Joran van der Sloot, the main suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Alabama high school graduate Natalee Holloway in Aruba, was en route to the U.S. Thursday after losing his extradition appeal.
Van der Sloot, now 35, was allegedly the last person to see 18-year-old Holloway alive after she left a bar with him on May 30, 2005, the night before she was to return home with her classmates from a post-graduation trip.
The Dutch citizen has already been serving a 28-year sentence in Peru for the murder of another woman, Stephany Flores, in 2010. In May, a court ruled that he should be extradited to the U.S.
Aruba officially closed Holloway’s case in 2008, though her parents have continued to search tirelessly for closure. In 2012, the same year van der Sloot was convicted in Flores’ murder, Holloway was declared dead.
Van der Sloot has been arrested twice in Aruba on suspicion of Holloway’s murder, but there has never been enough evidence to hold him. The federal charges bringing him to the U.S. are for wire fraud and extortion. He was indicted in 2010 for allegedly attempting to extort the Holloway family with promises to lead them to her body if they paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars.
He’s being extradited under the auspices of a 2001 treaty between Peru and the U.S. allowing for a suspect to be temporarily sent from one country to face trial in the other. He lost his extradition appeal on Tuesday.