but the hardest part is leaving love behind ♪ this is "nightline." tonight, paradise lost. natalee holloway. the high school senior who went missing in aruba, her disappearance gripping the nation. abc news is bringing her mother back to the island, now looking to find peace. >> my daughter is there. that's the last place that i know that she has been. >> for nearly 15 years she has been fighting for answers. >> we always felt like with every lead, with every tip, it was always as if we were about to get her. >> we take you inside a trip of twists and turns. but the big question, will a suspect ever be charged? "nightline" will be right back.

kerrygold has a taste so rich it can take you to ireland's lush, green pastures. where grass-fed cows produce rich, creamy milk for a truly delicious taste. kerrygold. the taste that takes you there. good evening, everyone, and thank you for join being us. i'm paula faris. american teen natalee holloway disappeared in aruba nearly 15 years ago. that case riveting the world. now her mother has agreed to join abc news back on a trip to where the nightmare began.

>> i don't think i've ever felt afraid to go back into aruba, because my daughter is there. that's the last place i know >>eporter: is been closeo uba, loong for her daurnatalee.d >> in is but this was not her life. it was memorial day in 2005. and my phone rang from a number that i didn't recognize. they tell me that my daughter, natalee is missing and that no one has seen her. she was a beautiful girl, involved in the church. always had a smile on her face, always so happy and energetic and outgoing. they called her hootie. >> there's hootie. >> so hootie hoo holloway. >> who's our special guest

today? >> it's hootie. >> hootie hoo holloway. >> just sitting in the back, cruising to my place. >> natalee and her class were doing a senior trip to aruba. >> she came to wake me up so i could drive her to a friend's house for a ride to the airport. i helped her get her bag out of the car. and just kissed her good-bye. said i love you. have a great time. never could i have imagined. that would be the last time. >> she got the call, she knew natalee was in trouble. >> snap, you know, it's instant, something is terribly wrong. i had to get to aruba, now. >> reporter: her daughter natalee has been missing now for almost 24 hours. beth tries to retrace her

da s t t guy she was last seen with is joran van der sloot. he had been spending a lot of time at the casino that was attached to natalee's hotel. >> at some point, they look at surveillance tape, because they know she had been at the casino. and beth for the first time was able to land her eyes on joran van der sloot. >> once i saw him, i was like, it's time to go to the police now. we finally get to aruban police officials to accompany us to the home. they are standing out in the gravel driveway. deepak was a friend of joran van der sloot. they were seen leaving with him and natalee that night. it was their car that they all

left in. >> joran says, okay, i was with her, you know, we fooled around a little. i dropped her back at the holiday inn, that's all we know. >> finally, jora nsain said i'lw you where i let her out. he said she stumbled, hit her head and two security guards helped natalee up. and he says those are the last two people that he left natalee with. early thursday morning police had the security tapes ready from the lobby entrance, where jo joran said he dropped natalee off. as we watched the tape, natalee never appeared. >> the story that joran told them wasn't true. >> so i thought, now, this is it, they can go get these men and arrest them. it didn't happen. >> when beth felt like the

police weren't getting anywhere. >> i will stay here until i find you, natalee. >> she used the weapon she had, which was the media. >> deborah roberts has just arrived in the island's capital. >> i know in my heart that we are going to find natalee. >> will you even let your mind entertain the possibility that you might not find her ? >> no, there again, that's not an option. >> reporter: i also interviewed natalee's father dave. >> i feel like i have to be out there looking. >> please help bring her home. >> thank you. >> there was a point in time where she kind of broke down. >> i had no more human strength left. there was a small, beautiful little chapel sitting on a hillside overlooking the sea. the and i walked up to the cross. and just fell to my knees.

and i was just crying and praying and just begging god to give her back. >> this is the only place on the island where i could come to feel close to natalee. >> reporter: this morning there is a potential break in this case. the three young men originally questioned by police have been arrested. >> are you guilty? >> joran and his two friends are confronted with the fact that they lied. that they had never dropped off natalee at the hotel. >> reporter: a different story has emerged. the guys say that the brothers dropped joran and natalee fooled around. >> he said he wanted to go home and left her on the beach. >> reporter: she realizes the only way to keep the pressure on and maybe find her daughter is to keep talking. >> it's diane. >> it hits at night, three hours

up, do it again, do it again. >> the natalee holloway story just dominated. it was a. itas also one in a treatment of stories that were grabbing headlines about missing, attractive young women, women who all happened to be white. las seen on aprilh. >>n. >> one month into this investigation, there is intense scrutiny, and joran and his two buddies are all in jail, but there's a problem. >> there's not enough evidence. there's no blood trail found. >> reporter: and then a major blow to beth holloway. >> deepak will be immediately released. >> they released them because they weren't charged. >> it is now that i ask the world to help me. two suspects were released yesterday who were involved in a violent crime against my daughter. help me by not allowing these

two to get away with this crime. >> she did her press conference, and i think we got in trouble for calling them criminals or something, but oh, so what. >> we are here to pour the police whose authority has been questioned. >> people out there that are putting arubians down, go home! if you don't like us, go [ches anapplause >> the entire dynamics of the island turned on me. all the people that were helping. all the people that i felt we were working together, could you feel the shift. you could feel the tide turn. it was not okay for me to call their citizens criminals. >> you have overstayed your bloody welcome on our island! >> a major development this morning in the natalee holloway case. a judge in aruba is releasing prime suspect, joran van der

sloot from jail. >> they do have rules in aruba about how long you can detain a suspect without a charge. they didn't feel they were able to charge him with anything. >> joran van der sloot is back in the netherlands after being released from custody in aruba. >> i think joran missed the media attention and the focus, even though the focus was not in a way moest peopst people would. he decided to do an interview with abc news. >> how do you think you've been portrayed in all this? >> i think i've been portrayed unfairly. i think it's about time that people will get to see the other side of the story. >> are you ready to tell the floout. >> yeah. >> did you kill natalee holloway? >> no. did you harm natalee holloway? >> no. >> why should you be believed? >> there's absolutely no reason to believe.

>> nearly after five years, he reaches out. >> reporter: he sends an e-mail using a pseudonym. and when he contacts them out of the blue it's mind blowing. >> he engaged in a series of e-mails. >> john q kelly says joran has a proposal. if you give me $250,000, i will give you information on the whereabouts of natalee holloway. >> $25,000 up front. >> it's sick and cruel, as it sounds, what can we do with this in. >> joran provides a bank account number and that's where they should wire the rest of the money. >> so i gave it a test to see if it was real. >> they get a call from a local regions bank down in birmingham, alabama that beth holloway had sent an international transfer of $100 to joran. >> and that gives john q kelly

an idea. maybe we can get him on wire fraud charges, blackmail. >> if we can ever get him to talk about this again, he's committed a federal crime. we'll have jurisdiction. >> working with the fbi, they orchestrate a sting operation. >> i get the $10,000 cash from beth to take to aruba. the fbi's heading down to aruba ahead of time to set up the hotel as recorded. they wire me up. give him a call to come over and take the $10,000 out of the safe, put it on the table in front of him, and it was like christmas. >> i wired the 15 grand to the bank account of joran's choice. >> with all eyes on joran, somehow, he manages to get away. and he turns up in a place that no one would ever expect. >> when we come back, the hunt for answers continues.

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. beth holloway thought she finally had joran van der sloot on those charges of wire fraud and extortion. but then he slips away from aruba to peru. it's may, 2010. and a 21 year old young peruvian woman named stephany flores doesn't come home one night. she goes missing. >> the daughter of a former

peruvian presidential candidate. >> and because she's from a wealthy family, it's believed she's been kidnapped. >> tuesday. somebody tell us that stephanie went to the casino. >> on the security video later released to the media, the family actually spots stephanie. she takes a seat next to what appears to be a young man. the two have some sort of a conversation. so now they have what they believe to be an actual image of this man. >> they said we've got a name for this kid. >> i went to the internet, and i put that name in google. >> she types in joran van der sloot, and what comes up is actually shocking. hundreds and hundreds of articles. >> implicated in the dits

appearance appearance of an american woman from the island of aruba, exactly five years earlier. >> on june 2, 2010, stephany flores has been missing for three days. her distraught family has been searching everywhere, and then sadly, she is found dead by an employee in the hotel tac. >> going back and looking at the surveillance footage, it was discovered that stephanie and joran had had several encounters at the casino. and joran would have been well aware that stephanie had won some fairly big jackpots. so there's reason to suspect that he wanted that cash. and he targeted her. and that's why authorities think he took her to his hotel room to rob her. >> joran wants to get out of peru. he knows he's left a body in the hotel that the police are still going to be bearing down on him.

>> reporter: while he's on the run, a tollbooth operator actually recognizes his face and knows he's wanted for murder. calls in a tip, and that gives police the opening they've been looking for to capture him. >> joran's captured in chile, and they quickly bring him back to peru and the charge went murder. and the same day joran's arrested, the u.s. attorney has a news conference in birmingham. >> this morning my office obtained an arrest warrant for joran van der sloot, on extortion and wire fraud. i want to stress at the outset that our case is not related in any way to the ongoing murder investigation in peru. >> joran, joran! >> the police in peru now had a treasure trove of evidence, and

all of it linked joran directly to this crime. >> he admitted everything he did. how he went to the room, how he started hitting her. how he took all the money, and how he fled with her belongings. >> nearly two years after joran was arrested in chile, he appears in court. joran surprises everyone. he pleads guilty. [ speaking in foreign language ] >> joran's been lying so much, you would presume he was going to fight it and challenge it, but he accepts a deal and gets 28 years in prison. >> is it the justice i wanted? no, but it's the justice i'll take. >> once his sentence is completed in peru, he cannot be

released. he has to be transferred into u.s. custody and extradited to the u.s. >> so he'll be there until he comes to alabama. that sounded good to me. >> we'll be right back. no matte, does your house still smell stuffy? that's because your home is filled with soft surfaces that trap odors and release them back into the room. so, try febreze fabric refresher febreze finds odors trapped in fabrics (bubbles popping) and cleans them away as it dries. use febreze every time you tidy up to keep your whole house smelling fresh air clean. fabric refresher even works for clothes you want to wear another day. make febreze part of your clean routine for whole home freshness. ♪la la la la la. save on outerwear for the family, and diamond jewelry! and this saturday only, get a disney frozen ornament with purchase. or get an extra 20% off select items with your jcpenney credit card. jcpenney!

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so 14 years later, aruba has become a lot less significant to me than how it really held me captive in all of my hurt and pain. >> alta vista is a church that kind of served as a place of peace and hope. >> i visited every morning and every night. >> it was my place to recenter and to try to regroup and refocus. it was when i got to about the sixth cross, that's when i knew natalee was gone. i knew that natalee was with god, and he cared for her through whatever ordeal he encountered that night.

you're never going to get over the loss of losing your loved one, that's not going to happen. >> there's hootie. >> but life does move on. natalee would want us to enjoy what life we have left. >> and that's "nightline." you can always catch our full episodes on hulu. thanks for watching. i'm paula faris in new york. have a great weekend, and goodnight.

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