Eighteen years after 18-year-old Natalee Holloway was presumed killed during a high school graduation trip to Aruba, her family may finally get answers. A lawyer for the Holloway family tells media outlets including CNN and the New York Times that the man suspected of the teen's murder, Joran van der Sloot, has accepted a plea deal in the federal extortion and fraud case against him, and in an interview on NBC News, the attorney says that deal will require van der Sloot to reveal details of Holloway's death. Van der Sloot's public defender has not commented, nor has the federal prosecutor in the case.
The plea deal, the lawyer explains, "was conditioned upon Mr. van der Sloot revealing details of how Natalee died and how her body was disposed of." The attorney did express concern that van der Sloot could offer up false information. He is not charged with murdering Holloway, whose body was never found, but with extorting her family, demanding $250,000 in exchange for information about her disappearance—and he did allegedly give them false information after they paid a portion of that amount. The 36-year-old Dutch national was extradited from Peru, where he was serving a life sentence for another young woman's murder, to face those charges, and had initially pleaded not guilty. It's not clear to which specific charge or charges he'll plead guilty, but the hearing is scheduled for Wednesday. (More Natalee Holloway stories.)