BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) - It's difficult to write about the Natalee Holloway case without resorting to the cliche "Truth is stranger than fiction."
This week a film debuting in Holland takes a shot at solving the case through a fictional detective obsessed with what happened.
"Me and Mr. Jones on Natalee Island" debuts September 22 at the Utrecht Film Festival in The Netherlands. Director Paul Ruven's movie ends with "a" solution to the crime...but at this point only Joran van der Sloot knows if it's "the" answer to the mystery.
And that's troublesome because van der Sloot has told a variety of versions of what happened the night he and Mountain Brook teen Natalee Holloway left a bar in Oranjestad, Aruba. She was never seen again. He became a tabloid sensation on five continents.
Van der Sloot has claimed her body was dumped in the sea and that she was buried in the concrete of a construction site. He promised Natalee's family information on her fate but never delivered the info despite taking their money. That earned him indictments by a federal grand jury here in Birmingham on wire fraud and extortion charges.
He's currently sitting in Peru's Castro Castro prison waiting word on whether prosecutors are going to ask for life imprisonment on a murder charge there.
The corpse of 21 year old Peruvian student Stephany Flores was found in his Lima hotel room five years to the day of Natalee's disappearance. He says he killed her in a "fit of rage" after she found material about Natalee on his laptop. Prosecutors say it was a simple case of robbery and murder.
So one of the questions regarding Ruven's film is how can he possibly top the truth? He was actually filming in Aruba when news of the Flores/van der Sloot case broke.
On his blog for the film Ruven points out that van der Sloot appears 100% sure Natalee will never be found unless he tells the world. Ruven's film will put forth his own answer to the question. And, as he points out, only Joran van der Sloot will know for sure.
