Just as Beth Holloway Twitty was speaking at the newly-opened Natalee Holloway Resource Center, Peruvian authorities were reporting that Joran van der Sloot had confessed to the killing of Stephany Flores Ramirez. INSIDE EDITION has the latest.
"I know what it's like to have a child go missing..." Beth Holloway Twitty told reporters.
They are heartbreaking words from the mother of missing student Natalee Holloway, who spoke out for the first time since the arrest of murder suspect Joran van der Sloot, who has reportedly confessed to killing a young woman in Lima, Peru.
"Thank you for being here; it's been a stressful time for me," she continued.
Beth spoke at the newly-opened Natalee Holloway Resource Center in Washington, D.C. just as word was emerging that van der Sloot had confessed he murdered 21-year-old Stephany Flores Ramirez in his hotel room.
Van der Sloot allegedly told police it happened when he found her reading articles about him on the internet.
"I did not want to do it. The girl intruded into my private life. She had no right. I confronted her. She was frightened. We argued and she wanted to get away. I grabbed her by the neck and I hit her," authorities quote him as saying.
Ramirez was killed five years to the day Holloway was reported missing.
Van der Sloot has long been the main suspect in the disappearance of Holloway, who vanished on a high school trip to Aruba in 2005.
"When Natalee went missing in May of 2005, my family desperately needed contact information and law enforcement information," she explained.
Beth would not discuss the case, but she did express sympathy for Ramirez's family: "Let's all remind ourselves to keep the Flores family in our hearts and in our prayers," she said.
