A Joran van der Sloot confession may close one murder case while raising more questions in another.
The Dutchman, long the prime suspect in U.S. teen Natalee Holloway's 2005 disappearance in Aruba, confessed to killing a different young woman in his Lima hotel room last week, a police spokesman says.
Police Col. Abel Gamarra, head of the Information Directorate of Police, told The Associated Press late Monday that Van der Sloot admitted under questioning by police that he killed 21-year-old Stephany Flores. (Scroll down for a timeline of recent events.)
Gamarra said the case will be turned over to prosecutors who will present formal charges against Van der Sloot. The National Prison Institute will determine which prison he will be held in while awaiting trial.
Police planned to take Van der Sloot to the hotel on Tuesday to participate in a reconstruction of the events leading to Flores' slaying, Gamarra said.
Gamarra did not provide further details about the confession.
NBC reports a chilling account of the van der Sloot confession from a local paper:
According to La Republica newspaper, van der Sloot said he broke Stephany Flores' neck after she grabbed his laptop without his permission and found out that he was involved in the disappearance of an American woman.
The paper quoted van der Sloot as saying, "I did not want to do it. The girl intruded into my private life... she didn't have any right.
"I went to her and I hit her. She was scared, we argued and she tried to escape. I grabbed her by the neck and hit her."
A TIMELINE OF RECENT EVENTS:
A Peruvian television station, Channel 4, also said it had obtained details about Van der Sloot's confession in which he reportedly told police that he killed Flores because he got angry when he found out that she had looked up information about his past on his laptop.
Flores, a university student studying business administration, was found beaten to death in the hotel room where the Dutchman had stayed while participating in a poker tournament. Flores is thought to have met Van der Sloot at the casino.
She was last seen alive on a hotel video the night of May 30 entering Van der Sloot's room. The Dutchman is seen on the video leaving the room several hours later with his baggage and walking out of the hotel.
Police said he took a bus to Chile, where he was captured several days later and returned to Peru.
Van der Sloot has long been considered the main suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Alabama teenager Holloway on the Caribbean resort island of Aruba. He was arrested twice, but freed both times for lack of evidence.