Joran van der Sloot, the 22-year-old Dutch playboy twice arrested in the mysterious disappearance of American Natalee Holloway, has been named the prime suspect in the death of a young Peruvian woman found dead in a Lima hotel today, five days after she disappeared.
Stephany Tatiana Flores Ramirez, 21, disappeared Friday and was found dead this morning at the Miraflores Hotel Tac in Lima, Peru. Flores was last seen with van der Sloot, the Dutch national who was twice arrested and released in connection with the disappearance of Holloway, an 18-year-old American student who went missing in Aruba five years ago this week.
Flores was found beaten and stabbed to death in a room booked in van der Sloot's name, according to Dutch media reports.
Authorities believe van der Sloot has fled Peru, passing through customs into Chile, and is on his way to Argentina. Peruvian officials are in the process of putting together an international warrant, Dutch foreign ministry officials told ABC News.
Van Der Sloot reportedly entered Peru on May 14 and left on May 31.
Flores left a friend's home Wednesday morning and was last seen that evening leaving a casino with Van der Sloot, according local media quoting to the woman's father, Ricardo Flores, a Peruvian businessman and racecar driver. Surveillance cameras caught the pair leaving the casino together.
Holloway similarly disappeared after being last seen with Van der Sloot outside an Aruban night club on May 30, 2005. Van der Sloot was initially arrested in Holloway's disappearance in June of that year. He was released and arrested again in 2007, when he was detained for questioning but never charged.
In 2008, Dutch journalist Peter de Vries claimed he solved the case when Van der Sloot confessed to an undercover reporter to being with Holloway when she died and dumping her body in the Caribbean Sea.
In February 2010, a Dutch tabloid published a supposed confession by Van Der Sloot in which he said Halloway got drunk and fell from a balcony.
The Justice Department in Aruba was quick to dismiss the details of van der Sloot's latest alleged confession, telling ABC News, "We have been aware of the existence of this interview since August of last year. We investigated the claims made. The Aruban police investigated, with help from specialists with the Dutch police.
Spokeswoman for the Aruban Justice Department, Ann Angela continued to say that their "conclusion was that the statements made by Joran van der Sloot are entirely unbelievable."
Chief Prosecutor in Aruba, Peter Blanken told ABC News, "It's a story that in and of itself does fit in terms of timing. But all the other things that could be investigated, and that means the story about the witnesses […], the house, the height of the balcony, all those types of things don't add up in Joran van der Sloot's statement."
Holloway's body has never been found.
