By REBECCA MOWLING and DAVID WRIGHT
The prime suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway has been playing a cat-and-mouse game with his interrogators to the point where they have labeled him a psychopath, The National Enquirer has learned exclusively.
Cops who have interviewed Joran van der Sloot — the last person to see 18-year-old honor student Natalee — say he has enjoyed teasing them.
And 17-year-old Joran’s arrogance could only have been boosted by the sudden release on June 26 of his lawyer father, who was held for 48 hours as a suspect in what prosecutors have chillingly labeled Natalee’s “premeditated murder.”
Our investigation in Aruba reveals that after more than two weeks behind bars, the 6ft 5in schoolboy tennis star steadfastly refused to cooperate.
“Police regard him as a very cold and calculating young man,” revealed a source close to the case.
“During the first two weeks of interrogation, just when cops thought they were near a breakthrough, Joran baited them. He would suddenly tell them he was willing to talk about what really happened that night — if they gave him an hour’s break from questioning.
“So they would agree — and when they resumed he told them he wouldn’t speak without his lawyer present.”
Prosecutors had hoped that the arrest of his father, Paul van der Sloot, a former acting head of the government legal department, would shake girl-chasing Joran into a confession. “Police believed the father organized the alibi for Joran and the other suspects — telling them to say they dropped off Natalee safely at her hotel,” said the close source.
“Their story appeared so well-rehearsed — with everyone giving the same version of events — that police concluded they were coached by someone with expert legal knowledge.”
But the tactic of jailing Joran’s father didn’t work. “Joran was playing with investigators even when his father was detained,” revealed the close source. “He remained just as arrogant.”
The case against Joran and two others centers on a flurry of cell phone calls and text messages in the early morning hours after the popular teenager vanished.
Phone records from that time connect Joran with Deepak and Satish Kalpoe — brothers who have also been jailed in connection with Natalee’s disappearance.
We learned that police established this telling timeline of what may have been Natalee’s final hours:
On the evening of May 29, Joran and his father were playing poker in the casino at the Holiday Inn where Natalee and her graduation classmates were staying. Paul left at 8 p.m. but three hours later picked up his son from a McDonald’s to give him a ride home. By about 11:30 p.m. Joran called his pal Deepak because he wanted to go out again.
“Joran said he needed a lift,” said Deepak’s mother Nadira Ramirez.
By midnight Satish drove to pick up Joran, who had sneaked out of his home. Then Joran, Satish and Deepak drove to Carlos ‘n’ Charlie’s where Natalee was enjoying her final night in Aruba with her classmates. Natalee’s worried friends watched as she danced with Joran and left with him and the Kalpoe boys around 1 a.m.
They said she behaved strangely. As we reported exclusively last week, Aruban police believe that somebody slipped Natalee the drug Ecstasy while inside Carlos ‘n’ Charlie’s. They suspect she died of an overdose on a dark beach and was dumped at sea by one of the boys.
We can reveal Joran has changed his story three times since that night.
First he told police that he and the Kalpoe boys dropped off Natalee at the Holiday Inn. Then he claimed 21-year-old Deepak and 18-year-old Satish dropped him off at home before they drove off with Natalee.
Finally Joran admitted to his mother that he and Natalee had been dropped off together at a beach near the Marriott hotel.
“Mom — I walked with her,” Joran told his mother, middle school art teacher Anita van der Sloot. “I left her there because she wanted to stay there. I left and I don’t know what happened.”
An insider said: “The Kalpoe boys told police they drove to a beach by the lighthouse where Joran and Natalee kissed in the back seat.”
Then the boys claimed they dropped Joran and Natalee off at the Marriott beach, the insider said.
“Investigators have tried every tactic they know of to crack him,” said another source.
