Man Linked to Holloway Case Dies After Ambushing Woman

John Christopher Ludwick got stabbed when she fought back
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 15, 2018 11:00 AM CDT
Man Linked to Holloway Case Dies in Attempted Attack
This June 10, 2005, file photo shows a "missing" poster for Natalee Holloway, who disappeared while on a graduation trip to Aruba on May 30, 2005, on Palm Beach.   (AP Photo/Leslie Mazoch, File)

A man who said he helped to dispose of Natalee Holloway's remains is dead after he tried to kidnap a Florida woman. John Christopher Ludwick, 32, attempted to kidnap her as she got out of her car in her North Port driveway Tuesday; she fought back, and in the course of the struggle Ludwick was stabbed. He fled, officers found him in a nearby wooded area, and he eventually died at a hospital, WFTV reports. Ludwick was friends with Joran van der Sloot, the person last seen with Holloway at an Aruba bar in 2005 and the main suspect in the 18-year-old's disappearance. In an episode of The Disappearance of Natalee Holloway that aired last year, Ludwick said Van der Sloot paid him $1,500 to dig up Holloway's body and that the two then destroyed the remains together.

"The idea was to crush everything to the point where it wasn't recognizable as her bones or skull or anything like that," Ludwick said on video, per Oxygen. "The only thing that got burned was the skull to burn the hair fibers. It was doused in gasoline in a fire pit in a cave." In a Facebook post, the North Port Police Department says it is "aware of Mr. Ludwick's history and comments surrounding the disappearance of Natalee Ann Holloway in Aruba during May of 2005. The correct authorities who are working that case have been notified." A police spokesperson tells USA Today Ludwick and the woman in Tuesday's case were once roommates and he desired a romantic relationship, but she didn't. The spokesperson says the woman managed to get Ludwick's own knife from him and stab him in the abdomen with it. She will not be charged. (More Natalee Holloway stories.)

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