‘It’s over.’

You hear a lot about the importance of “closure” to the families of crime victims. On Wednesday you could hear that in some of Beth Holloway’s words.

Holloway spoke after her daughter Natalee’s killer pled guilty to extortion, reports AL.com’s Carol Robinson and Ivana Hrynkiw.

Joran van der Sloot’s guilty plea was to extorting money from Beth, offering her information about her daughter for money. As part of that plea deal he confessed to the murder, a crime committed in Aruba, where a statute of limitations likely means he’ll never be tried for the killing.

But after 18 years of not having the full story on her daughter’s disappearance, Beth said she has a big part of what she needed. “Today, I can tell you with certainty that after 18 years, Natalee’s case is solved. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.”

Van der Sloot is serving a 20-year prison sentence for another murder in Peru. If for any reason he gets out early enough, he’ll have to come back to the U.S. to serve what’s left of the 20-year sentence he got for the extortion crime here.

Natalee’s dad, Dave Holloway, said in a statement, “Today marks some legal accountability, but we are convinced that a higher power will pronounce the ultimate judgment on this defendant and anyone else who helped him prevent us from bringing Natalee home.”

A teenager when she was killed, Natalee Holloway would’ve turned 37 years old this Saturday.

Better than leaving Bruce Willis behind*

The leaders of a NASA team in Huntsville won an award for their work on what one day could be a pretty important problem-solving exercise: Deflecting an asteroid.

AL.com’s Lee Roop reports that Brian Key and Scott Bellamy’s project — the Double Asteroid Redirection Test — used a spacecraft to smash into an asteroid that was hurtling through space and change its orbit.

The potential benefits here are obvious: If Earth is ever facing a potential extinction-event impact, redirecting the asteroid from millions of miles away could save us a lot of trouble. Because if you’ve paid attention to modern humanity lately, you know this bunch might not be able to survive another stone age.

Key and Bellamy’s team at Marshall Space Flight Center launched the craft in November 2021. It hit the asteroid Dimorphos last September. They accepted the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington D.C.

And bonus points to the team for not accidentally redirecting the asteroid immediately and directly toward my living room in Alabama.

* Click here if you didn’t get the cultural reference in the header

Karle’s plan to ‘throttle back’

Birmingham local TV personality Rick Karle announced he is leaving WVTM 13, where he co-hosts morning news, reports AL.com’s Leada Gore.

Karle spent decades working in sports. Last year the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame gave him the Mel Allen Media Award, which recognizes a lifetime of contribution to sports through working in the media. He’s worked the morning news co-host gig with WVTM since 2019.

Karle didn’t call this a retirement. He said it’s more of a lifestyle change. “Now is the time for me to throttle back a bit, get some sleep, and discover what is in store for me over the next several years.”

By the numbers

1,000: That’s how many new jobs Airbus is on track to create during a big expansion of its manufacturing facility in Mobile.

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Born on this date

In 1962, former heavyweight champ Evander Holyfield of Atmore.

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