Joran van der Sloot, who confessed to the 2005 murder of Natalee Holloway in Aruba and who was convicted in the subsequent extortion of her mother, Beth, is on his way back to Peru.

The 36-year-old Dutch national from Aruba, who pleaded guilty to extortion and wire fraud in federal court in Alabama on Oct. 18, was released from the Shelby County Jail Monday morning, escorted by U.S. Marshals.

Northern District of Alabama U.S. Marshal Marty Keely said van der Sloot was taken from the jail to the Birmingham International Airport.

Upon arrival, Peruvian Officials will take him back into custody to serve the rest of his prison sentence for murder.

“U.S. Marshals Service Northern District of Alabama thanks Shelby County Sheriff John Samaniego and Hoover Police Chief Nick Derzis for their assistance in housing Joran van der Sloot while in the custody of the United States Marshals Service Northern District of Alabama,’’ Keely said.

Van der Sloot earlier this month was convicted in the extortion of Beth Holloway. He received a 20-year sentence on each of the two Alabama convictions.

Those sentences will be served concurrently with his 28-year sentence for the 2010 murder of Lima college student Stephany Flores.

Read full coverage of the case here

Natalee, 18, vanished in May 2005 while on a graduation trip with her Mountain Brook High School classmates.

Van der Sloot was long suspected in her death but has not been charged. Natalee’s body has never been found.

In 2010, the same year that Flores was murdered, van der Sloot told a representative of Beth Holloway that for $250,000, he would tell the family the location of Natalee’s remains. Holloway paid van der Sloot $25,000 only to find out that van der Sloot had lied.

He was indicted later that year the Northern District of Alabama on the extortion charges.

Van der Sloot was extradited to Alabama on June 8, 2023, and booked into the Shelby County Jail. His extradition from Peru came with the condition that he be returned there once his case in Alabama was adjudicated.

As part of his plea agreement in the Alabama charges, he was required to tell the Holloway family how Natalee died and where her body was disposed. FBI agents said he passed a polygraph test, and Beth Holloway said she is confident in the details of his confession.

Also, as part of the plea, van der Sloot must repay Holloway $25,000.

Part of van der Sloot’s chilling confession was made public after his guilty plea. He said he kicked her in the face and then bludgeoned her with a cinderblock when she refused his sexual advances.

“Uh, when she knees me in the crotch, uh, I get up, uh, on the beach and I kick her extremely hard in the face,’’ a transcript of his confession states. said. “Uhm, yeah, she’s laying down unconscious, possibly even dead, but definitely unconscious.”

Van der Sloot said he then smashed her head in with a cinder block he found and put her body in the ocean. “I walk up to about my knees into the ocean and I push her into the – into the sea. Uhm, and uhm, yeah, after that I – I get out. I- I walk home,” the transcript read.

“You have finally admitted that, in fact, you murdered her,” a tearful Beth Holloway said in court.

“You terminated her dreams, her potential, her possibilities, when you bludgeoned her to death in 2005,” Holloway said after he pleaded guilty.

“You didn’t get what you wanted from Natalee, your sexual satisfaction, so you brutally killed her….You are the one in Aruba no one wants to be, the black mark on the island,” she said.

Beth Holloway said after Natalee was killed, van der Sloot went home and watched pornography.

“I would like to take this chance to apologize to the Holloway family, to apologize to my own family, to say I hope the statement I provided brings some kind of closure to everyone involved,” van der Sloot said.

Van der Sloot said he is now a Christian. “I am no longer that person I was back then.”

Asked outside of court if she hoped Aruba would now charge van der Sloot in Natalee’s death, Holloway said, “Hopefully, maybe, they will look into that. I have what I need.”

It has been widely reported that because the statute of limitations for homicide in Aruba is 12 years it was unlikely van der Sloot would be prosecuted for Natalee’s murder.

The day after van der Sloot’s guilty plea, prosecutors in Aruba asked the U.S. Department of Justice to send them records from its investigation of Joran van der Sloot, a spokeswoman told AL.com.

Spokeswoman Ann Angela said prosecutors in Aruba wish to review DOJ records “before deciding on the procedural steps to be taken.”