Joran Van der Sloot is up to his old tricks again…not that he ever stopped. For 5 long years he has told his tall tales, allegedly lying to Aruban police in 2005 when arrested and interrogated in the disappearance of American teen Natalee Holloway during her high school trip in Aruba. Police back then couldn’t pin down Van der Sloot, who told multiple conflicting stories.

Joran van der Sloot

Then when he was finally released from custody and charges were dropped, the Dutch playboy then merrily went along his way to university in Holland, hoping to shake the bad taste of an investigation that would haunt him for the next 5 years. Rather than succeeding in school, straightening out his life and being grateful for narrowly missing a conviction for murder, Van der Sloot continued his old habits – partying, drinking, smoking marijuana, gambling, dropping out of school – until he was caught by surprise in an undercover taped interview telling yet another version of what happened the night Natalee Holloway vanished.

This time he confesses to friend that she died in front of him on the beach after a series of inexplicable convulsions, and then he and an accomplice disposed of her body in the ocean. Surprise, just days later, when the tape became public, Van der Sloot retracts his confession. Nearly two years after the undercover video, Van der Sloot voluntarily submits to a polygraph test and taped interrogation, where he tells the tale of Holloway falling off a balcony of a friend’s house after a night of cocaine-driven partying. He claims she fell to her death by accident and he and a friend disposed of her body in a swamp.

Then there is the tragic and unexpected death of his father, a character long alleged to be Joran Van der Sloot’s “accomplice after the fact.” His sudden heart attack on a tennis court in Aruba devastated young Joran Van der Sloot, according to his mother Anita, who now after weeks of silence, speaks out to a Dutch newspaper. She describes a troubled son, who blamed himself for the death of his father and who was spiraling out of control. She also claims that her son’s mental health issues caused her to commit her son to a mental clinic, but that Joran ran off to Peru just two days before he was to be taken to the mental clinic.

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Gymnast, 15, missing after ride with brother's friend

New York (CNN) – Kayla Berg was thrilled to return last August to Antigo, Wisconsin, where she looked forward to competing on the high school gymnastics team.

Her mother, Hope Sprenger, said she agreed to move Kayla, 15, and her older brother, Jimmy, back to the small town where they were raised. They had moved three months earlier to Texas, but Kayla and her brother were homesick.

Kayla Berg / Photo Credit: Hope Sprenger

"We were going to try and start a new life," Sprenger said, "but Kayla missed her friends. She was very upset that they didn't have gymnastics team at the high school in Texas."

The return home also meant Kayla and her brother would spend time with their father and grandparents, who lived five miles away.

"We left it pretty open," Sprenger said about the living arrangement that allowed Kayla and Jimmy to stay with either parent. "They could ride bikes, or we'd take them back and forth."

Sometimes Kayla walked, or ran, between her parent's homes to get in shape for gymnastics.

A few weeks were left of summer break, and Kayla was making it a point to catch up with friends. With her 16th birthday still a couple of weeks away and no driver's license, she accepted a ride to the Antigo McDonald's, where her best friend worked.

"She had called me that afternoon, on August 11, around 1 or 2 and said she was going to hang around at her dad's," Sprenger said. "She said, 'I love you,' and I said, 'Love you back.' “Mother and daughter agreed to talk later. They never did.

"All I know is something's wrong," Sprenger said, adding that she's 100 percent certain Kayla would never run away.

Sprenger and police have spent the past 10 months retracing Kayla's movements on the night of August 11.

One of her brother's friends picked Kayla up at her father's house at about 8:30 p.m. The two arrived at McDonald's half an hour later. Kayla ran inside, talked briefly with her friend, and then left. She had told her friend she planned to ride around in the car for a while.

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