Portrait of a Monster: Joran Van Der Sloot, a Murder in Peru, and the Natalee Holloway Mystery (32 page)

Tim Miller personally attempted to gain permission to search the Van der Sloots’ property. Investigators had already searched it, but Miller was curious about an abandoned well and newly poured concrete around the pool. He intended to use ground penetrating radar equipment to probe these locations.

Paulus van der Sloot was outraged. He listened to Miller’s case—“There could be something back there that you don’t know about. And if you cooperate, it’s gonna kind of clear your name,” Tim reasoned. But Van der Sloot refused them entry.

Meanwhile, Aruban investigators and local firefighters were draining a pond near the Marriott Hotel. The pond had become a location of interest after a local gardener, Carlos Penata Ramos, had come forward to claim he had seen Deepak’s car near there the night in question.

Unable to sleep in his sweltering apartment, Ramos said he had gotten up in the middle of the night to go to the home of a friend who had air-conditioning. Ramos, a twenty-six-year-old Colombian, was a gardener for Eric Mansur, a powerful family on Aruba. Eric’s cousin, Jossy Mansur, was the owner of
El Diario,
the Papiamento-language newspaper.

Ramos decided to travel across the Mansur property to a guest cottage with air-conditioning. He looked at his watch; it was 2:30
A.M.
He climbed into his van, and took his shortcut, a dirt road.

That was when he spotted Deepak’s silver Honda near the Aruba Racquet Club. It was parked between two mounds of sand and brush, as if it were trying to be hidden from view.

He claimed he saw three men inside the vehicle. The two in the front seats tried to obscure their faces behind their hands, while the one in the back ducked down out of sight. Ramos claimed the man sitting in the driver’s seat was Joran van der Sloot, whom he was able to identify only after newspaper photographs emerged.

Ramos gave his witness account on July 26 at the Bubali police headquarters, but curiously, he refused to sign his statement and said he would no longer cooperate. Still, based on the tip about the gray Honda being near there, police began the massive undertaking of draining the pond like they had drained the swamp four weeks earlier.

Searchlights aided the fire department in this nighttime effort. Despite the fire engines being able to pump 3,600 gallons an hour, the pond wasn’t sufficiently emptied until the following day.

Like all previous searches, no clues as to Natalee’s whereabouts were discovered.

Ramos appeared to be the first eyewitness to events that had occurred late that night. The fishermen had made statements to what they had
not
seen. But Carlos had claimed to have actually seen the three prime suspects. However, after his initial interview, three weeks and a warrant were needed to persuade him to reveal more. When he finally came in to talk, Ramos told police that he had been away on a fishing trip with his boss and several of his boss’s friends.

On August 15, Ramos was brought to police headquarters to give a deposition in the presence of the lawyers for Joran van der Sloot, Deepak Kalpoe, and Satish Kalpoe. He explained his reluctance to discuss his eyewitness account was because of the false arrests of the security guards. Since his first interview, he had been unaware that he was being sought. But, he would talk now.

The attorneys grilled him. “How were you able to see the vehicle if it was late at night and the road was not lit?” his attorney asked.

“When I encountered the car in question, it was on a dirt road,” the gardener explained. “I had to brake and drive slowly to pass it. The headlights of my van shone on the car. The person in the passenger seat covered his face with his hand. I saw how the driver slid backwards a little.”

Deepak’s attorney wanted to know how Ramos could have seen inside the vehicle from the driver’s seat of his van.

“In the curve, I had to pass over a sand hill which caused my van to tilt over a little bit,” the witness said. “That’s why I could see inside the car. I recognized the car from the rims and transparent screens.”

Ramos was able to identify Joran, Deepak, and Satish from the mug shot lineup shown to him by police.

Throughout the investigation of the new leads, Joran’s interrogations were continuing. Earlier in the month, two special agents from the Netherlands, sergeants Antoon Ronald de Ruiter and Clemens Johannes Maria Burgwal of the Utrecht region, arrived in Aruba to participate in the case. They met the Dutch teen for the first time on August 2, joining senior police officer Jaqueline Josette de Windt of the Aruba Police Corps.

The four gathered at the Oranjestad headquarters, De Windt and De Ruiter sitting with Joran in the interrogation room and Sergeant Burgwal following the proceedings by video system. Joran’s attorney, Antonio Carlo, was also present, as had been permitted by the judge.

“How was your drive from the KIA prison to the police station this morning?” Officer De Windt began. “Did the media presence bother you?”

The media had swarmed the police vehicle carrying Joran from the correctional facility that morning, yelling his name and shouting questions.

“I don’t care what the media says about me,” Joran said, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t read the papers anyway.”

A series of questions followed, to which Joran invoked his right to silence.

“What is remaining silent going to do for you?” Sergeant De Ruiter asked.

“I am being accused of something I didn’t do, which is why I can answer some questions and not others.”

“How do you think that remaining silent is going to help you if it comes out that you have been lying from day one?”

Joran did not reply.

“How do you think the people of Aruba will look at you, and the people of the U.S.A.? And how do you think your parents’ lives will be affected by your silence?”

“Can I have a glass of water?” Joran asked. His request was granted.

Sergeant de Ruiter asked Joran to imagine how the world would look upon him should he be released.

He gave no reaction.

“Do you understand everything? Do you have any questions?”

Joran was silent. About an hour into the interview, Joran indicated that he was cold and asked that the air-conditioning be adjusted. The officer on duty complied.

Next, the interviewers confronted Joran with statements made earlier by him and the Kalpoe brothers. “What do you think about those statements now, since they appear to be fabricated stories?”

Joran gave no response.

At 11:20
A.M.
, the teen asked for a break, saying that he was tired. This time his request was denied.

Joran was then told about the existence of a tape of the conversation between the Kalpoes and him when they were being transported between Oranjestad and the KIA prison.

Again, Joran did not react. Forty more minutes passed with Joran in silence.

At noon, the group recessed for an hour for lunch. Joran got a hot meal, sandwiches, coffee, and water. His bathroom escort afforded him privacy, and Joran took advantage, indulging in a smoke from a secreted pack of cigarettes.

At 1:00
P.M.
, the interview resumed. “How was your meal?” was the first question asked. Joran responded that he had enjoyed it. When asked next what his reaction was to so many witnesses retracting or amending statements, Joran said nothing.

Next he was asked for a reaction to the fact that reward money causes people to tell untruths and to perpetuate them for a long time.

Still, Joran said nothing.

“How do you feel about the international press swarming outside the police station, waiting to interview you?”

Joran shrugged his shoulders.

Returning directly to his own statements, he was questioned about discrepancies he had made, specifically about the event when he and Natalee had separated. Was the girl no longer able to walk, passed out on the sand, or was she through with him and walked off in the other direction? He had attested to both scenarios.

Joran sat stone-faced.

“It doesn’t make sense to leave a pair of new, expensive shoes behind on the beach and not to go back and look for them,” De Ruiter stated. The Dutch investigator then added that Joran’s K-Swiss sneakers had not been recovered by the beach cleaning service or taken to a hotel lost and found.

De Ruiter pointed out there was now a $100,000 reward being offered for any clue that could help solve this case. If indeed Joran had left his sneakers behind then someone would have surely turned them in by now to collect the reward money.

Joran stared at the police sergeant but said nothing.

At 3:40
P.M.
the interview was halted for the day. Only when it was over did Joran tell Sergeant De Ruiter that he would have answered some questions with simple answers, but his parents and his lawyers had advised against it.

On August 6, Joran celebrated his eighteenth birthday in jail.

Two days later, his interrogation began again, after well wishes for a happy birthday and the reading of his rights.

Joran gave the officers a half-hearted grin.

He was informed that the chief prosecutor of Aruba had filed a petition with the court to extend his detention until September 4. Joran seemed unconcerned.

He was asked why his legal team had been making misleading statements to the press, such as claiming it had been denied access to him or that his eighteenth birthday had been spent in an interrogation room.

Joran remained impassive.

Police showed him a statement he had made claiming that he and Natalee had gone for a walk on the beach. “We now have a statement from someone who saw Deepak’s car at a location several hundred yards from the Fisherman’s Hut,” De Ruiter announced. He said the witness had seen the car with three people in it, the Kalpoe brothers and him, and it was on a dirt road near the Marriott. He asked him if he had an explanation.

Joran maintained his poker face.

He was confronted with the statements of several of his close friends about his character. Many said he had lied and one had described how he had cheated with a friend’s girlfriend.

“These guys say that you are constantly playing them. Can you comment on that?” the sergeant asked.

When Joran did not respond, De Ruiter confronted him with the statement of the teenage girl who had come forward claiming that he had molested her. “The girl said that she was offered a drink during sex that made her lips tingle. Can you tell us about that?”

Joran sat across the table staring at the interrogators.

“Can you take off your shoes, please?” Sergeant De Ruiter instructed.

Joran stared at the officer in confusion. He then looked at his attorney, who didn’t coach him on how to respond.

“Your shoes, please,” the interrogator repeated.

Reaching down, Joran pulled off one of his shoes and slammed it down on the table. The noise startled his lawyer, and he looked up to see Sergeant De Ruiter inspecting his client’s shoe.

“Why did you say you were wearing K-Swiss shoes, size fourteen, on the day in question and you are now wearing size ten and a half shoes?” De Ruiter demanded. Throughout multiple investigations, Joran had insisted the sneakers he had left on the beach were size fourteen.

Joran did not respond.

Sergeant De Ruiter waited until the teen had put his shoe back on, then bent down and pressed his finger on the toecap to feel where Joran’s toes were in the shoe. He noted that the shoe was a perfect fit.

Joran did not respond.

The following day, Joran returned to police headquarters. Sergeant De Ruiter informed him that it was possible that authorities in the United States might attempt to extradite him regarding the disappearance of Natalee Holloway.

Joran laughed.

The sergeant next explained that the charges against him might be divided into separate charges, one a charge of murder with a possible life sentence, and another, a charge of vice for sexual misconduct. “How does that make you feel?”

Joran stared ahead as if he had not heard a word.

Once the recorded interview was done, Joran again had things to discuss.

Sergeant De Ruiter forewarned him that even unofficially his remarks would be entered into the record. The officer’s transcription of their conversation, which later became part of the official Aruban police file, was remarkably candid and devoid of Joran’s usual stonewalling.

Joran complimented the sergeant on his professional interviewing techniques and insisted that had both he and Deepak been interviewed in this fashion from the start, “the truth” would have been revealed sooner.

During the conversation, Joran also told De Ruiter:

•  that moving forward he expected to be harassed and possibly even the target of physical violence because of his connection to the Holloway case.

•  that he had been open to speaking to people about his connection to the case—even though his mother and lawyer were against it.

•  that Natalee could still be alive, but had gone into hiding because of all the media surrounding the case.

•  that it was easy for a girl to dye her hair and not be recognized anymore.

•  that no one could prove him guilty of a crime that hadn’t even been proven to have taken place.

•  that was also the reason why he expected to not have his arrest prolonged by the magistrate.

•  that his father was now looking at his career options, but had accepted that he’d never work as a judge.

•  that his mother would, after the summer break, go back to work at school.

•  that his lawyers had not once panicked regarding the new interrogation techniques and that he placed his full trust in their advice.

•  that his lawyers had never leaked anything to the press and everything that was presented to the press was done so with consulting him first.

•  that he knew there would be people who rejected him, but that he wasn’t interested in people like that.

•  that he did, in fact, enjoy the company of American girls.

•  that it should be made clear that though he enjoyed hanging out with American girls, it didn’t fit his personality to murder a girl.