Joran van der Sloot's Mom Says He 'Could Have Done Something' to Peruvian Woman

Van der Sloot's mother says son should have gotten help after Holloway death.

ByABC News
June 16, 2010, 6:40 PM

June 19, 2010— -- Anita van der Sloot was quoted today in a Dutch newspaper saying her 22-year-old son Joran van der Sloot "could have done something" to Stephany Flores, the Peruvian woman he is accused of murdering.

The interview comes a day after ABC News obtained an e-mail from Anita van der Sloot in which she asserted that her son is "not a murderer."

Anita van der Sloot has stayed out of the limelight as her son and even her husband Paul van der Sloot, who died earlier this year, were vilified -- especially in the U.S. media.

In the e-mail obtained exclusively by ABC News, she said she would never talk to the U.S. media because of how he was portrayed, but she gave an extensive interview to De Telegraaf in which she admitted she thought the family made a mistake by not getting Joran psychiatric help after his arrest in the Natalee Holloway case.

"He lied so much, that we became desperate. He said to me too, 'Mom, I sometimes don't know any more if something is a lie or the truth,'" the paper quoted her as saying. "Joran is sick in his head, but he didn't want any help."

She indicated that she feared that the pressures created by being the prime suspect in the death of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway five years ago in Aruba may have caused her son to snap.

"I now believe that Joran may indeed have done something to Stephany in Peru. Maybe in a burst of anger? I don't know," she said, according to the newspaper. "I think it is intensely sad that that businessman Flores has lost his daughter, and I my son. That's how it feels."

Flores' body was found five years to the day after Holloway went missing, and she said that coincidence couldn't help but make an impact on her.

"Exactly five years after Natalee's disappearance? The Holloways were busy with him. That businessman Flores held a press conference and only spoke about Natalee. But it was about his own daughter," she said. "Sometimes I just don't know. I follow everything ... But I have to keep distance too, save myself now."

And she said she thinks it is time to "let Joran go."