From Aruba to Lima: The Case of Joran van der Sloot

May 30 has twice been an ominous date for Joran van der Sloot. The young Dutchman was in Aruba five years ago on that day when Natalee Holloway, an 18-year-old Alabama woman, went missing. Van der Sloot was arrested twice in that case but released for lack of evidence. The Holloway mystery — along with its deep suspicion of foul play — became the subject of endless tabloid interest, and van der Sloot was closely followed by the press in the aftermath, becoming the object of a controversial Dutch investigative TV show in 2008. But the justice system in Aruba chose not to bring him to trial. Holloway's body has never been found.

In the early hours of Sunday, May 30, 2010, police in Peru say that van der Sloot, now 22, was captured on video at one of Lima's many casinos showing him and a local university student named Stephany Flores, 21. The Dutchman was in the Peruvian capital allegedly to take part in a poker competition at Atlantic City Casino — bright lights, scantily clad hostesses — and was registered at Hotel Tac, a low-budget establishment ($40 or less a night) in the sprawling city's Miraflores district, which can shift quickly from prosperous to seedy. Friends who were with Flores the night she disappeared told the local media that she met van der Sloot at the casino toward the end of Saturday and that the two quickly struck up a conversation in English. They lost track of her as the night wore on. The police say film evidence has the pair leaving Atlantic City Casino shortly after 5 a.m. Van der Sloot left Peru the next day, May 31, crossing out of the country into neighboring Chile at 1 p.m. at an overland border point. Flores was reported missing on that same day. Early on Wednesday, Flores was found dead by staff at Hotel Tac.

Chilean police arrested van der Sloot on Thursday near Santiago, the capital. Peruvian police general Cesar Guardia, head of the investigative division, said his office expected the Dutchman to be extradited to Peru for questioning. "We have issued a warrant for his arrest. We have abundant physical evidence that implicates him in the murder of this young woman," he said. Once van der Sloot is in Peru, officers will have 24 hours to question him. The law allows the police to request an extension of between 7 and 14 days from the presiding judge if there is sufficient evidence to warrant additional time for more interrogation. The judge will then decide if van der Sloot will be remanded to prison or released on bail pending a trial.

Guardia said his team has been piecing together van der Sloot's stay in Peru since he arrived on a flight from Bogotá on May 14. While unable to go into specifics because of the ongoing nature of the investigation, Guardia said evidence in the room shows that Flores struggled with her assailant. She received numerous blows to the body and head. Police investigators are also actively coordinating with colleagues in other countries, in addition to Aruba, where van der Sloot may have visited recently, for potential clues. Sources from Peru's police said they had requested information from several Asian countries, including the Philippines. Van der Sloot's lawyer Joe Tacopina has been quoted as saying the young man "has been falsely accused of murder once before. The fact is, he wears a bull's-eye on his back now and he is a quote-unquote usual suspect when it comes to allegations of foul play."

The 2008 Dutch television show on the Holloway mystery featured hidden-camera, taped conversations with van der Sloot, in which he tells how the American woman collapsed while the two of them were making out on the beach in Aruba. "We were at the beach and suddenly she did nothing," van der Sloot said on tape. "I tried everything, I shook her, but nothing." He said he then called a friend who dumped the body at sea by boat. Asked how he could be so sure that Holloway was dead, van der Sloot admitted that he couldn't be. But even before the show aired, van der Sloot dismissed the whole thing as lies: "I just told [the interviewer] what he wanted to hear." Aruba, a self-governing Caribbean province of the Netherlands, has consistently said there has never been enough credible evidence to charge van der Sloot with a crime. His father Paulus van der Sloot was a judge in Aruba. The elder van der Sloot died in February of this year.

In Peru, Flores' father is a well-known jack of all trades who dabbles in business, politics and auto racing, which is likely to keep the story in the country's headlines for the foreseeable future — as well as revive tabloid interest in the Holloway mystery in the U.S. Ricardo Flores has run for local office, Congress and even the presidency, though always for fringe parties. (He received 33,080 votes in his 2001 presidential bid, about 0.30% of total votes cast.) But now he has another role: grieving father. In a brief telephone interview with TIME, Flores said he would cooperate fully with the police to see that van der Sloot is brought to justice. "All I want is justice for my daughter," he said. "He has to pay for what he has done to us."