The lone suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway was paraded—moist-eyed and looking stunned—before reporters as Peruvians denounced him and detectives began interrogating him in the killing of 21-year-old Stephany Flores. Joran Van der Sloot arrived yesterday at police headquarters in a brown Interpol SUV and was escorted across an auditorium crowded with shouting, shutter-snapping journalists three times.
Wearing a green bulletproof vest, his hands handcuffed behind him, the husky 22-year-old stared straight ahead and didn't make eye contact. Outside, seven Indian shamans repeatedly stabbed a cloth doll representing Van der Sloot. "We're punishing him so that all the forces of evil are purged," one shouted. A Chilean police spokesman said the Dutchman told them he did not kill Flores, who was found battered with a broken neck. Police released video yesterday taken by hotel security cameras showing van der Sloot and Flores entering his hotel room together. Later video shows the Dutchman leaving the hotel alone.
(More Joran Van der Sloot stories.)