Van der Sloot Revisits Aruba Beach, Says Nightmare Doesn't End
Sept. 5, 2006 — -- It's been more than 15 months since Alabama teen Natalee Holloway disappeared on the island of Aruba during a high school graduation trip.
In that time there have been frantic searches, dwindling hopes, and serious missteps in the investigation.
Much of the attention about what happened to Holloway has been focused on one young man, Joran van der Sloot, a Dutch native of Aruba who, according to his own words, was the last known person to be with Holloway.
ABC News' Chris Cuomo recently traveled to Aruba for an exclusive interview with van der Sloot, who said he had not harmed Holloway.
Since that time, investigators have proven nothing different.
Now 19, van der Sloot says that, in a way, the night he met Holloway has never ended.
"All the time, all the time it's going around my head," he told Cuomo.
While he is no longer being detained, van der Sloot is still a prisoner of the speculation surrounding the student's disappearance.
"I think for a lot of parts I've been unfairly treated, because I had nothing to do with this, and a lot of people seem to think I do," he said.
That's due in large part to his initial statements about the night the 18-year-old went missing.
At first, van der Sloot and two friends said that they had dropped Holloway off at her hotel at the end of the evening, but later van der Sloot said that he had taken the American teen to the beach.
The lie landed him in jail, but after three months, police could not tie him to any crime.
He was released in September and talked to ABC News in February to explain his deception.
"I didn't want anyone to know. I didn't want anyone to know I left her at the beach," he said.
That explanation hasn't stopped the media scrutiny.
"It's goes too far, definitely in the American media," van der Sloot said. "I was here with my girlfriend on vacation, and some tourists filmed us. … And they called me a predator on the beach again, going after a girl, American girl, an American tourist. And I was there on the beach with my girlfriend that I had been with for six months now."
Related Stories
ABC News Live