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Slain woman’s kin ‘shocked’ about van der Sloot
Cousin of victim says he had just been discussing Natalee Holloway suspect

SNIPPET

daughter of Ricardo Flores, a prominent Peruvian businessman, race-car driver and one-time presidential candidate, and as such would be a candidate to be kidnapped for ransom.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/37485355/ns/today-today_people/

'Only a month ago, a friend of Rafael Vertiz told him about a Dutch man suspected in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway. Now the same man, Joran van der Sloot, is being sought in the vicious murder of Vertiz’s 21-year-old cousin, Stephany Flores, in Peru.
Vertiz had just learned of his cousin’s death on Wednesday, when police in Peru discovered her battered body in a Lima hotel room registered to van der Sloot. Still in shock over the murder and the eerie coincidence of van der Sloot’s suspected involvement, he spoke via satellite to TODAY’s Meredith Vieira from Miami Thursday.
Vertiz told Vieira that when relatives called to tell him about Stephany, he immediately called the friend who had told him about seeing a TV report about van der Sloot. “I called her and I told her. I was shocked. It was unbelievable that this was happening to our family, the same person,” Vertiz said.'

That is such an odd thing to have had happen, since Van der Sloot showed up in Peru about a month ago for a Poker tournament.

The cousin said his friend had just watched a television special of some sort that featured the Holloway/Van der Sloot story. I wonder if the friend was in Peru, or here in the U.S.?