The Extortion - According to John Q. KellyDeadly Connection?
Police say Joran van der Sloot - after confessing to killing a young woman in Peru - is finally admitting that he killed Natalee Holloway
By Chris Hansen
Correspondent
NBC News
updated 6/11/2010 9:03:58 PM ET
TRANSCRIPT LIMA, PERU — Could it be the beginning of the end of the Natalee Holloway mystery? Was there a confession?
JOHN KELLY: This was the first time he admitted being personally responsible for physically causing her death.
Or was it all a lie? Like so many other stories from the chief suspect in the Holloway case.
Tonight, for the first time, details of an alleged extortion plot, targeting Natalee Holloway’s mother.
A first-hand account, from the man who acted as a go-between.
JOHN KELLY: It's probably the most horrific unanticipated nightmarish ending for Beth that you could ever imagine.
With his money troubles mounting, his father dead, and his life spiraling downward, this spring Joran van der Sloot allegedly made a bold attempt to cash in on the Natalee Holloway disappearance.
JOHN KELLY: I got the first e-mail from van der Sloot on March 30.
Attorney John Q. Kelly represents the Holloway family in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against van der Sloot. He spoke exclusively to NBC News about the alleged extortion plot that, he says, began with that email from van der Sloot.
CHRIS HANSEN: What went through your mind? What did you think he wanted?
JOHN KELLY: I had no idea. I was more than amenable to talking to him, or hearing what he had to say just because, you know, I still-- committed to finding what happened to Natalee. So, any chance I had to open a door, I was willing to do it.
Kelly says van der Sloot quickly raised the stakes.
CHRIS HANSEN: Give me a sense for the e-mail communications that ensued.
JOHN KELLY: It was about money. It was, you know, "I want to come clean. My father's dead now. I have nothing to hide. I want to help Natalee’s family, but at a price, you know, for a quarter million dollars—“
CHRIS HANSEN: A quarter million dollars?
JOHN KELLY: “Quarter million dollars, I will tell you what happened to Natalee, where she is now so you can help Beth bring her home."
After all the heartbreak and grief, after all the stories he had told, could van der Sloot be believed? Kelly says he immediately went to Beth Holloway with the offer.
CHRIS HANSEN: How hopeful was Beth that this might develop into some sort of closure?
JOHN KELLY: She's always been hopeful. I mean, she can't be anything but hopeful as a mother.
According to Kelly, with Beth Holloway’s blessing, he travelled to Aruba to meet with van der Sloot, who was expecting to receive a down payment of $25,000.
For Kelly, it was a test run. He didn't have the money. It was Easter Sunday. He says they met at the Marriott hotel.
CHRIS HANSEN: And what did he tell you during that meeting?
JOHN KELLY: He alluded to knowing where Natalee’s body was, and how she had died. And I asked him, "Well, what if I don't pay you the $25,000?" And he just said, "Beth can wait another five years."
CHRIS HANSEN: Another five years?
JOHN KELLY: Yeah. He was well aware that the five year anniversary coming up was sort of, it was almost like a clock ticking with him.
CHRIS HANSEN: Describe his demeanor during this initial interview.
JOHN KELLY: He was agitated, nervous and desperate at that time.
After returning to the U.S., Kelly and Beth went to the FBI and the Feds agreed to work with them on a sting operation.
Kelly would set up another meeting with van der Sloot in Aruba and this time bring $10,000 cash from Beth. She would wire an additional $15,000 to van der Sloot’s Netherlands bank account. If van der Sloot took the bait, they might be able to charge him with a crime.
JOHN KELLY: If he took the money, and he took a wire transfer, and it was false information, which you know he has done in the past…
CHRIS HANSEN: Wire fraud.
JOHN KELLY: It's wire fraud. And extortion. And if for some reason, his information was true, the Aruban authorities pick him up on the murder charge.
According to Kelly, the FBI sent an advance team to Aruba to coordinate with Aruban authorities and set up for the sting, outfitting a hotel room and rental car with hidden cameras and microphones
CHRIS HANSEN: How did you think this was going to play out?
JOHN KELLY: I wasn’t sure. I was just holding my breath, the whole way. Every step of the way.
After a mostly sleepless night, Kelly arrived in Aruba on May 10.
With FBI agents monitoring, Kelly returned to the Marriott hotel, where he says van der Sloot met him.
CHRIS HANSEN: When van der Sloot walks into room 443--
JOHN KELLY: Yeah.
CHRIS HANSEN: --what does he say first?
JOHN KELLY: "How you doing?" He's covered with sweat. He apparently walked from his house to get there. And, you know, I just told him to have a seat. Gave him a Diet Coke. We actually split a Three Musketeers. The one thing I did at the very beginning was show him the $10,000 cash.
CHRIS HANSEN: So, he knew he was getting $10,000 from you in cash?
JOHN KELLY: He was like, "Give me the money now." And I was, "No, you're not getting the money now."
CHRIS HANSEN: And what did he have to do to convince you to hand over the $10,000?
JOHN KELLY: To take the wire transfer and sign the documents I had there, too.
Strangely enough, Kelly says van der Sloot had insisted Kelly draw up a document for both Beth and van der Sloot to sign.
CHRIS HANSEN: And what did those documents say?
JOHN KELLY: That he would take me exactly to where Natalee’s body was, and tell me how she died. And once I had confirmed that, he'd get the other $225,000.
With the documents signed, Kelly says he handed over the cash and confirmed the wire transfer.
Then, Kelly says, they got into the rental car that had been wired by the FBI, and drove to the site where van der Sloot claimed Natalee’s body had been buried.
CHRIS HANSEN: And precisely where did he say Natalee's remains were?
JOHN KELLY: He pointed to a specific room on a house right by the Aruba Racquet Club. The foundation hadn't gone in yet.
CHRIS HANSEN: So, the story was that there was a house being constructed, the foundation was about to be built or poured, and they put Natalee’s remains in there, and the house was built around it?
JOHN KELLY: Correct. And I took pictures of him with a throwaway camera.
CHRIS HANSEN: You actually took pictures of Joran van der Sloot pointing to the location where he says Natalee’s body was?
JOHN KELLY: Yeah.
Then, Kelly says , they got back in the car and that's when van der Sloot told him how Natalee died.
JOHN KELLY: He actually admitted, this was the first time he admitted being personally responsible for physically causing her death.
According to Kelly, van der Sloot claimed that he and Natalee were at the beach and when he wanted to leave, Natalee tried to stop him.
JOHN KELLY: He got angry and actually threw her. He actually made the gesture in the car, on video, showing me how he threw her in anger, because she wouldn't leave at that point. And according to him, she hit the back of her head, lots of blood and she was dead.
CHRIS HANSEN: Did you think at the time he was telling the truth?
JOHN KELLY: Ah, no.
But Kelly says he played along and van der Sloot told him he hid the body on the beach with the help of his father who, the following day, buried the body.
CHRIS HANSEN: He implicated his own father in the disposal of the body?
JOHN KELLY: Along with himself, yeah.
CHRIS HANSEN: Why wasn't he arrested on the spot?
JOHN KELLY: That I don't know. I mean, I went down there, I did what I was supposed to do. When I got on the plane May 11, I thought it was a done deal. And he was going to be arrested at some point. That he'd be talking at some point, and we'd get some closure at some point.
Aruban authorities would eventually determine van de Sloot's story about the body being buried at that site could not be true because the house he pointed out was not under construction at the time Natalee disappeared.
In the meantime, Kelly had no way of knowing that Joran van der Sloot would leave Aruba, find his way to Peru and a fateful encounter with Stephany Flores.
In Aruba, on May 10, attorney John Q. Kelly says he gave Joren van der Sloot $25,000 of Beth Holloway’s money.
Working with the FBI and Aruban authorities, Kelly and Holloway hoped that van der Sloot would be arrested-- if not for allegedly implicating himself in Natalee’s death then for extortion or wire fraud.
But van der Sloot was not picked up. After Kelly left Aruba, he says van der Sloot continued to email him
JOHN KELLY: He was telling me how he was personally going to turn himself into the police, and that he needed more time. And I was pretending like I believed all this, just to keep a line of communication open. I had been in personal contact with Joran up to May 25.
Kelly assumed van der Sloot was still in Aruba-- but he wasn't.
CHRIS HANSEN: Just days after you give him $25,000, he goes to Peru.
JOHN KELLY: Correct.
Then, on May 30, exactly five years to the day after Natalee Holloway’s disappearance, it happened.
Van der Sloot allegedly killed 21-year-old Stephany Flores at this hotel after a night out at a casino in Lima, Peru.
JOHN KELLY: I was dumbfounded.
CHRIS HANSEN: Did you have to break the news to Natalee’s mother about the death of this woman in Lima, Peru?
JOHN KELLY: Yes.
CHRIS HANSEN: What did she say?
JOHN KELLY: She just stopped. Just “how could this happen?”
According to Kelly, for Beth Holloway, the thought that her money may have facilitated van der Sloot’s travel plans was almost too much to bear.
JOHN KELLY: It's probably the most horrific, unanticipated nightmarish ending for Beth that you could ever imagine. That her money may have financed his trip to Peru.
CHRIS HANSEN: Has Beth reached out to the family of Stephany Flores ?
JOHN KELLY: Not directly. She's extended her deepest sympathy. She's just really upset. Everything was just like an instant replay of what had happened five years ago.
CHRIS HANSEN: Déjà vu?
JOHN KELLY: Déjà vu.
Kelly says he does not blame U.S. law enforcement for letting van der Sloot leave Aruba but wonders why the Arubans didn't arrest him as soon as they could.
JOHN KELLY: I think at the minimum, the Aruban authorities could've picked him up, and they had the ability to hold him there at that time. It was their country, it was their island, it was their citizen. They controlled the port, and apparently, they knew he was leaving when he was leaving.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37650865/ns/dateline_nbc-crime_reports/page/5/