Everything you need to know about the disappearance of Natalee Holloway

Natalee Holloway, 18 at the time of her disappearance, has been missing for 12 years. This Saturday, August 19th, the questions surrounding her case will surface again.

On May 30, 2005, the Alabama resident was finishing off a night of celebrating her high school graduation with classmates in Aruba, when she vanished. Since, she’s been neither seen nor heard from.

With so much public interest in the case, and a potential new lead, Oxygen has announced the arrival of their mini-series, The Disappearance of Natalee Holloway.

Here’s what you should know before binge-watching this weekend.

Who is Joran van der Sloot?

18-year-old Dutch student, Joran van der Sloot is the last person Natalee was seen with before her disappearance. The two were spotted leaving Carlos and Charlie’s nightclub with two other men, Satish Kalpoe, 18, and Deepak Kalpoe, 21.

Joran van der Sloot

First he said they dropped her at a hotel, and then another hotel and then the beach. The public joined in the hunt for her for months, while Joran and his family appeared on TV. But in 2007 Joran was arrested again, after publishing a book about Holloway’s disappearance.

The media turns on him

In a video released in 2008, van der Sloot claims Holloway had a seizure while they were having sex. In the rest of the video he appears to talk about himself and a friend disposing of the body. “It’ll probably end better than I could’ve ever dreamed. I’ll probably walk away with a huge financial compensation.”

Authorities ultimately ruled that the video was inadmissible in court.

In November of 2008, another interview aired in which van der Sloot talks about selling Natalee Holloway to sexual slave brokers who took her to Venezuela.

Two years later, van der Sloot’s father died and he reached out to a family attorney saying he’ll reveal the location of Holloway’s body in exchange for $250,000. He lied to the authorities and escapes to Peru after being wired $25,000.

Then in 2010 he killed a 21-year-old woman and went to prison

On May 30, 2010, van der Sloot killed 21-year-old Stephany Tatiana Flores Ramírez with a tennis racquet. Since, he has been held in prison in Peru where he married another woman, Leidy Figueroa. A few years ago, she gave birth to their daughter.

But, where is Natalee?

Dave Holloway believes his daughter was the victim of foul play, her body thrown in the ocean, but he recently got a tip from a man claiming to have witnessed Van der Sloot carrying Holloway’s body the night she disappeared.

This new mini-series follows Natalee’s father in his journey to uncover the truth.

@carolinephinney