Joran van der Sloot: A Serial Killer?

by Pat Brown

Now that Joran van der Sloot is back in the headlines, returned to Peru after his infamous run to Chile to avoid arrest in the murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores Ramirez, speculation is spreading that van der Sloot is a serial killer. Although never convicted in the murder of Natalee Holloway, who went missing in Aruba in 2005, we all know she was murdered even though she is still just officially missing. Now that Joran is in a Peruvian jail, suspected in the brutal bludgeoning death of Stephanie, he is being called a serial killer. People are starting to wonder if he has a string of bodies around the world, everywhere he's traveled in the last five years -- murders he has never been linked to.

But van der Sloot is no serial killer. He may have killed more than once, but that doesn't make him a serial killer - a serial date rapist, but not a serial killer. He doesn't fit the FBI definition of serial killer, nor mine. He doesn't exhibit serial killer behaviors.

The FBI definition requires the killer to commit three murders, each separated from the others by a cooling off period.

My definition requires only one known sexual homicide of a stranger (or at least not an intimate partner or close friend), because I know that just like potato chips, he can't have just one. A person who crosses the line to plan, rape, and murder a complete stranger likes the thrill so much he will do it again. We may have linked a suspect to one killing of a stranger, but that doesn't mean he hasn't done it before or won't do it again. To be entirely accurate, I call these "suspected" serial killers, but I know in reality they're serial killers at heart. Once we have a string of homicides (and then they don't have to be sexual to be the work of a serial killer but most are) that have down time in between them (so as to distinguish them from mass murderers and spree killers), we can be pretty sure we have a serial killer out there.

The second issue is behavior. A serial killer plans his crimes. He decides to kill, usually when his life is on a downturn - his girlfriend dumped him, he lost his job, or his mother died. Feeling more of a failure than usual, he imagines that if he grabs some unsuspecting, innocent human being, humiliates and brutalizes her, and takes her life away, he'll feel in that moment like a god, a superhero, someone with control over life and death -- and who can show society that he has such power. He takes the prize -- someone dearly loved, someone society thinks is better than him. His shining moment: When he sees the terror in his victim's eyes and watches the life drain out of her.

He basks in the glory of that act for days or weeks. He laughs as police search desperately for a killer-ghost. Feeling better about himself, he gets on with normal life. Weeks, months or years later, his ego severely bruised again, he repeats his crime and, once more, gets his vile fix.

A serial killer wants to get away with his crime so he can do it again and again. In almost every case, the serial offender picks a stranger and abducts or attacks her when no one is looking. His plan is to kill horribly, violently. Rape isn't always part of every serial killer's crime, but is often an added amusement, since it's one of the most degrading acts a victim can suffer. Rape for the serial killer is fun, foreplay to murder.

That's not the modus operandi of Joran van der Sloot. This arrogant psychopath's plan to obtain power and control is through sex, and if the woman doesn't cooperate, through rape. He targets women in public places, uses his own name, woos them, and plies them with liquor or drugs (sometimes likely without their full knowledge). When they exit the public venue, he is the person known to be in the woman's company. Most likely, he gets the woman to have sex with him without force. At times, the woman is probably too out of it to resist him; when the sex is over, she goes home and doesn't report it. Why? She knows there will be no evidence of rape to prove she was violated without her consent.

And then we have Natalee and (at right) Stephanie. What happened to these women? Joran van der Sloot did not premeditate their murders, or he wouldn't have been so stupid as to be the last person seen with them. Furthermore, with Stephany, he wouldn't have taken her back to his own hotel room and killed her there, since his real name was on the register. He would at least taken her to another isolated public area, as he did Natalie, if his intention was murder. No, Joran "only" planned to have sex with the girl, one way or the other.

So what went wrong? Apparently, neither Natalee nor Stephany wanted to have sex with Joran, and neither girl was so inebriated or drugged that he could easily take advantage of her. Natalee was able to walk onto the beach, and Stephany was able to walk into Joran's hotel room without his support. They may have been somewhat drunk or drugged, but not nearly enough that they couldn't put up a fight. Natalee was likely smothered in the sand during sex, and Stephanie didn't even take her clothes off before Joran went ape on her.

Along with being a serial date rapist, Joran van der Sloot also exhibits the kind of rage we usually see in domestic homicides. When a woman finally stands up to her husband or boyfriend and says she is not taking it any more or leaving him, he becomes enraged. She dares deny him his "rights" and his loss of power and control over his woman! That drives him mad. He'll be damned if she'll treat him that way, insult his manhood, mock him in the eyes of society. If he can't control her, he'll kill her. He will end the relationship, not her, in his own way and his own time.

Joran van der Sloot behaves this same way with his "women" even if their relationship lasts just the evening. She'll do as he says or else. Most of the women he leaves with to have sex with don't end up dead, simply because they were willing or weren't fighting. But sometimes, he gets unlucky, and then so do the women like Natalee and Stephanie.

Joran got away with the murder of Natalee Holloway (left). But this time, he screwed up so badly, I doubt he'll manage to avoid a long tenure in a Peruvian jail. Thank God for stupidity and hotel surveillance cameras. Joran's serial date-raping life will finally come to an end. No more women will have to die because they "just said no" to a piece of garbage like him.