A Deeper Look at the Crimes of Joran Van Der Loot With Christopher Cassel | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Ash and I'm Elena and this is [Music] morbid this is a special morbid shut up
I was going to say that I was literally say this is a special edition of morbid because we've got a guest today we have
director Christopher casselle on he's going to be talking to us about uh his new documentary on peacock it's called
pathological the lies of yur in bander salute it is such a great documentary like if you like true crime
documentaries you're going to enjoy this yeah it's wild it gives you some very interesting points of views and we just
covered the Natalie Holloway case on morbid I believe it's the last episode it should be the last before this so
after listening to that this is kind of a perfect little companion because you get to hear a little more behind the
scenes yeah um going deeper our our our guy Chris there he talked to a lot of like the major players in this case he
talked to people outside of it it's interesting he he has a he has a unique point of view on the whole thing I think
he does definitely yeah and he was really really open with like giving us a ton of information and stuff it it was a
really fun conversation yeah it was definitely a lot of fun so here you go enjoy all right so hello Chris how are
you I'm doing really well thanks for having me of course thank you for coming on we are talking about pathological the
lies of yur in Vander slute today it premiered on peacock and it was a really entertaining documentary it was awesome
thank you and I think one of the first questions I wanted to ask you is I actually noticed that this is one of the
first true crime documentaries that you've done is that right um it's I would say the third so yeah I did um two
series for ID that I directed um okay nothing super recent one was in 2019 called Primal Instinct and then the
other was way back in 2011 called red Brum okay nice so what Drew you into the Natalie
Holloway case specifically and what would you say the main goal of making this specific documentary was um well I
remember you know as does everybody you know um who's I guess any older than 20 everybody remembers this Natalie
Holloway case um and uh you know it was always sort of fascinating and tragic and um you know I sort of just kept tabs
on it over the years the timing of this seemed you know it seemed appropriate because this is really most likely the
end of the line for the story of Juran you know um I don't think there'll be another chapter at least related to
Natalie you never know right um but it seemed like the right time to look back and do a pretty exhaustive and
comprehensive look at you know all sides of the case but not only the Natalie case but the case in Peru with Stephanie
Flores and then the strange and disturbing connection between the two which really leads into that extortion
uh trial that he faced in the states last year right which you know just kind of connects the two cases in this weird
and surprising way so yeah I mean it just felt like the right time it's a fascinating character this well you can
call him a character uron you know it's just such a I I guess a textbook psychopath really 100% yeah yeah but
just somebody who it's just fascinating that somebody can be that cold you know and I kind of want to try to get beneath
the surface of that as much as I could I feel like the documentary did a good job
of pointing out the fact that one he definitely is a psychopath and all the reasons why he is and the the
characteristics behind that yeah and it and it gave a lot more too because we were talking about this cuz we just
covered the case on the show The Natalie hallay case at least and we were talking
about how when it was going on in real time it became such like a convoluted kind of coverage of the case that it was
you weren't really getting coverage of the case anymore you were getting like these wild like back and forths and
these weird interviews that he was doing and like I remember watching it being like but what's happening like what's
going on who this guy so many interviews and I it's like nobody knew it was going
on we just knew like the kind of like sensationalistic way that it was being shown and I feel like the documentary
really like honed in on what we all wanted to know what was going on and who he is and why like how all this happened
yeah and I never realized until I did the film how many different versions of the Natalie story he told um I think in
the end we counted about 12 um that were very I was trying to count them as I was
going through yeah it's on him and it almost seems like it was part of a strategy and I don't know if it was
initially a conscious strategy on his part or not but just to further muddy The Waters by just telling all these
different stories and with this confidence that he had that the body wouldn't be found you know and so
exactly he figured you know there's nothing that really gonna do to him without the body so he's just gonna he
almost seemed like he was having fun with it all yeah it seemed like he was trying to prove something like he was
kind of trying to prove like I can change this story a 100 times and nothing's going to happen to me and
you're all just going to have to listen to it I'm going to send people on Wild Goose chases and I can do it cuz I'm
uran going to find it the scary part is how long it worked for him doing that yeah yeah it's crazy and you know you
can just see almost the sort of like devilish Glee that he takes as he's in these interviews and sort of telling all
these different you know Tall Tales absolutely and then as we go into you know he figures out how to profit off of
them and it sort of becomes the way he makes his living exactly so gross so just yeah it's just sick by way he's
smirks through them really like turns your stomach does but like we just touched on I mean the details of the
Natalie Hollow Holloway case are so well known especially given the way that it captivated the nation and the way it was
like parlayed in the media but in your documentary I thought it was a really great balance of information with
Natalie's story and with Stephanie's story which I do feel like sometimes gets lost in retelling of these cases
did you know from the start going into this that you wanted to tell the story side by side kind of going through the
timeline with both girls like you did I don't know EX at the very beginning if I
knew that but I figured it out pretty quickly when I looked at the symmetry of the dates and they were five years apart
like to the day which is just wild to the day and a lot of those like you know so there's the day they both disappeared
and then the several days after that in both years 2005 and 2010 that have these
striking parallels and it just seemed like that would be a good way to interweave them
and then to see the similarities you know in his kind of actions and just in these scenarios that happen so so far
apart so the other thing is you know I didn't want to only tell the Natalie story up front and grow chronologically
because I feel like the Peru story is the one that people are less familiar with and I wanted to inject pieces of
that early on so that you know we could keep people who felt like they already knew everything about Natalie right you
know and so it it made sense to interweave them definitely is that why you made the decision to start with
juran's ex Eva to kind of bring in new people who maybe didn't know that part of the story yeah I mean that was the
other that was the other really cool kind of coup for us really I mean her story is crazy she's she's like
officially on the run from the law she was really hard to find she's like you know by Design she doesn't want to be
found and she's somebody nobody had ever heard from this was the first interview
she'd ever done and so we wanted to Showcase that right up front and you know let people know
you're going to learn something new here even if you followed every single piece
of the case for 18 years you know you're you're going to find out some new things
definitely and I think Eva is a good representation of how he just victimizes women like constantly and one of the
things that I learned watching the documentary was that he actually has quite a history of being violent or
predatory with women and you did touch on that in the documentary can you kind of expand on that a little bit sure yeah
I mean there's we can kind of only go by the reports of people who well two two of our best sources were the authors of
a book called portrait of a monster who did a lot of research spent a lot of time in Aruba talking to people off the
record on the record you know juran's Inner Circle there his family is very tough to crack so it took some detective
work to put together the pieces of his childhood but what we were able to find was that you know he had this violent
streak and this sort of angry streak from a pretty early age and you know by the time Natalie came along he was 17
but he had this whole Mo down he already had a lot of experience getting into the
casinos because he looked older he he had figured out how to kind of woo these tourists that would come in these you
know and so many Teenage American tourists were coming down particularly back then it's changed actually since
Natalie but so he had a whole like just a whole kind of approach that you know he'd used on girls before Natalie and
also on local girls so there were several that had filed complaints against him prior to
Natalie's disappearance that hadn't quite been investigated yet and then in the shadow of all this media that
erupted on the island after Natalie disappeared they all kind of shrunk away and just decided they didn't want to
talk and so it seems that there was already a well-established pattern of sexual abuse and violence in his history
even before the point that you know Natalie disappeared it is crazy how all that kind of got overshadowed or covered
up and I think part of that has to do with like you said their family history is very hard to uncover and kind of
going into that I think the relationship with Vander stron the lead investigator
he had close ties with juran's Dad can you tell us a little bit more about that and what that kind of looks like sure
they were both from the Netherlands Aruba is a province or a um you know it's under the the Netherlands you
control or umbrella and so there are a lot of Dutch who come over and work in the government um work you know in in
kind of the legal trade in Aruba and both Vander stron and paulus vandersloot were among those they had come over they
had been friends in the Netherlands they came over I think when yuran was four or
paus did I don't know when vender shoton got there but they apparently were so close that Vander stron was Yan's
Godfather so clearly they're um you know kind of an inside connection between the family
and law enforcement and quite likely you know if not a spoken effort an unspoken
effort between the two men to you know try to sweep this under the rug definitely and do you think because
obviously and we see it in your in your film when paus dies that's when urine really starts to kind of spiral out of
control do you feel like that was a pivotal shift in how everything played out in the rest of this case these two
cases yeah I think it definitely was so I mean not to say that yuran went from a
you know Saint to a sinner at this point he was already you know he was already kind of well established as you know
being kind of a bad guy but after his father dies you know it's interesting we talk about at the funeral in the
Netherlands he yuran throws himself on the casket he makes a big show of saying this is all my fault you know thinking
that the stress of the case which is quite probably probably right that the stress of the case is what caused PA's
heart attack and so whether yuran really deeply feels this remorse and this personal responsibility or not is in
impossible to say but you know certainly he made a big show of it and so he then
goes back to Aruba to you know ostensibly take care of his mother help his mother through this hard time but no
sooner is he back there than he starts emailing Beth Holloway's lawyer Beth is Natalie's mother and uh with this
proposal to basically try to profit off of his knowledge of natal where Natalie is and profit off of Beth's
vulnerability and her desire for answers and so that's such a dark I mean even for somebody like him to to then decide
not only to end someone's life uh and not admit it but then go back to the mother of that person and shake her down
for money in exchange for answers is just kind of a new level of diabolical and so this starts to happen right after
his father's death and then within two weeks of you know him kind of striking this deal which we can go into deeper
detail if you like about definitely he's up he flies off to Peru and you know and
then goes on to murder another girl so yeah it seems like you know you could definitely point to this uh to the death
of his father as being a really significant turning point for him 100% And I felt so bad for Beth's lawyer one
of the parts in the documentary is that he feels like he has blood on his hands because of this whole extortion thing
that it yeah it did somewhat fund his trip to Peru but how was he to know that that was going to happen you know yeah
and you know he he really expected that once the FBI um because the FBI was involved in this and so was the Aruban
police or investigators and he didn't think he thought by the time he left the island uh he being John Kelly Beth's
lawyer that Juran would have been arrested and picked up for basically fabricating this whole story that that
he told John when he was there which they captured on audio tape and videotape and so he had no expectation
that Juran was going to have time to spend this money he thought you know he was it was like a one-way ticket to jail
and then you know and that would be it but um they didn't pick him up and we're we're not and we talk about this like we
don't know why we don't know why the FBI didn't pick him up at that point or the
reuin authorities and he was able to skip town there's so many points in the story where you're like how is he
continuing to get away with these things and especially with the FBI's involvement it's really mindboggling
that he was able to continue just to go on and do what he did and it was like that watching it unfold too in real time
cuz I remember there are so many times during this case where we were all like this is it they're going to find Natalie
they're finally going to arrest this guy like everyone knew we were all just waiting for it and I just remember all
the time thinking like why aren't they arresting like what is going on like why is this taking so long it's wild it is
wild and but the weird thing is too they did arrest him in Aruba and they held him for I think 90 days and they
interrogated him and they flew in these special Dutch investigators to like run these brutal interrogations and he just
never gave them anything so that led some people to think well maybe he is innocent because he's he hasn't fessed
up and he's only 17 like how could he not crack Under Pressure he's a hard 17 yeah he was no kidding but you know if
you have you know as we talk about in the film some of these characteristics of psychopathy you know a lack of
remorse or or real feeling of any kind it's probably a lot easier to kind of resist some of those typical
interrogation tactics for sure definitely he really is like you said a tough 17 and like a character yeah going
into making this film I did read that you did try to reach out to get some kind of comment from him right yes I
sent him a through his uh public defender in Alabama I sent a letter and I never got a response but I think were
pretty much they had a prettyy strict embargo on him talking to anybody while he was in the states definitely how do
you think that would have changed the film do you think it would have changed the film in any way um it certainly
would have yeah I mean I would have been compelled to kind of make his point of view you know a primary part of the
story and I'm almost you know you always kind of want to hear from the protagonist but you know in a way I'm
almost glad that we didn't get him I I think I am glad because he would just spin so many lies that you
know we wouldn't get any closer to the truth we'd probably be further from it and I age I think it was actually better
that we were able to look at him from different points of view from you know more objective you know and kind of more
sane points of view and not be clouded by the all the lies that he would tell and you know he's also as Psychopaths
usually are very good at elicit eliciting sympathy and and empathy and you know he certainly would have tried
that with us I'm sure and may have left more of the audience feeling sympathetic
for him than I think he would deserve so oh I think that would be awful I completely agree I agree I wondered how
you felt about that but I definitely agree with you that I think it it makes it better that he wasn't he didn't have
a voice in necessarily he's had enough of a voice and you know we do include a lot of interview Clips with him over the
years um but really in the context of showing that you know this was all a game for him and you know that it was a
game of profit it was just you know just one lie after another and you can kind of see that pretty clearly when you
intercut all these different interviews he did definitely you know over the years was there anything that you
learned along the way that came as a shock to you or anything you didn't know previously about the case and making the
film that you learned yeah I mean the biggest thing for me was just this connection between the two cases and the
fact that had Beth Holloway not paid him $25,000 in exchange for well we should go deeper into exactly why she did that
but you know essentially she paid him $225,000 for answers about what happened to Natalie and he went ended up using
that money pretty much directly to go to Peru and kill this other and ends up killing this other girl and so you do
have to ask like would that have happened had the extortion scheme not happened and you as as her lawyer said
he feels he has blood on his hands and Beth of course felt awful about it but you know the fact that there was this
direct connection was you know shocking and just so preventable you would think in hindsight you know absolutely so yeah
that that for me was the biggest like kind of wow moment yeah that was the biggest thing for me watching it just
seeing like you said in the beginning how their stories just parallel so much with each other and even how the
family's experiences parallel with each other like Beth showing up to the island
wanting answers immediately Stephanie's father going out right away looking for her car finding it in the CD area like
yeah the parallels are awful and the family's experiences are so intertwined yeah yeah absolutely another interesting
thing was the different perspectives on the case and on and the the huge difference in willingness to participate
that we found between Peru and Aruba I wondered about that yeah yeah in Peru we every door was opened you know because I
think you know just on its face it's a totally different story in Peru they got their man they convicted him they put
him in jail the body was found it was open and shut there's nothing really to hide or regret so you know everyone who
was involved in the case from the lead interrogator to the drivers who drove the getaway car unknowingly to his
girlfriend agreed to participate in Aruba it was a very different story a lot of the people
we spoke with that had the closest connection to the case um that are still there literally told us off the Record
like I'll get death threats if I talk to you like wow people here do not want the
media do not want this in the media anymore they they threaten people who speak about it and so there's you know a
very concerted effort in rubet to just make this go away still 18 years later definitely and so nobody wants to talk
you know so that that kind of complicated it a little bit but thankfully there there's been so much
news coverage of this over the years in Aruba um and such a deep archive to draw
from that that wasn't really a huge issue definitely but it would have been nice to get a a few more perspectives
current perspectives in Aruba who in particular would you have wanted to speak to in Aruba there were a couple of
lawyers who were really close to the case but more than anything I would have liked to talk to juran's Mother um Anita
I could see that I could definitely see that she's done a handful of interviews nothing really since that I've seen
since I believe 2010 when Stephanie disappeared I think that she did one interview after that and I think and
then she just decided she she couldn't anymore so it's been a long time since she's spoken publicly but that would
have given us a lot of insight into juran's history and his early years and stuff absolutely but at the same time
it's you know fully understandable why she doesn't want to talk and you have to feel for her as a mother you know oh
yeah so uh but we tried yeah it sounds like there's a complicated relationship there because it sounds like in the
beginning obviously nobody wants to believe that their son is capable of that but then to find out that he I mean
he did get convicted of Stephanie's murder and it's very cut and dry that he did it
she has to accept that and that must be awful and you can see it her kind of evolving impression of the case and of
Juran in her interviews where in the early ones in 2005 she's defending him tooth and nail and saying you know he's
an honest boy she says he's very loving you know why would anybody you know who has all basically the blessings that he
has want to do something like this it just doesn't make any sense and then after Stephanie's death in 2010
you know she's definitely uh You Can Tell She's just rethinking everything about him and she still loves him
obviously but you know she's you could just you can tell she's angry and and sad and frustrated and so it's you know
his his actions um affected so many people beyond the two principal victims you know um his own family you know
obviously Natalie and Stephanie's families but the whole island of Aruba you know um and the economy there um you
know just it had really far-reaching consequences for so many people absolutely I think there's so many
different victims in this and especially yur's mom one of the things you touched
on in the in the film is that she was actually trying to get him help right before he left for Peru and that that
sentiment is just haunting the fact that she really wanted him to to get some kind of help to talk to a psychiatrist
to even it sounded like some kind of like impatient thing even and then he just disappeared yeah yeah she was going
to send them back to the Netherlands for an impatient you know treatment so and I
know he had seen psychologists through the years we don't have great details on those but we know that before Natalie
disappeared he had been seeing one so it was no secret in the family that he needed help but you have to be receptive
to the help and you know knowledge that you need it in order for it to work so and as a mother your first thing is
always going to be like no of course not my child like sure they may need a little bit of extra help but no way
could they have done this awful thing that I can't even fathom but I imagine when the when you know the murder of
Stephanie happened I'm sure it was like I don't think he's being caught up in these two things accidentally like that
realization was probably really hard to hit that second one because it's like I don't think it's a coincidence that my
son is just being placed in these two awful cases yeah with nothing connected to it so you know that was probably the
thing that was like that you have to kind of face it at that point yeah that must have so hard even after he killed
Stephanie he called home to his mother and his mother had heard that he they were looking for him in Peru and she
said you should turn yourself in and and he gave her a whole story about how he didn't he he actually was like what do
you mean she's dead oh my God you know and he said well when I left she was alive but there were these two Shady
cops that were of course you know blah blah blah it's just you know it just never ends it's always interesting he
tries to pin it on two other men always and there always stories that sound like
they're from like you know like crime novels or something like I'm like you're just making things up like it's not even
probable it's really not sad story you know all around truly absolutely with that being said what do you think about
the latest confession well I I feel sort of like you know as people will see John
Kelly and Matt Holloway Natalie's brother feel which is not that it's not the whole truth that's how I feel I
agree yeah I mean the fundamental truth that he killed her is there and he has never said that outright before but I
think that's where the truth ends so the details of it include that he um well I
mean it's just so graphic to even think about but that he bashed her head in with a cinder block that he had found
laying on the beach so how come a bloody cinder block was never found you know that would be a pretty easy thing to
that' be a hard thing to dispose of and an easy thing to find yeah and then the idea that he just waited into the water
with her and just kind of pushed her off from you know he went in wayist Steep and just pushed her off so everybody
I've spoken with since this came out in Aruba because I you know I have had a lot of conversations off the Record
they're just like you know there's with the currents there that's just not how it would work he would just wash right
back in right so that's just BS so then you have to wonder so in that way the story isn't fully over you know
because we still don't we still don't know what happened aside from the fact that he
killed her so the mystery continues on some level it does I do wonder if there's some truth in each part of the
different stories that he's told because at one point somebody came with a boat and they they put her on the boat and
then they they dropped her off of the boat even saying that is so awful but I I have to wonder if there's little
truths in each variation yes and one of the people we interviewed Michelle cinsky who was an NBC reporter who
covered the story for years said I don't know if it was on camera or off but she
said to me the one common denominator that you find in almost all of his stories is some sort of blunt force head
trauma yeah so from the very first story when he said he dropped her off at the Holiday Inn after they'd been out and
she fell out of the she tripped car and hit her head on the ground um uh there was one story once that he told about he
brought her to a friend's house and she was doing cocaine on the balcony and she
fell off the balcony and you know fell on her head and died um you know so there's just been all these iterations
of her having some sort of head trauma and so and the block just being the latest of those so you know it's
certainly more likely than not that that was an element in her death because it's
almost like he's prepared like I think most of him believes she'll never be found and he believes he's he's taking
care of it he's so confident in himself classic but I think like part of him is also covering for when she is found like
that's he's like he's keeping that element the same kind of thing so you know like so whenever she was found it
would have that element in it especially if it's like she fell it was an accident
she banged her head if she found and she banged her head he told you it was an accident and at least this one he's
saying he did it but yeah it feels like before it might have been like covering for if she was found that I already said
it was an accident I told you she had her head yeah I haven't thought about it like that but yeah that's probably true
I think now where is she cuz were you a little worried though she would be found
and it's like and if you were a little worried she would be found and possibly found well enough that we could tell she
had head trauma where is she because I don't think she's in the ocean if that's the case it makes you think when you
start to reflect on all the different stories he has told your mind just starts to spin because you got to
believe there's something within each one yeah absolutely I mean that's the key common denominator there then
there's the dad who creeps into a couple of the stories and who so many people still believe was complicit in the death
and in the cover up so you know that that's a whole thing in itself so that's an interesting part
what are your thoughts on that if you if you want to share yeah I mean well it's
interesting he never implicates his father until right after his father's death and suddenly he's saying you know
my dad disposed of the body so which is cold to begin with like yeah you know um
particularly if it's not true it's like your dad just died and now you're gonna you're pinning it on I'm hearing his
name yeah crazy but but I don't know I I mean I I certainly can see a scenario where he was involved but I can't go so
far as to say he definitely was and you know if he if he wasn't then you know I just I feel awful for his family but uh
you know it's and the other thing that's interesting is that this happened when juran's mother was back in the
Netherlands that she wasn't home and so I didn't realize that yeah and so his dad was the only parent around and his
dad interesting literally would take him to casinos and drink with him and gamble
him so I don't think he was like you know he certainly wasn't uh the typical relationship he was he was a a friend
not a parent at that point at least and so certainly it's possible you know as the film shows uh Natalie's brother is
pretty confident that he was involved we spoke to a lawyer on the island we did interview one who was involved in the
case and you know she said without saying that he was involved she definitely seemed very confident in that
and that that made me start to think even more yeah and you do have to wonder somebody else made the point that
Natalie was never found whereas when he killed Stephanie and he didn't have his father and he didn't have any help with
him he just left the her in the room a complete mess there was no forethought of like how can I cover this up there
was no attempt to cover it up he just ran yeah that's the part that gets me yeah whereas with Natalie um you
know we still don't know what happened to her and you do have to wonder was there someone a little smarter a little
more grownup that you know stepped in and helped him cover this up because Stephanie's you know the Stephanie
incident certainly demonstrates that he doesn't really have that capacity himself that's really interesting yeah
as much as as much as the two cases parallel there are are really marked differences in the fact that he just
leaves her and then goes on the run and then also with the way he confesses when
he's caught he tells he does tell a weird story where he was set up and yada yada but you play the clip in your film
of him confessing and he's so matter of fact so nonchalant about it what do you think that was where we got so many
stories with Natalie but with Stephanie it was just he finally caved and said yes I did this and it didn't take
however many years yeah well I think a couple of things he didn't crack until they promised him
they would send him back to Aruba and they basically lied to him to get him to stop
lying so he thought like if I tell them then they'll let me go back to Aruba which is just silly that he could even
think that that would happen but at any rate there's that and then there's the fact that they had her body they had his
shirt that was all bloody that he had left in the room um just so much evidence that he killed her that they
confronted him with and you know what are you going to do at that point yeah yeah you kind of have to own up yeah so
I I don't know I mean I I I wonder if by that point he just felt like he would figure out a way out you know even if he
told them you know Point Blank I did it that he'd find a way right and uh this time he wasn't able to and it's crazy
that like some of the worst most diabolical Killers fall for like the stupidest things like it reminds me of
like BTK with like if I send you this floppy disc can you trace it and they were like no not at all don't worry
about it and he was like cool and immediately that's what catches him it's the same thing it's like you'll send me
back to Aruba if I said I did this and they're like totally and he's like all right here you go like that's all it
takes it's true right it's crazy right well you want to find some solace in the fact that he is in prison that I mean
the sentence is what 28 years is that right I think it was 28 but it was then brought up to 35 because he was
convicted of dealing cocaine in the prison right what you explore that in the film that's a whole story in and of
itself but so you want to find that Solace that he is in prison but you you do kind of touch on the film that the
Peruvian prison system is is a little bit different than what we would expect here in America they get to have
visitors they I mean he got married he had a child while in prison he ended up with another girlfriend did you can you
tell us a little bit about all that yeah Yeah we actually filmed it the first present he was in and you know it's not
a place that you'd want to go like on your honeymoon by any means but um it's uh it's certainly different I mean
there's a lot of rough characters there but they do have kind of a lot of freedom to roam about during the day you
know there were a lot of people there meeting with family and lawyers and stuff and people bringing them things
and they're just sitting at like open air tables almost like you're in a really crappy Starbucks
um and yeah they have they're allowed most prisoners are allowed conjugal visits they're allowed a lot of visitors
and I guess the philosophy is like just keep them calm you know keep them as content as possible so they don't Riot
you know yeah so yeah and then when he came to Alabama to face the charges last year I started to hear that he couldn't
wait to get back to Peru and I believe it you know it's hard to imagine a Peruvian prison being more inviting than
a prison in the United States but you know that seems to have been the case and it's funny we had a sound guy that
worked with us when we did some interviews in Alabama who said his I think it was his
wife's brother or cousin was actually in the same cell block as yuran and would Heckle him all night long every night to
keep him awake that's amazing that's incredible you know so I hope that guy gets paroled early you know but I was
gonna say he's doing a good job there yeah so yeah I mean that he obviously was hated by all the prisoners there
because he's on Natalie's home turf and so he did not enjoy his his time in Alabama by any means oh it's a bum it's
a bummer he couldn't stay there I know I think a lot of people feel that way yeah
yeah well that was the biggest disappointment that came out of this for me when I heard the sentence was running
concurrent which means at the same time it say Peruvian sentence meaning he'll get no additional time it's just
such a disappointment you know um yeah but you know Beth Holloway seems to be at peace with it you know which I guess
in the end is all that matters yeah exactly that's the most important piece she does you see a stark difference
between how Beth feels about it and how Stephanie's father feels about it did you feel that when you were making the
film yeah well he I think he can take some satisfaction and the fact that he's serving time for Stephanie's murder yeah
one thing that was interesting that he told us was that he's taken measures to protect uran in
prison because he doesn't want him to be prematurely killed because he wants that
gave me chills yeah he wants him to serve the sentence and like suffer that's fascinating yeah so and uh he's
very well connected there he actually ran for uh I think some Citywide office in
Lima he he's kind of a famous race car driver um in Peru and uh then he ran this or he still does run this company
that like puts on circuses all over Peru so he's oh wow he he's pretty well connected politically and you know I
think with the police and so he's been able to protect yuron although there was a story that came out within the last
month that yuran got beat up pretty bad oh really yeah yeah do do you know anything about the circumstances around
that I don't but that there was also a story about that right before he came to Alabama uh last year so you know I don't
think he's got a lot of friends in in prison down there as he shouldn't I can't imagine he would
be really great at making friends I think he's good at manipulating people but I think he's among his own kind
there who know what he's doing and know what he's all about yeah yeah absolutely
he's good at making girlfriends though yeah he's very good at that can we talk about that a little bit because that was
a big part of your film that I did not realize one that he was married he got married while in prison he was able to
have a daughter which that's chilling and then also was able to make a girlfriend while he's still married and
he sets her up so do you want to tell us a little bit about that yeah it's just wild that um he you know because they're
allowed visitors in jail some of his cellmates you know would start bringing in like friends of their girlfriends for
him in exchange I'm sure for you know him doing something for them whether it be supplying drugs or money or whatever
but so he starts meeting these girls who come in one of them he he ends up uh marrying and uh you know as you
mentioned he has a daughter with who I'm trying to think how old she is she's probably about nine now I think yeah and
then and she's constantly bringing him things you know so he's getting a lot out of not only the the woman he married
but every girlfriend since um where you know they're constantly bringing stuff in for him and you know so but yeah he's
he's very charming and you know we interviewed the you know the current girlfriend although there's also been a
story that's come out recently that he's got three women now visiting him she's one of them but two other two
others I don't know that the divorce is final but I think it's in process um so yeah and he's just they
they love him like as you see from the girlfriend we interviewed um he gave her a trinket that she showed us she also
brought a painting to the interview that she he had done um you know he sends her
all these letters with hearts and stars she says real charmer you know and just the weirdest thing is that she said you
know she was with him for protection but how is a guy who's behind bars going to
protect you from anything yeah that was rather confusing and as angry as it seemed like she was at him because it
did seem like she was upset about obviously what ultimately ended up happening where he set her up to bring
drugs into the prison it did still seem like she cared for him in showing the trinket and the
keychain that was interesting yeah well what was interesting is that you know she basically said she still loved him
but that she regretted meeting him ever meeting him and it seemed to us when we did the interview that it was over
between them but at that point he was in the states so she may have thought she'd
never see him again and then as soon as he got extra or sent back to Peru uh late last year there was a story in the
Peruvian press that she was again visiting him in prison and now two other women are visiting him as well so I
don't know how she feels about that but uh clearly she didn't cut all ties even though she's now a fugitive because you
know he had her smuggling drugs into the prison and she's a fugitive in Peru right yeah she is so you wonder how
she's even still visiting that's the weird thing you know she she didn't want to tell us uh where she lived she met us
at a certain place in this town and um it was all very hush hush and she said you know she's worried about like if she
gets if she gets uh arrested that what's going to happen to her kids and she's trying to work like under the table to
support them but I didn't get the sense that you know they're knocking down her door like I feel like the proving
authorities have bigger fish to fry and it sounds like that yeah and I I feel like they sort of just stopped trying to
find her um and yeah if she's visiting him in jail again you know you have to wonder how high priority is yeah how
come she's not being arrested or is she going under a different name but you know right I don't know but it's just
weird it's weird and it's it's really scary ultimately how he can manipulate people and the fact that he's going to
be like late 50s early 60s when he gets out of prison it's it's scary to think that everything that happened to Natalie
everything that happened to Stephanie could happen again yeah yeah and Beth Holloway even said before anything
happened to like I want this guy to be arrested apprehended because this is going to happen again she she she knew
what she was talking about yeah although you do wonder if like he gets to that last year or so in prison and
Stephanie's father calls off the security you know that's kind of what fingers crossed on that one because I
could see that happening you know where he just stops protecting him so that that's what I was hoping would happen
yeah I guess we'll have to wait and see but uh yeah so he'll be I think 56 or 57
when he gets out and you know somebody like him a leopard like him doesn't change a spots so he's not going to come
out a reformed man an upstanding citizen no you can see he's doing the same stuff
in prison everything we were just talking about is what he would do on the streets yeah and it's unfortunately
working for him in prison as well to a certain extent so he's not being shown any kind of you know consequences for
his actions yeah still luring women in he's still getting things y like he's not it's not it's not on a good path so
far I wonder if that would have differed had he served prison time in the states
quite possibly it wouldn't have been you know a picnic like it seems to be down there no not not at all is there
anything that we haven't touched on that you wanted to touch on talking about your film well you know you know one
thing that struck me is just how raw it all still is maybe it's partly because of the confession that just came out and
the fact that everything was back in the headlines but uh we interviewed as you know you saw in the film Natalie's best
friend Claire Natalie's Brother people even you know that knew Stephanie and all these
years later it just does not get any easier you know it's just clear that these folks were traumatized for life
and um it's just so sad that one person could do that to so many people like you
said it F so many different people yeah it just really there were some hard interviews
you know it was just really emotional and sad and it's too bad that these things happen but um I think it's
important to tell the stories to particularly to like younger women who didn't grow up with the Natalie story
that you know aren't aware of it that are going out all the time and absolutely they need to be careful you
know that these guys are out there absolutely it's it's a cautionary Tale on its own right really is yeah yeah so
I mean that's what I took from it uran is not the only urine no absolutely not unfortunately so we have to always be on
our guard absolutely you know and last question wrapping things up here what is the main thing that you want people to
feel or reflect on after they finish the documentary well I hope it was a worthy
tribute to the two girls that died and to their families and everything they've been through and as you say you know a
cautionary tale uh we can prevent things like this from happening in the future just by being more aware of um
psychopathy and Psychopaths and how they operate and uh yeah so I mean that's kind of it it's uh you know it's just
it's just one of those stories that you know when I first got into it I didn't realize how many layers there were to it
but yeah a really compelling story to tell but it takes a lot out of you so that's part of why I don't do True Crime
all the time is because you know I well you know I think some folks can well you
guys have a podcast about it right so you're you're able to kind of live with it all the time I I time hard it's hard
we even we do True Crime and paranormal and sometimes after a couple of cases like this we have to break and go to
something paranormal because it's it it affects you a lot less you yeah we'll break into like some you know haunted
hotel or we'll talk about like some like weird history or something like that just to kind of cuz it does it like sits
with you and it starts leeching into other parts of your life and you're like okay to take a minute did you do
anything after this to kind of self-care after going through all of that um I jumped right onto another project
actually sort of simultaneous to this actually which is not true crime but it's about survivors of hurricane Ian in
Florida oh interesting and uh well not everyone survives so there's some tragedy to it but there's also some hope
and some strength and you know really good people that you know I got to meet and interview so was in some ways
therapeutic I guess I could definitely see that when's that going to be coming out yeah uh you know it's interesting
I'm not sure it it was supposed to be on this month but now uh it's actually been
so well received internally that they may hold it back until and do a series and make this the first episode of a
series in which case it may not air till next year so oh that's great that's awesome though congratulations yeah yeah
that's I'm not sure about it yet but yeah it really turned out well and it was a good way to step away from the
Dark World of yuran vandero something that well in some ways is equally dark but in a different way right but it was
caused by Mother Nature not by a psychopath so yeah little bit different yeah yeah so um but yeah this
has been a fun conversation so thanks for having me highlighting the the film and hope everybody gets to see it on
peacock absolutely 100% and like you said you wanted it to be a tribute to the families I think you did a great job
I I really enjoyed it yeah I think it was awesome and I think you did a really good job showing both stories like you
said you wanted to so hats off to you yeah thanks thanks and it was great to was great to have their participation
you know their kind of blessing so that meant a lot definitely I can only imagine thank you so much for talking
with us yeah thank you so much was really great and everybody go check out pathological the lies of yuran Vanderloo
you are in for a wild ride if you haven't seen it do it yeah that's that's for sure yeah all right well thanks
appreciate it it's fun thank you guys that was amazing that went so well I always get so nervous before interviews
I know I do too especially like you and I will usually switch off like who's going to take lead on it and when it's
one of our turn to take lead where the other one is like you got this you're like Barbara Walters you're Barbara
Walters I like to I like to now think of myself as Alex Cooper I like that oh there you go she's become the gold
standard she's this generation's Babs yeah it Cooper forever shout out to her you you were amazing thank you you did
really well I just got to give it to you thanks you were just ash can think on her feet when it comes to interview
questions I had to hats off I I had written down some questions in prep like a lot and then we just ended up going
through a lot of them and I was like [ __ ] I have I have a lot more to to come up with on the fly but it it worked out
and he was so great at giving us a lot of information and a lot to like continue to build that's the thing when
you have a good guest it's like it's so easy to cuz then you have more questions
organically you're just like wait a second you're interesting I want to ask you more exactly thank you Chris yeah
thank you to Chris casselle CU you ruled you ruled and everybody go check out peacock's pathological the lies of your
inv Vander salute do it and we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it but not so weird that you don't go
check out that documentary because you'd be a silly fool if you didn't don't have
silly goose behavior and not do that come on [Music]

We are joined by Christopher Cassel, Director of 'Pathological: The Lies of Joran Van Der Sloot', We discuss his documentary which dives deep into the crimes of the Van Der Sloot, and the countless people his actions have negatively impacted.

Want to see the documentary? Stream it now on Peacock!

Connect with Wondery http://wondery.com/shows http://facebook.com/WonderyMedia http://twitter.com/WonderyMedia http://instagram.com/WonderyMedia

Brief Summary

Director Christopher Casselle discusses his documentary on Joran Vander Sloot, exploring the Natalie Holloway and Stephanie Flores cases.

Key points

Special Edition of Morbid. Ash and Elena introduce a special episode featuring director Christopher Casselle.
Documentary Insights. Christopher Casselle discusses his documentary on the Natalie Holloway case and its connections.
Dark Connections. The shocking revelation that extortion led to another murder.
The Reluctance to Speak. In Aruba, many fear repercussions for discussing the case, revealing a culture of silence.
A Mother's Pain. Juran's mother struggles with the reality of her son's conviction and her evolving feelings.
Confessions and Cover-Ups. Juran's conflicting stories raise questions about the truth behind his actions.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's crazy how long it worked for him!

Commenting on the subject's manipulation of the situation

5:36WatchMay 13, 2024

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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