Eighteen years after an Alabama teenager’s disappearance at Aruba gripped the nation, the prime suspect in the case has finally admitted to the killing.

Joran van der Sloot, who has long maintained his innocence in the 2005 disappearance, confessed to killing Natalee Holloway, a U.S. federal judge said on Wednesday. 

“I have considered your confession to the brutal murder of Natalee Holloway,” Judge Anna Manasco said. “You have brutally murdered in separate incidents years apart two beautiful women who refused your sexual advances,” she added.

The confession is stirring conversation — and hope — that the killer will finally divulge more details about Holloway’s disappearance and murder, as well as the location of her remains, information Holloway’s family has been seeking for nearly two decades. 

The 36-year-old Dutch national is serving a 28-year sentence in Peru for a separate murder, of 21-year-old Stephany Flores, five years after Holloway disappeared. 

Van der Sloot was extradited to America earlier this year to face extortion charges related to the Holloway case, as the Sun has reported. 

Van der Sloot has not been charged with Holloway’s death but was sentenced Wednesday to 20 years in prison for extortion. He was accused of trying to sell false location information about the remains of Holloway for thousands of dollars to the victim’s mother, Beth Holloway. He will serve the extortion sentence concurrently with his Peru sentence, the Associated Press reports. 

Holloway was 18 years old when she went missing on a trip with classmates to Aruba, where was last seen exiting a bar with van der Sloot. The case quickly received wall-to-wall cable coverage and was a subject of national fascination. 

“After 18 years, Natalee’s case has been solved,” Holloway’s mother said Wednesday. “You changed the course of our lives and you turned them upside down,” Ms. Holloway said while standing near van der Sloot. “You are a killer.”