joran was born, and later told her son that he had been conceived during a trip to Ecuador. She and Paulus had also visited Egypt during her pregnancy. Valentijn was born two years later in 1989.

By then, Anita had completed her master’s work, and was supplementing the family’s income tutoring art students in her home.

Paulus had earned a reputation as a serious lawyer and he fought hard for his clients. His stubborn nature didn’t win him many friends and there were some in his hometown of Boxtel who considered him a troublemaker.

During the 1980s, his personal and professional life collided when the Van der Sloots’ ancestral home was embroiled in a government land-grab dispute. The quaint town center had been laid out in an era before commercial truck traffic. Most people in town walked or rode bikes wherever they went. The red brick homes with sloping tile roofs were built right up to the curb of the narrow cobblestone streets. This made a dangerous situation for pedestrians, especially children, forced to share the road with vehicular traffic.

The Dutch government had wanted to seize a slice of scenic and valuable property owned by Paulus and his brother Peter to build a proper motorway. Paulus and a local group of affected landowners, who called themselves BEL (Bewonders van de Eindhovenseweg en Liempdseweg, or Dwellers of the Eindhoven and Liemds Roads), protested the project. Paulus was adamant that his opposition to the plan was not personal, that the plans were flawed and would mar the beauty of a scenic and historic area and didn’t fully address safety concerns.

But the town council had already invested money in the planning stages. They were unswerving in their devotion to the project and wanted to see it through to its fruition. During the protracted court battle, there were several more fatalities and local residents accused Van der Sloot of being indirectly complicit. He became a pariah. He was deeply hurt by the accusations and felt that his neighbors’ anger was misdirected. The battle raged for nearly two decades, from 1973 to 1993, when a more suitable route for the bypass road was approved. By then, Paulus had already moved his family to Aruba.

In 1991, Paulus van der Sloot was ready for a drastic change and began searching for a new job. He was offered a position as an attorney for the Aruban government, and eagerly signed a five-year contract. It was a chance to move his wife and children to an exotic locale. He hoped that in the small island setting his legal skills would quickly gain notice. Paulus and Anita were seasoned travelers and researched the local customs and culture. While it was perfectly acceptable, and in fact common, to have children out of wedlock in Holland, those Dutch sensibilities were not shared by the more conservative-minded citizens of Aruba. Paulus and Anita married in a civil service before bringing the family overseas.

For four-year-old Joran, the balmy tropical island was a strange and wonderful place to spend a childhood. The Van der Sloots were well off by Aruban standards, but by no means affluent. When the couple arrived with their two young sons, they spent their first months living in a hotel, The Mill, a small resort on Palm Beach.

Palm Beach was a beautiful spit of blinding white sand lined with the highest concentration of high-rise hotels on Aruba. Though smaller low-rise and bungalow-style hotels dotted its seventy-five square miles, Palm Beach was the most commercial and, for many, the most desirable spot on the island. Unlike other parts where the currents could be rough, the waters surrounding Palm Beach were ideal for swimming, windsurfing, and catching a sunset.

Ironically, there was nothing natural about the “natural” beauty of Aruba’s Palm Beach. Its willowy palms were transplants and maintained for the benefit of the tourism industry. In its natural state, Aruba was a desertlike environment where aloe, prickly pear, and Turk’s cap cactus dotted the barren landscape. In the last thirty years, however, the growth of “landscaped” palms had charted the growth of tourist dollars. The eastern side of the island remained relatively undeveloped and looked very much like the desert areas surrounding Tucson, Arizona. Goats wandered down unpaved roads and roamed the cactus scrub, where hawks, bats, and lizards made their homes.

After three months of hotel living, the Van der Sloots bought a house in Noord, a few miles inland on the island’s desirable north side, not far from the California Lighthouse, a major tourist attraction. The house was small and off a dirt road in a community of locals and foreigners of modest means.

The family’s first years on Aruba were difficult. Paulus and Anita were homesick for their native Holland. Joran’s father immersed himself in his new government post while Anita stayed home to care for their young sons.

For Joran, however, this was a magical time, with endless days of sunshine and freedom. He and his brother, Valentijn, loved exploring the empty lots and junkyards of Noord. Every day brought new potential for adventure. When Joran was eight, his brother Sebastian was born, and Sebastian became the baby of the Van der Sloot clan and a “true islander,” as Joran referred to him.

With no relatives on Aruba, the family made an effort to travel to their homeland at least once every two years to visit Anita’s mother.

Joran appreciated his mother’s efforts to keep their Dutch traditions alive, but grew to despise their family trips to Holland. He was isolated there, and he missed the sunshine of his Caribbean home, where he could run around barefoot, swim, windsurf, and hang out with his friends. Joran felt like an outsider in the Netherlands. In his opinion, the people there were uptight. He longed for the unhurried pace of island life.

In reality, Joran’s lifestyle was not typical for an island boy. His father’s high-placed government post afforded the family a certain amount of clout and standing. The family belonged to a country club, and Joran and his brothers attended the International School of Aruba, a small, private English-language school where their mother, Anita, taught art, as she had back in Holland. The school was expensive, about U.S.$8,000 a year, but faculty family members paid a discounted tuition.

Having his mother at the school had its perks and its disadvantages. The Van der Sloot boys didn’t have to endure the long ride on the school bus on the days she was teaching. However, if Joran committed any infractions, be it bad grades, fights, or cutting classes, his mother found out immediately. There were also the awkward moments when his mother doubled as his art teacher.

While all the other kids referred to her as Miss Van der Sloot, Joran addressed her as “Mam.” Some of his classmates teased him, saying the only reason he received good grades in art was because his mother was the teacher. But by all accounts Joran excelled academically in all his subjects.

He studied government, economics, and calculus, which was his most difficult subject, was enrolled in an English advanced placement program, and had a gift for languages. In addition to speaking his native Dutch and English, he was also fluent in Papiamento.

Joran was introducted to Papiamento in nursery school. He was three when his parents enrolled him at a local preschool where it was the only language spoken.

Joran attended this nursery school for only a short time before his parents moved him to another program, where he would have greater exposure to Dutch and English. Anita and Paulus spoke Dutch at home. They noticed, however, that Joran was beginning to mix Papiamento and Dutch even in basic conversation.

His parents were living a typical ex-pat lifestyle, socializing mostly with other members of the transplanted Dutch community, and generally communicated in Dutch.

Joran, on the other hand, quickly learned Papiamento in order to fit in with his peers. When he spoke it, he was able to find acceptance and escape the teasing that local boys doled out on ex-pats. While he would always remain an outsider, speaking Papiamento demonstrated his desire to be a part of the island community.

When he was old enough for elementary school, his parents decided that Joran would attend the International School of Aruba, a private prepatory academy where English was spoken in the classroom. They knew that Joran needed to learn one language well and with the potential for higher education at a U.S. university, English was the best choice.

The school was small with an enrollment of about ten children in each grade. Students were expected to follow a dress code. They had to wear white or blue short-sleeved polo shirts emblazoned with the ISA logo and pants or short pants in khaki, black, or navy. The school’s lesson plans were the same as those used in the United States and the school had a good reputation. Nearly all of its graduating seniors went on to attend colleges in the United States and the Netherlands.

Anita taught art at the school three days a week, and was always home in the afternoons to help Joran with school assignments and projects. Her husband kept long hours at the office and when he was at home, he didn’t appear eager to be involved.

To Joran, his father was remote. However, he rationalized that it was better this way. His father didn’t speak English as fluently as his mother, and would not have been as helpful with his homework assignments. Still, sometimes he wished that he would be more involved with the family.

Paulus’s government post was not always rewarding and he sometimes grew frustrated. His legal positions didn’t always win him favor with the island’s ministers, and he was often delegated menial tasks, such as drafting contracts and sorting paperwork. This was dry and boring work, not at all what he had imagined and he briefly considered relocating the family back to the Netherlands. But, ultimately he decided to stay in Aruba and pursue other career possibilities.

When Joran was fourteen, his father announced that he had been offered an opportunity to become a judge. Although Paulus was excited, accepting the assignment would require three years of training. He would also be off-island for long periods, working on court-related matters on the nearby island of Curaçao, also a constituent country of the Netherlands. Additionally, he would be required to do a one-year stint in the Netherlands as part of the training. Joran loved his father and understood that the judgeship was important to him. However, he still resented his lengthy absences.

Now a teenager, Joran was looking to be more independent. He wanted to be cool like the older island boys in his clique. His mother wished he would make classier friends with his contemporaries at the International School, but choices were few. There were only four or five other boys in Joran’s graduating class. Besides, he preferred the companionship of the Aruban boys.

By now, he was fluent in Papiamento and he would often slip into the Creole tongue when he and his friends wanted to communicate covertly. To them, it was like a secret language. It was especially useful when they were picking up women at the bars, nightclubs, and casinos so popular with American tourists.

Since moving out of the main house and into the apartment, Joran had found it easier to get out at night.

The decision to let Joran use the apartment might have been shortsighted, but his parents had had sincere intentions. Joran’s increasingly erratic and disturbing behavior was threatening the serenity of the household and Paulus and Anita wanted to shield the younger boys. Moving Joran to the apartment seemed not only logical, but clever. Enhancing his freedom was an unwitting outcome and Joran was soon sneaking off the property almost every night of the week.

Typically, he’d put in an appearance in the main house, do some homework, chat with his folks, return to the apartment, and after he was sure everyone was asleep, take his exit. If his parents were aware of his nightly truancies, they certainly didn’t know where he was going. More often than not, these sojourns were to the poker tables of the Holiday Inn’s Excelsior Casino.

SIX

MONDAY, MAY 31, 2005
ARUBA

Natalee Holloway’s mother had come to Aruba carrying two photographs of her daughter to give to police. Now, standing in the lobby of the Holiday Inn, a salty breeze blowing in from the surf, Beth Twitty realized that she would need a photo of Joran, as well. If he really was the last person to be seen with Natalee, then she needed to track him down. While the desk clerk knew instantly who he was, she had no idea where he lived or how to find him.

Beth remembered that Jug’s nephew Thomas had said he’d hung out with Joran at the hotel’s casino the night before. There must be cameras inside the Excelsior. Surely the management should be able to find a frame of Joran in a surveillance tape.

“I’d like to look at video from the casino,” Beth told the hotel manager, explaining that she believed Joran had been at a gaming table with Natalee the previous evening and she needed a still shot of the young man to distribute. With members of the Holiday Inn staff aware that her daughter was missing, she expected there to be no problem reviewing the footage. Instead, she was informed that the casino operated independently from the hotel. It was now too late in the evening to reach anyone, the manager stated, but perhaps tomorrow something could be done.