Police: Van der Sloot Took Coffee Break by Corpse

(June 10) -- Joran van der Sloot has reportedly confessed to police in Peru that he enjoyed a cocktail of coffee and drugs in the minutes following a young Peruvian woman's slaying.

Police say the 22-year-old Dutchman told them he not only took time out for a coffee break but also sat next to her bludgeoned corpse munching on biscuits while contemplating how to dispose of her body.

"I was going to use one of my suitcases to take her out of the hotel, but I didn't do it because I was afraid someone [would] stop me carrying my luggage without paying," van der Sloot allegedly told police, according to the Peruvian paper La Republica.

All this after police say van der Sloot broke Stephany Flores' neck in a fit of rage after she allegedly used his laptop to find out about his involvement in the case of Natalee Holloway, an 18-year-old Alabama woman who vanished in Aruba in May 2005.

"I did not want to do it," van der Sloot allegedly said about the attack. "The girl intruded into my private life. She had no 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 I hit her."

Authorities say van der Sloot claims he was high on marijuana at the time of the murder. They also believe, according to the New York Daily News, that van der Sloot had thought about tossing Flores' body into the ocean. Police reportedly found maps charting currents in his backpack.

Police say that with the deed done and the realization that he could not hide Flores' body, van der Sloot showered, changed his clothes and grabbed a few belongings before fleeing the scene. Flores was found dead in van der Sloot's Lima, Peru, hotel room three days later, on June 2, setting off a police manhunt that ended with his arrest in Chile the following day.

Van der Sloot was in police custody less than a week before his alleged confession. Police in Peru plan to ask prosecutors today to formally bring murder charges against him, CBS News reports.

Meanwhile, the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant has quoted van der Sloot's lawyer in the Netherlands as saying his confession was "possibly fake" and may have been coerced.

"Joran told his mother crying Monday that he was being interrogated under reasonably barbaric conditions," the paper quoted Bert de Rooij as saying. "He said the police were trying to force him to confess."

In a second interview with CBS News, de Rooij said van der Sloot also told his mother that he was being interrogated in a "very rude way" and that he thought the Peruvian authorities were "aiming at a coerced confession."

Peruvian officials have since insisted that van der Sloot is being treated well. Nonetheless, his lawyers are attempting to have his confession thrown out, saying his legal counsel was not present at the time of his interrogation.

A criminal justice consultant told AOL News he would be shocked if the bid to toss out the confession succeeded.

"They have a tendency to do things different over there and could have used extraordinary means, but the burden of proof is pretty much on the defendant," said Gregory D. Lee, a nationally syndicated columnist and retired supervisory special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Lee also said that while it is possible van der Sloot's confession was coerced, he believes the Dutchman is attempting to get sympathy.

"Of course he is going to say that [he was coerced] no matter if he was or wasn't," Lee said. "I think he's trying to elicit sympathy. Think about it: You got the media looking at him to see the physical condition of the guy moments after his arrest and after his initial interrogation. He looked fine, and that goes a long way in thwarting any notion that he got coerced or beat up."

Meanwhile, there has been speculation that Holloway's mother, Beth Holloway, provided the funds used in an alleged van der Sloot extortion plot, but AOL News has been unable to verify those reports. Peggy Sanford, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Birmingham, Ala., said she was "prohibited from making any comment" on the source of the funds.

Also, recent reports have suggested that police are looking into van der Sloot in connection with the disappearance of two women in Colombia, but on Wednesday officials there told Fox News they have ruled him out as a potential person of interest in those cases.