Hi everyone, this is Deb from Dying to be Found. Before we get started today, I just
wanted to mention that episodes contain disturbing discussions on harmful acts and crimes against
animals and or humankind. Recordings are not intended for young or sensitive audiences
due to the content nature of this podcast. Listener discretion is strongly advised.
Hey Bethy Boo, how are you today? I'm good, how are you Deb? I'm doing well. It's always
so good to see you and I'm just so excited to see you so much more on a weekly basis.
It's been, I'm going to say we have never in our whole lives been able to talk as much
as we have in the last month. No, this has been great. I've been telling my friends how
nice it is to reconnect. Oh yeah, I feel the same way. So, um, hey, do you have any vacation
plans coming up? I know the weather's getting nice. So I know I'm going on spring break
in another week or so, but I wondered if you had any plans. Yes, I'm going to fly a little
north and visit some family. I'm going to see my daughter and son-in-law and my two
lovely granddaughters. Oh, are you flying north to get in that, you know, one week of
the year where it's, it's not cold. You crazy. We have warm weather. It'll probably still
be cool because it's in June. The evenings I suspect will be a sweater weather. Oh yeah.
That's nice though. Do you guys do bonfires? No, I used to do bonfires a long time ago.
I enjoyed that. Just, you know, you know, adults around the bonfire, just talking about
life I guess. There isn't a lot of room in the backyard for that. Trampoline takes up
a lot of room. And then I have a slope. It's like a, probably a 45 degree slope in my yard.
So I'd probably be the one to roll down that hill, but the fence would stop me from going
into the neighbor's yard. So what are you going to do on holiday? I am going to Florida,
I think for spring break. It's going to be nice. Maybe by the time we actually get this
on air, I will probably have already come and gone, but I have not been to Florida in
a couple of years. So we're going to head that way. John's got some friends that he
wanted to go see and I suppose I'm a tag along, but I love the beach. I don't like getting
in the water because there's creepy things out there, but I do love listening to the
ocean and just watching the waves. It's so relaxing. So I read, do I read? Um, I haven't
read anything that any fiction, I have not read fiction probably in about four years,
but yeah, I've got some actually on my reading list. So I'm looking forward to relaxing and
yeah, reading and getting the, getting the sand in my hair, I guess. That'll be nice.
Yeah. Goodness. While talking about holidays, I guess this is a good little segue to get
into the story that we're going to tell today. So are you ready to talk about it? I sure
am. Okay. We're going to talk about Natalie Holloway. Natalie was born in Memphis, Tennessee
on October 21st, 1986. When Natalie was six, her parents divorced and her mum remarried.
The family soon moved to Mountain Brook, Alabama. Natalie was considered to be an all-around
American girl who fit quite nicely into her new environment. She was pleasant to be around.
She went by the nickname Hootie and by her teenage years, Natalie was part of Dorian's
dance team, which I believe it was like a recreational, but a competitive dance team.
So she fit really, really nicely in with her high school crowd, just the average American
girl. And at the time, I will say this, that Natalie did end up disappearing a little bit
later after her graduation. But at the time of her disappearance, Natalie had one younger
brother named Matt, just for the purpose of this story, where she was going to kind of
focus on Natalie, who did go missing on her trip when she was taking a senior trip on
vacation right after high school. Did you take any vacations when you graduated high
school? Cause that's kind of a big thing around here. No. Okay. Yeah. Cause I took a trip
to Florida when I was graduating high school, you know, we didn't necessarily have chaperones.
It was just about, we were 18. Well, I wasn't quite 18, but a lot of the people that I was
with, they were already 18. And it just seemed like during that era of when I graduated high
school, we didn't worry about things that we worry about today. Exactly. Especially
if you're with a group of people where, you know, if you have six or eight or even 10
people that you take a trip with, then you shouldn't really have to worry because you're
covering each other's back. And I can only imagine that, you know, you partner up and,
at least kind of just watch out for each other. All right. So moving on in May of 2005, Natalie,
along with over 124 of her fellow classmates from her graduating class at Mountain Brook
high school, went on to it on a graduation trip to Aruba. I'm not going to say I've ever
been on a trip with 124 people. I believe too, that she had some chaperones with her.
Parents did go along. I just mentioned that parents did not go along. Yeah. She went with
a pretty big group just to celebrate graduation. And they ended up taking a trip to Aruba.
And when she returned, yeah, you would think that it would be, especially if you had chaperones
and that many people, right? Cause your rooms are going to be full. But when Natalie returned
back to Alabama, she had planned to attend the university of Alabama to pursue a full
scholarship in medicine, according to NBC news when they were reporting this. So she
had a good future ahead of her. Yes. Now Natalie's parents received a call after Natalie had
gone to say that she had not made it to the plane to return to Alabama on May 30th of
2005. Everybody was supposed to kind of meet in the lobby, take the shuttle over to the
airport. Well, Natalie never showed up. She was scheduled to meet in the lobby to make
her way to the airport. And on that morning, and again, she just never appeared. There
was no site to be found with her. So Natalie's parents did not waste any time and boarded
a plane to Aruba on the same day. If she was in Alabama, if she lived in Alabama, that's
like the lower United States. So it's really not too far to the islands. So really the
trip itself would probably be maybe two hours. It's really not a long way or a long time
period. So they jumped on a plane, got to Aruba the same day. And then Natalie's mom,
her name was Beth Holloway Twitty, stated that when her husband, Jug, got there, she
expected the island to be like Fort Lauderdale, which is one of the popular beaches and tourist
attractions in Florida. I mean, every single beach is pretty much a tourist attraction
in the state of Florida. But have you ever been to an ocean area, Beth? I know Lake Huron
is your ocean. I know that you get to the fresh water and things like that, but have
you ever taken a trip where you go to the beach and kind of hang out at the beach at
all? Yes, when I lived out East. Okay. So you know what it's like to go to a touristy
area. Yes. And that's what Beth Twitty thought when she was headed over to Aruba, because
it's really geographically close setting. Aruba is a tropical island just off the coast
of Florida. So it's like a hop, skip, and a jump to get there. Probably like from Nova
Scotia to Prince Edward Island, right? So the area she thought would just be any other
touristy attraction, just like in Florida. And the island itself in Aruba is about five
miles long and 25 to 30 miles wide. And this was not the case though for Miss Twitty because
she thought, okay, well, this is a small island. But once she got there, okay, my child is
missing. And all of a sudden, how big did this island become to her? I can't imagine.
There was one time when my son was little and we went on a camping trip and we had a
couple of campsites set up where we could see each other's tents. We went with a family
member and we had my son take something from my campsite over to the other campsite and
literally no joke. He went missing. All you did was you turned your back. That was it.
He was gone. Yeah. That big camping area became very big to me because what happened was Cory
ended up following one of the guys that was working in the park and he was blowing leaves
and Cory had this tricycle. So he was like, Oh, I'm just going to go down there. Well,
guess what? My son has a need for speed. And so he came upon a hill. So he was on his trike
and he decided he was going to take a little joy ride down the hill. And it was about 15
or 20 minutes that he was missing in my eyes. And so in that little space, I mean, it was
terrifying to me. So my point being with Beth Twitty going to this Island that she thought
was just a little beach resort, all of a sudden, just to see, even though it's 25 miles wide
and five miles long, it was, it might as well have been the entire United States, you know?
So that's kind of where her head was at. Sarah went missing for maybe 45 minutes and it was
in a park where there was splash pads. And I said to Sarah, just go to the other side
of these buildings and you will find a splash pad. I'll catch up with you. Well, what I
didn't know was it was fixed up and made five times the size. So when I went around the
building, I saw what looked like to be 200 people lined up on five massive water slides.
And Sarah would have been about six or seven and she actually stood in line and I was panicking.
We got some walkie talkies going from down below where I was and upstairs to the top
of the slide and nobody could find her and it was panic city. Oh my gosh. I will never
forget that. So I learned a lesson. Don't just say go over there and I'll catch up with
you. Now that's interesting because that's what I did. I was like, Hey, Corey, can you
take this over to the other campsite? I think it was just a cup. He put it on the, on the,
on the handlebars of his trike. And that was the last time we saw him for 15, 20 minutes
is oh gosh, like your heart just comes out of your chest. Well, yes, it's very scary.
Absolutely. Then again, to a small extent, I know what it's like to lose your child very
briefly and yeah, that's probably the longest, longest time of my life. So Beth went back
to the hotel where Natalie had stayed and talked with the night manager to try to get
some information and what she found out on who Natalie might have been with last. And
it didn't take her long to find out that the last person to see Natalie alive was a young
man named Yorin van Sloot. Now remember the casino was attached to the hotel, so they
had these cameras everywhere, but the video footage showed Yorin was playing a game at
the table and Natalie was probably three people over just kind of watching the whole thing.
She wasn't engaged in the game itself. She was just observing, but you could see that
they were together. I mean, the videos that I saw for the footage did not look like they
were interacting whatsoever. So at some point in time, they did start talking. Now I wanted
to give you just a little brief history on Yorin van Sloot. He was originally born. Well,
what do you say originally born? He was born in 1987 and originally raised in the Netherlands.
And then he moved to Aruba in 1990 when he was about three years old. So as many people
would at this age, Yorin considered himself to be a native of the island. In his early
adult years, Yorin began spending a lot of time at the casino that was attached to the
hotel where Natalie was seen last. Do you do any gambling, Beth? Have you ever gone
to a casino? Hello? Can you hear me? Yeah, there was a lag. I couldn't hear you. You
were frozen. Okay. I was wondering if you were frozen because I was hoping that you
would drop off so I could play the Beth Got Dropped music. Dropped. Sounds like a song.
I know you listened to that episode. I was like, oh man, we got our thing here. I'm actually
sitting here hoping you're going to get dropped. Then again, it's more editing for me, so maybe
not. All right. So have you ever gone gambling in a casino? Well, I've been into a casino,
but didn't gamble. Yeah, they're, they can be pretty busy, I guess, depending on the,
you know, time of day, time of year. Van der Sloot lived in a nearby town of Noord, which
was relatively close to the touristy area where Natalie Holloway was staying at her
hotel. Now I watched, I think it was like seven parts. It was a 2020 special and it
was called Manhunter. And so they had seven segments of this, which truly, I got a lot
of my information from here. And the Manhunter series said that Beth and her tour guides
and the police immediately went over to Van der Sloot's home to question Joran, but Joran's
parents met them at the door. I feel like I heard somewhere that Joran's dad was a lawyer.
So of course he's going to immediately lawyer up. Right. Now Joran did take the time to
talk to the police and readily admitted that he had been with Natalie. He proceeded to
describe some sexual activities that he engaged in with Natalie while Beth was standing right
there. Now, would you do that in front of a parent who's looking for their missing child?
Come on now. Yeah. So inappropriate. Very. Now Beth's tour guides kind of got their feathers
ruffled because they immediately started interrogating him and they were pretty shocked with his
behavior and his blatant confession. Sure. I was with her. What are you going to do about
it? Right. Yeah. And after a little bit of a heated discussion, Joran offered to show
everyone where he dropped Natalie off near the Holiday Inn. While Joran was talking to
the police, Natalie's mom noticed a gray van that Natalie was last seen on camera footage
getting into where, and this van was parked in their driveway. So basically the van is
sitting right there. Beth's looking straight at it. And Joran had two of his friends over,
Deepak Kelpo and Satish Kelpo. So two brothers that Joran liked to hang out with. They sound
like rappers. Don't they though? Yeah. They just happened to be standing out in the driveway
with the police who were interviewing Joran's father. Kelpo, his brother and Joran were
all seen leaving with Natalie the night she disappeared on that footage. So the three
of them were together. Other contradicting stories indicated that Vander Sloat admitted
that he had left the bar with Natalie and the Kelpo brothers to drive to a lighthouse
before arriving at the Holiday Inn. So conflicting stories are pretty much saying, yeah, I just
dropped her off at the hotel. No, we went to look at a lighthouse first. So already
he can't get his story straight. And along the way, Joran proceeded to disclose little
tidbits of information about the last time that he saw Natalie, such as when he dropped
her off near some security guards by the Holiday Inn. They had no recollection of any security
guards seeing Natalie being dropped off that night. The footage that I saw on this manhunter
show was basically saying that she was dropped at the steps of the hotel and that was it.
Now on day two of the hunt for Natalie Holloway, her mother, Beth, attempted to file a missing
persons report with the local police in Aruba. Much like the US, she was told that it was
just too soon. Don't worry. Natalie is just off doing her thing. She's 18. She's an adult.
She'll show up, right? However, Beth in local residents immediately started a search party
and even the local government was letting everyone take off work to join in on the search.
I think that's pretty good. I guess part of it probably is they didn't want the negative
publicity, right? Yes, exactly. Interestingly, a group of Alabama supporters also showed
up not only to join in the search, but they began harassing Joran Vander Smote. You know,
they got the word out. There's enough evidence, I'm sure that Beth relayed as far as the footage
that she found on the camera. She's a little bulldog, isn't she? She's like a little,
she's her own little sleuth. The local government televised that they did not want this group
from Alabama to come in and do their cowboy thing and said that they, the local government,
would be in charge of this investigation. Police continued on day four to pull footage
from surrounding surveillance tapes. Everything that Joran said happened, like when he dropped
Natalie off actually did not happen. So they took his story and they probably went on the
path of where he said he was going to be. And none of the camera footage showed what
he said happened. By day four, Beth had the news media covering every bit of this story.
I remember personally 2005, I don't even remember what I was doing in 2005, but I do remember
this being heavy in the news at that time. So by day 10, the three suspects, Joran,
VanderSmoe, and the two brothers, the Kelpo brothers, were all arrested based on the evidence
that was presented in this case so far. Beth stated that these three guys had 10 days to
lawyer up and corroborate stories to cover each other's butts and clean up any evidence
that they still had laying around. I disagree. I think that these kids lawyered up the moment
daddy found out something was going on. And they could have all been in cahoots. Oh yes.
I think we've talked about this before. I mean, you know, we don't know what it's like
to be in that situation if our children were put into this position, but parents can be
protective, right? Yes, very. And then if he is already like in that line of work as
far as being a lawyer, you know darn well he was giving some advice pretty quickly.
Now this is somewhere around that 10 day period. Joran and the Kelpo brother stories changed
from dropping Natalie off with the security guards to dropping her off at the beach. Okay.
Why would local residents drop a single female tourist off at the beach all by herself? That
makes no sense. It doesn't. And I don't believe something like that would happen, especially
knowing their own area and what crime rates are and somebody from another country coming
into a foreign country. That just does not make sense at all. Yeah. You would think if
they drove her away, you would think they would definitely bring her back to safety
in her hotel because they knew that where she was at. Exactly. In the meantime, Beth
did not give up and showed up at Joran's house with prayer cards because what was happening
is Joran's dad did start protecting his son pretty avidly and he would not let the news
media come talk to them. He was telling everybody to go away. Well, Beth abided, I suppose by
any local laws or local rules, she didn't harass him. She just came up. I don't know
if you would consider, I suppose you can't consider the roadway to be his personal property.
So if she comes up to the driveway and just starts handing out prayer cards, I mean, is
that harassment? Not if she's not on his property. Yeah. But she did begin getting some kick
back from the local community because at that point, now this is only day 10. I mean, she
was on the news. She was out searching. She had her search party. She had her Alabama
search party and she just had everybody standing behind her. But the local community was getting
a little tired of it and basically told her she was beginning to overstay her welcome.
It didn't slow her down though, because from sunup to sundown, Beth got on every news station
that was available to her. And this story did in fact become a news sensation. Like
I said, I have, I remember it just every day. There was something on the news about Natalie's
disappearance. So did you, did you get that on your news too? Wow. So it was international.
Yes. Now the Alabama group got a little bit in trouble for accusing the young guys. It
would be VanderSloh and his two friends of being criminals. So they did get in a little
bit of trouble for causing slander, but in the whole scheme of things, they literally
said on video, we don't care. We are going to harass these people until they give us
the information that we're looking for, because it is too fishy. These circumstances are not
believable and you're going to give us the information whether you want to or not. Soon
after two of the three suspects were released, both of the Calpo brothers were set free,
but VanderSloh continued to be held for another 69 days. Although there was no real reason
being given by the judge as to why Yorn was still being held. Now the reason that two
brothers were released is because the local police said there was not really a whole lot
that they could go on. They needed to clarify and investigate and simply they didn't have
enough to hold the suspects. As I said earlier, the local residents began to turn on Beth
and everyone that was searching for Natalie. And basically the locals thought that authorities
were doing everything that they could to locate Natalie and Beth and her party were disrupting
their daily lifestyle. By August of 2005, Hurricane Katrina came to the United States
and it hit the New Orleans area, pretty much took over the entire news networks at this
point. Natalie had been missing since May 30th and just a few months later, something
bigger, something better came along. Natalie is still in the news, but the news networks
shifted everything. Now the hurricane itself really did some damage, some devastation in
the New Orleans area. So I can see how that maybe pushed everything else to the back burner.
And so Natalie's disappearance, that story was certainly put on that back burner and
eventually other news stories of other high profile cases of missing women also came into
play. And so Natalie's story just moved on and went away and Beth Twitty was left to
deal with this just on her own. Now I don't want you to think that a Rubin government
was not doing their job because they certainly were. They were trying to get as much information
that they could from the suspects, whatever they do in their investigations, they were
certainly doing what they needed to do. And much of this case seemed to be caught up in
bureaucratic red tape and the local government had in fact conducted a thorough investigation
of the case. So they were doing their job according to whatever standards they go by.
I mean, every country is different. On July 26th of 2005, the authorities even drained
a pond across from the Marriott hotel based on a tip. So they were trying very hard to
look at all avenues to see nothing left unturned, right? Yes. And then on September 3rd, 2005,
although the Kelpo brothers were re-arrested, all three suspects, including Vander Smoat,
were released on the condition that they remain accessible to police throughout the investigation
of Natalie Holloway's disappearance. On February 16th of 2006, both Yoran Vander Smoat and
his father were both served with civil lawsuits in New York city, which was filed with the
Supreme court and accused Yoran of malicious, wanton and willful disregard of the rights,
safety and wellbeing of Natalie Holloway. Beth Twitty, you go, you be that bulldog mother
and you do what you've got to do to get this guy to confess. Yeah, go Beth. Now these allegations
also included Yoran's father because they accused him of enabling his son's predatory
behavior. It wasn't very specific on what they were saying. There wasn't a ton in the
news as far as how much he protected his son, but they just brought a case against him for
enabling predatory behavior on Yoran's behalf. The suit, unfortunately, was later dismissed
with a local judge who determined that local taxpayers would only have a short-term interest
in this case. And that's why he dismissed it. Again, you have Hurricane Katrina and
a couple other big stories that come out. And so he's making his judgment based on the
fact that, okay, well that was yesterday's news. Well, on December 14th, 2006, Beth and
her ex-husband, Dave Holloway filed a wrongful death lawsuit in the Los Angeles Supreme court
against the Calpo brothers. This case was eventually dismissed on June 1st of 2007 due
to the lack of jurisdiction. So I kind of wondered that too. I don't know, because it's
international, I was kind of wondering why Beth Twitty would be able to file a lawsuit
in New York City and then take it all the way to the Supreme court in Los Angeles. I
don't know the international laws, but I'm sure that's probably got something to do with
it. She was able to file something as far as international laws. All right. So there
is a pretty well-known journalist by the name of Greta Van Sesteren. Well, she interviewed
Yorin between March 1st and March 3rd of 2006. And then again, on November 24th, 2008. So
a couple years went by, I did see the second interview and actually went out to find the
first interview. The first interview was not very informative whatsoever. Yorin's getting
on the news, but he's really talking in circles like he had been this whole time. But the
second interview, I think I'll be getting into that in just a minute. But Greta really
was saying, come on now, if you want us to even look up this case, you have got to tell
us the truth because my company is going to want travel expense reports. And you know,
we're a reputable company, so we need to make sure that we are reporting the news the right
way. Right. And he was still walking in circles, talking in circles. So during the earlier
interview back in March of 2006, Yorin gave a timeline of his evening in the casinos and
then with meeting up with Natalie, he spent a lot of time talking during this interview
about his gambling and his interactions with Natalie on the dance floor. Then how he left
with Natalie as the bar was closing down. But it was not during this interview, but
later when Yorin stated that he left Natalie alone on the beach. So he's talking about
dancing at the club, made no mention in 2006 that he left Natalie alone, but in the 2008
interview he did. So still he can't get his story straight. During the interviews in November
of 2008, Greta brought up a microchip that allegedly held a taped telephone conversation
between Yorin and his dad talking about Natalie's disappearance. So this is where I was saying
that Greta was like, come on now, Yorin, you've got to understand. I mean, we need some legitimate
information if you want us to continue on. Authenticity of the tape conversation was
believed to be pretty questionable. We've had some experts review it and they're saying
that it's not an up and up. Yorin at the time stated that he was approached by a guy that
he had played blackjack with at the casinos who said that he wanted a blonde girl. Without
saying sex trafficking, he was implying during this 2008 interview, he was approached by
somebody in that casino that night who was looking specifically for a blonde girl. And
if you have not seen the picture of Natalie Holloway, she is the most delightful, beautiful
blonde haired girl from Alabama. And so it sounds to me like Yorin all of a sudden thinks,
okay, I've got the perfect one for you. He also stated that he was offered $10,000 to
bring this guy a blonde girl. Well, he never mentioned the guy's name. And so as the interview
went on, Yorin was very hesitant to provide any more details. But Greta being the investigative
reporter that she is, continuously called his bluff. I love it because I did watch every
single one of these interviews and she was not letting him off easy. And she did get
Yorin to open up a little bit about taking Natalie to this mystery guy. But if he's changing
his story again to taking a blonde girl to a guy who's looking specifically for a female
and he's implying sex trafficking, why did he not have charges brought up against him
for that? Very true. The whole thing just doesn't make sense, does it? I don't understand
why he was not arrested or at least questioned for that, right? I mean, especially if he's
got all these videos on tape and he's being interviewed on the record. I did not see anything
that he was pulled in for questioning about that. As the interview went on, Yorin brought
his father and some police officers into the ordeal and said that all sorts of money exchanges
occurred. And the interview ended with Yorin saying that every bit of the interview with
Greta was a lie. He sat there with Greta for a couple hours interviewing with her. And
when it was all said and done, guess what? He stands up and says, yeah, every bit of
this was a lie. He took it all back. Knowing Greta, she didn't handle that well. She's
a pit bull. Yeah. And then basically nothing that comes out of his mouth is the truth anyway.
I mean, he has been leading the public on a wild goose chase this entire time since Natalie
disappeared. Also in 2008, a reporter secretly recorded VanderSloot saying that Natalie collapsed
on the beach and simply couldn't be revived. So his buddies took her out to a boat and
dumped Natalie in the ocean. But here we go again. Once Yorin discovered that he was being
recorded, he said he made the whole story up. And in 2010, Yorin's attorney contacted
Natalie's mother, Beth, and said that he would disclose the location of where he dumped Natalie
if she would pay him $25,000. That's ridiculous. Is that not a confession right there? Yeah.
And I think it just goes to show you his mentality level. That's insane. And then again, where
are the authorities in all this? He's being interviewed on national news on the record.
And he's basically at this point in time, blackmailing Beth to give him $25,000 so that
he can show her where he dumped the body. Where's the authorities? Where's the Aruban authorities
in all this? I just don't want to look after the case. No, I guess not at this point in
time. And again, publicity, right? Nobody wants negative publicity in a in a highly sought
after vacation spot, right? Right. Well, eventually in May of 2010, Yorin slipped away to Peru.
And as time went on, authorities from Aruba and the United States, specifically the FBI,
stated that they simply did not have enough evidence to convict Yorin in Natalie's disappearance.
And these lags in time eventually allowed Yorin to slip away to Peru, like I just mentioned.
And he quickly became the subject of an international manhunt. I'm going to go into a completely
different story now because this person also deserves to have her story told. Yorin really
did not stop with Natalie because exactly five years to the day that Natalie Holloway
disappeared on May 30th of 2005, Yorin was brought in and interrogated on the suspicion
of the murder of a young lady named Stephanie Flores. Stephanie is the daughter of a former
race car driver and Peruvian presidential candidate who went missing exactly five years to the
day that Natalie went missing. And tips started pouring in to say that Stephanie had been
seen, sounds familiar, at a local casino where Yorin later confessed of picking her up at
that casino in Lima, Peru. In videos of Stephanie sitting with a young man, just like Natalie
was, was she was also found leaving the casino where these videotapes were released to the
media. So it's very similar situation. You've got these young ladies leaving with the same
man. And in both cases, the person identified in these videotapes was Yorin VanderSloot.
So on June 2nd of 2010, Stephanie was found deceased in her hotel room. Yorin VanderSloot
was recorded on video renting the room when Stephanie was found. He was basically picking
up the keys. I mean, again, this is all on one of those, one of those shows I was watching,
but he was seen with the keys and then she was seen following him to go up to the room.
And she was later discovered dead laying in a fetal position. Oh, sad. I know. Okay. So
I can assume if she were in that position, was she trying to protect herself? Yes. Evidence
from the crime scene suggested that Stephanie tried desperately to defend herself. Investigators
initially felt that Stephanie was stabbed to death due to the amount of blood that was
found at the scene. However, the autopsy showed that she was beaten to death with a tennis
racket. Oh, so I guess that would be why she was in the fetal position. Now Yorin's DNA
was found at the scene with his fingerprints, cigarette butts, and drink cups inside that
room. And he was also seen leaving the hotel room and he returned later with a coffee cup
in his hands, actually a couple of coffee cups. Now he's pretty brilliant because you
know, he's always one step ahead of everybody, right? Right. When he left the hotel room
and returned with the coffee cups in his hands, he had one for him and one for Stephanie.
Well, he feigned that he got locked out of his room. So one of the hotel employees came
to help him and let him in. And what Yorin was hoping for was that the employee would
open the door and walk in to discover the scene. So that's why he left. He was trying
to make an alibi for himself. Oh, I just ran and get coffee. And this is what's happened
since I left for coffee and now I'm back. Timeline wouldn't fit. Yeah, that's true.
I mean, in the whole scheme of things, if you're doing all the forensics on that, the
timeline, I'm sure would catch up with them too, right? Now it didn't go as planned for
him though, because what happened, and you can see it in the video, was that the employee
simply just unlocked the door and then pushed it open just to crack and let Yorin in. So
Yorin was the one to walk in. So he went in and did not come out saying, oh no, something
has happened to my guest here. He was in there for 15 minutes and 15 minutes later he was
found leaving the hotel room again. He had a backpack on his back. He's looking around
and nobody's in the hallway and out he goes. Now on September 27th of 2011, Yorin's confession
of Stephanie Flores' murder was televised on CNN. He had admitted that the two of them
had met in a casino and he invited Stephanie up to his hotel room. However, when Yorin
was probably in the bathroom outside of the room, Stephanie got on Yorin's laptop and
started looking up Natalie Holloway's disappearance. She may have recognized him from that case
or even the name. If he even said what his name was, then she got suspicious. And so
she started looking him up on his computer while he was in the other room. And then basically
he said that's where he lost control from that point forward. And that's when he took
the tennis racket to her. Oh, for goodness sakes. Yorin was eventually sent to trial
and once he was captured, he did confess to the murder of Stephanie Flores and what led
up to her attack. Yorin stated that when they got into a heated discussion where Stephanie
grabbed his computer inside the hotel room, she did begin looking up his name on the internet
and Yorin felt that his privacy was being intruded upon. So he grabbed Stephanie and
just started hitting her. Authorities were able to successfully document pretty much
everything that led up to Yorin's capture, including physical evidence and DNA. Yorin
was convicted of Stephanie's murder and is currently serving a 28 year sentence in Peru
for her death. He openly admitted that the reason he killed her was because she allegedly
uncovered information on Vander Slope and his connections with the disappearance of
Natalie Holloway, always the upstanding citizen. Yorin was accused of drug smuggling inside
the Peruvian prison system and prosecutors demanded another 18 years and four months
time to be added to his sentence. And take a guess Beth on how he smuggled drugs into
the system. You know, we, we know that a lot of that's going around, right? Take a guess.
Think about it though. You got people coming in, visitors, any other ways that people could
smuggle? Swallowing it? Yeah, that too. Nope. He smuggled drugs in with red beats. Red beats?
It probably came through, I don't know. Have you ever seen Orange is the New Black? Yes.
And you had some of the, some of the inmates are assigned to working in the kitchen. Yes.
So they are the ones that are assigning for deliveries. I'm assuming that's probably how
he did it. I don't know though, red beats, they're hard. How do you get them in with
red beats? Well, his whole story doesn't make sense. So of course he'd use red beats. Yeah,
that's so true. Goodness. All right. I, you know, I really hate reporting these things,
but always a happy ending because we all deserve love. You know what I'm about to say, don't
you? Yep. Yorin got married while he was in prison in 2014. He gets. His new wife, it's
spelled L E I D I, but you pronounce it lady. So Lady Figaro met Yorin while visiting another
inmate and ended up marrying him. So that's nice. They locked eyes across the visitation
room and that's all she wrote. Lady and Yorin eventually had an unsupervised visit where
she became pregnant with Yorin's child. And now they have a daughter together. Isn't that
nice? That's crazy. Yeah. So again, are they paying people off to turn their back to visitation?
I'm not sure how that works. It's another country. You suspect what? That they were
being paid off by guards. Yeah, probably so. But then again, that's another country and
they have different rules than us. So now he is Yorin is scheduled to be released in
2038 where he will be 51 years old. So that's where he sits today, bringing in drugs in
red beats and having unsupervised visits. All right. I just wanted to touch back on
Natalie Holloway's mother, Beth, because it's a bittersweet ending for her. Now she has
actually come a long way. She went on to have a show about missing and it might be on the
ID channel. I'm not sure where it's at. I've seen it maybe once or twice, but she's still
an advocate for her daughter as well. I'm sure I would be as well. So in 2019, Beth
Twitty did revisit the Island of Aruba and openly admitted that she no longer felt tethered
to the Island. So that's at least a plus. I mean, time does heal wounds, but she doesn't
feel like it's just, you know, it's holding on to her as much as it did in the past. On
December 18th of 2007, Aruban authorities had closed the Natalie Holloway case without
charging anyone with a crime. And Natalie was declared legally dead on January 12th
of 2012. Her case remains unsolved. Well, just as an interest about that Holloway, she
was an American speech pathologist and motivational speaker. She became widely known in this case
when her daughter disappeared in Aruba in 2005. I would imagine being a motivational
speaker. She has a lot of firsthand knowledge. Oh yeah. And she is very well spoken to. I
have seen, you know, over the last week or so, I've really tried to look up as much as
I could. And she is so well versed. She is just a strong woman. And I don't know how
she's been able to survive this, but she is definitely, I mean, she is a motivating person
to me too, because she wouldn't take no for an answer. So even though she doesn't have
closure on this, I just hope that she will one day. And I hope that Yorin, I don't know
if he ever would at this point, he's still pretty young and you never know that he might
have a life-changing moment where he will finally tell her the truth. Yeah, that would
be nice. Well, that is our story on Natalie Holloway. What else do you want to talk about
anything? Yes, I do. When we talked about putting the podcast together, we discovered
that you and I have some different interests. So I'm going to take us back to the 1800s.
Ooh, but you can end with your teachable moment. Teachable moment. I might have to find some
music for the teachable moment segment. It's the teachable moment segment of Dying to Be
Found. You all, if you have a child whose birthday falls on or around the Christmas
holiday, be sure to wrap a present with birthday paper under the tree and put it with the rest
of them. So, all right. Well, with that being said, we are done with this episode. And that's
a wrap. I love it. Thanks for joining us and we hope to talk with you next week. In the
meantime, please visit us at dyingtobefound.com, just like you see on our logo. And that will
take you to all of our social medias. We hope that you will follow us and listen to our
podcasts and rate us, share it and tell your friends. Until next week, we'll talk to you
soon. Bye.
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