Stephany Flores

Peruvian homicide victim, beaten and murdered by Dutchman Joran van der Sloot on 30 May 2010 at the Hotel TAC in the Miraflores District of Lima, Peru. On 2 June, a hotel employee found her beaten body in room 309, which had been registered in Van der Sloots name. He had departed from the hotel without returning the room key and left the television running. A tennis racquet, identified by the coroner as a possible homicide weapon, was recovered from the room. A hotel guest and an employee came forward to say they saw van der Sloot and the victim entering the hotel room together, and the police obtained video of the two playing cards at the same table the night before at the Atlantic City Casino in Lima. Van der Sloot had entered Peru via Colombia on 14 May 2010 to attend the Latin American Poker Tour. Flores was a business student who was less than a year from graduation at the University of Lima. She was the daughter of Ricardo Flores, a former president of the Peruvian Automobile Club and winner of the "Caminos del Inca" rally in 1991. A prominent businessman and entertainment organizer, he ran for vice president in 2001 and for president five years later on fringe tickets. Ricardo Flores said that police found date rape drugs in his daughters car, parked about fifty blocks from the hotel where she died. Her jewelry, money, identification and credit cards were missing, including about $1,000 her father had given her to purchase a laptop, and over $10,000 she had won earlier at the casino. Flores reportedly kept this money in her car, but a police search found no money in it. After Flores family reported her missing, police retrieved the hotel surveillance tape and obtained Van der Sloots name and national identification number. Her brothers wife discovered Van der Sloots background in a Google search about an hour before her body was found. On 3 June, van der Sloot was arrested near Curacaví in Chile. He was found with a laptop, foreign currency, a business card case, detailed charts of ocean currents around Lima, and bloody clothes. He told Chilean police that unidentified armed robbers hid in the hotel room and killed Flores when she disobeyed their order to be quiet. Van der Sloots Dutch attorney claimed that his client was on his way to Santiago to turn himself in. He was subsequently expelled and transported by Chilean police back to Arica and handed over to Peruvian authorities at the Chacalluta border crossing on 4 June. An autopsy ruled that Flores did not have sexual intercourse before her death, and that she was not under the influence of enough alcohol to prevent her from resisting an attack. She suffered blunt-force trauma to her head, which caused a brain hemorrhage, cranial fracture, and broken neck. She also suffered significant injuries to her face and showed signs of asphyxiation, according to court documents. Flores tested positive for the presence of amphetamines. The lab report does not indicate whether the victim took the drugs willingly or unknowingly. On 11 June 2010, Lima Superior Court Judge Juan Buendia ordered van der Sloot held on charges of first-degree murder and robbery, determining that he acted with "ferocity and great cruelty". Under Peruvian law, van der Sloot was not eligible to be released on bail, and would be tried by a panel of three judges rather than a jury. A simple majority of the three was required for conviction. On 11 January 2012, van der Sloot pleaded guilty to the "qualified murder" an Read less