(June 2) -- Officials in Peru are calling Joran Van Der Sloot, a longtime suspect in the disappearance of 18-year-old Natalee Holloway, the prime suspect in the brutal stabbing death of a 21-year-old woman in Lima.
Peruvian newspaper El Comercio reports that Stephany Tatiana Flores Ramirez was found dead inside a room at the hotel Tac in the Miraflores district this morning. The woman had been stabbed and wrapped in a blanket.
Family members of the victim say she was last seen with Van Der Sloot at a local casino. The hotel room in which her body was found was also reportedly registered in Van Der Sloot's name.
The Natalee Holloway Case
Peruvian police said Joran van der Sloot, a longtime suspect in the disappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway in 2005, is now wanted in the stabbing death of a 21-year-old woman in Lima, Peru. Stephany Tatiana Flores Ramirez was last seen with Van Der Sloot, who police said was in Peru for a poker tournament.
The Natalee Holloway Case
Peruvian police said Joran van der Sloot, a longtime suspect in the disappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway in 2005, is now wanted in the stabbing death of a 21-year-old woman in Lima, Peru. Stephany Tatiana Flores Ramirez was last seen with Van Der Sloot.
The International Criminal Police Organization has issued an arrest warrant for Van Der Sloot; however, ABC News is reporting that he has already left the country and is believed to be en route to Argentina.
This latest news comes just three days after the anniversary of Holloway's unsolved disappearance.
Holloway, from Mountain Brook, Ala., disappeared May 30, 2005, while on a trip to Aruba to celebrate her high school graduation. Her body has never been found.
Holloway's classmates said they last saw her leaving an Oranjestad nightclub called Carlos 'n Charlie's with Van Der Sloot, then a 17-year-old Dutch honors student living in Aruba, and his two friends, Surinamese brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe. All three were arrested, but they were released without charge.
From the outset, van Der Sloot allegedly has made multiple confessions in the case, each varying significantly. As a result, Aruban prosecutors have deemed them a mixture of "lies and fantasy" and have decided not to take action against him.
Holloway's family has not yet commented on today's developments.
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"I Would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
-Thomas Jefferson
Adopted mother to a cat named Charlotte, and grandmother to 3 kittens.
02 Jun 2010, 11:59 pm
