Exclusive: 'I Lied Because I Was Scared'

Feb. 23, 2006 — -- Joran van der Sloot, the Dutch teen who was the last person seen with Natalee Holloway the night she disappeared in Aruba, said he lied about leaving the American teen alone at the beach because he was scared.

In an exclusive interview with ABC News' Chris Cuomo for "Primetime," van der Sloot said he had planned to have sex with Holloway when they left a bar together on May 30.

They went to the beach, but because van der Sloot said he didn't have a condom, they did not have sex. He said the two "cuddled" on the beach, but then he said he wanted to go home, so he left Holloway on the beach.

He admits now it wasn't the right thing to do. "At that moment in time, for me, it wasn't the wrong thing," he said. "It's not something a real man would do. It's not normal. It's not right at all."

Van der Sloot said his friend picked him up and drove him home. But there was a detail he left out -- he left the beach without his shoes, which some people have interpreted as a sign of panic.

Van der Sloot said that wasn't the case. "I'd left them on the beach. I'd walked to the car. We got in the car right then and there, I couldn't go back because we were going home."

The shoes were never found.

Between 3:30 and 4:30 in the morning, records reviewed by "Primetime" seem to confirm that van der Sloot was at home and online -- he e-mailed Deepak Kalpoe to say he was home, he checked soccer scores, and visited a porn site.

That morning, Holloway's classmates were scheduled to return to Alabama, but she never showed up. Her worried friends eventually contacted her family, and Holloway's mother, Beth Twitty, got on a private plane that day to search for her daughter on the island.

When van der Sloot heard that a girl had gone missing on the beach, he said he thought of Holloway.