Convicted killer Joran Van der Sloot reportedly tried to take his own life last week, inside a Peruvian prison.
According to officials at Challapalca Prison, guards found Van der Sloot with a towel around his neck and “near death,” 1819 News reports. The guards intervened while serving the inmates breakfast on December 12.
Following the incident, the Peruvian Ministry of Justice said Van der Sloot was in stable condition. He later spoke with a film crew about his life behind bars, according to Radar Online.
“Every day I see that the situation is getting worse for us inmates,” he said. “You can’t be with your family, you can’t touch them or hug them.”
Van der Sloot is currently serving a 28-year sentence for the death of Stephany Flores, of Peru. A judge added another 18 years to his sentence in 2023, for drug trafficking.
Also in 2023, officials extradited Van der Sloot to Alabama, where U.S. District Court Judge Anna M. Manasco later sentenced him to 20 years for extorting Natalee Holloway’s mother, Beth Holloway.
As part of a plea deal, he confessed to killing Natalee.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Beth Holloway paid van der Sloot in 2010 for details about the location of her daughter’s remains, but authorities say van der Sloot gave false information and failed to honor his promise.
Natalee Holloway vanished in 2005 while vacationing in Aruba, days after graduating from high school. Van der Sloot, a Dutch national who lived on the Caribbean island, had long been suspected of playing a role in her disappearance.
Van der Sloot admitted that he bludgeoned Natalee’s face with a cinder block before hiding her body in the ocean.
Her remains have never been found.
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[Feature Photo: FILE – In this Jan. 13, 2012 file photo, Joran van der Sloot sits in the courtroom before his sentencing at San Pedro prison in Lima, Peru. Peruvian prison officials denied on Monday Nov. 3, 2014, a claim that convicted killer van der Sloot was stabbed by other inmates in the remote maximum security prison where he was recently transferred for disciplinary reasons. (AP Photo/Karel Navarro, File)]
