Yahoo News Here’s What Natalee Holloway’s Friend Said in 2017 About Her Final Moments Before Vanishing
Jessica Caiola remembers seeing 18-year-old Natalee Holloway in a white car after a night out at a local bar in Aruba
AP
After a lengthy criminal case, Joran van der Sloot pleaded guilty on Wednesday to extortion and wire fraud charges for extorting Natalee Holloway's family.
Van der Sloot has long been a suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Holloway, who was 18 when she vanished on a high school graduation trip to Aruba. In 2010, he was accused extorting the missing teen's mother — Beth Holloway — by telling her that he'd provide information about where her daughter's remains were in exchange for $250,000.
In 2017, Holloway's friend and classmate Jessica Caiola spoke to Oxygen for the series The Disappearance of Natalee Holloway about the last time she saw Natalee alive in 2005 during that fateful trip.
Related: Joran van der Sloot Pleads Guilty to Extorting Natalee Holloway's Mother
Caiola saw Natalee being driven away in a white car after a night out at a local bar called Carlos ‘n Charlie’s, she told Oxygen. She assumed Natalee was on her way back to the hotel where she and other teens from Mountain Brook High School in Birmingham, Ala., were staying, but she had no idea Natalee would never be seen again.
“The window was down so we could see it was her in the back of the car,” Caiola said during the series. “My impression was ‘Oh, great, she found a ride back to the hotel.’”
Related: Natalee Holloway's Mother Confronts Joran van der Sloot in Court: 'You Brutally Killed Her'
According to the FBI, Natalee left the bar around 1:30 a.m. with van der Sloot and two other young men, Deepak Kalpoe and Satish Kalpoe.
Caiola also told Oxygen that she remembered seeing van der Sloot at the bar that evening too and in the week leading up to Natalee's disappearance.
“He was absolutely at Carlos ’n Charlie’s, 1,000 percent,” Caiola said.
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“I remember seeing Joran van der Sloot at the casino at our hotel,” she added. “That was the first time I saw him, and I remember chatter of him, like, ‘He’s so cute. Who’s going to hook up with him?’ Those sort of things were floating around. That was probably the extent to which I got close to him.”
Caiola is also believed to have taken the last photos of Natalee alive, which was taken the night before the recent high school graduates were set to fly back home.
When Natalee didn't arrive back at the hotel or show up at the airport for her return trip home, her mother Beth went to Aruba to search for her daughter. She also found and confronted van der Sloot within 24 hours of her disappearance, PEOPLE previously reported.
Courtesy of Beth Twitty
Natalee Holloway, left, and her mother, Beth Holloway on May 24, 2005Fifteen years after Natalee disappeared and with still so many unanswered questions, Beth returned to Aruba in 2019 with 20/20.
“This place doesn’t control me anymore,” she said during the episode.
In May of this year, the Peruvian government issued a decree allowing van der Sloot to be handed over to U.S. authorities to face charges in connection with the extortion case.
“It has been a very long and painful journey, but the persistence of many is going to pay off," Beth Holloway said in a statement at the time, The New York Times reported. "Together, we are finally getting justice for Natalee.”
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