On June 1, Tonic published a post about the new Natalee Holloway Resource Center created by the missing teen’s mother, Beth Twitty, in partnership with the National Museum of Crime & Punishment to assist families of missing relatives. Sadly, at that moment, another young woman named Stefany Flores Ramirez had gone missing — on the fifth anniversary of Holloway‘s disappearance — in Lima, Peru. Her body wasn’t found until yesterday morning, wrapped in a blanket in a hotel room registered to Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect in Holloway’s murder.
Police believe 21-year-old Ramirez was killed on Sunday and have today arrested van der Sloot, who fled to Chile. CNN is reporting the chief suspect in both crimes is now in custody in Santiago, Chile.
Tonic was contacted yesterday by journalist Pamela Montes in Peru, who saw the Tonic story and was trying to locate Beth Twitty to interview her. According to Montes, police have observed both van der Sloot and Ramirez leaving together on casino surveillance cameras. Ramirez was the daughter of a prominent Lima businessman and former race car driver. This is, no doubt, a tragedy for her family.
There are many unanswered questions in both cases involving these young women, but perhaps the most pressing is, could the investigation into the murder of Ramirez be the big break for the Holloway case? If so, Twitty may finally have answers in her long search for her daughter, and perhaps the chief suspect in both cases can be finally be held accountable.
Image courtesy of the Natalee Holloway Resource Center.