Blonde who stabbed man who 'cremated' Natalee Holloway is revealed
This is the brave Florida mom who evaded abduction by stabbing to death the man who notoriously claimed to have cremated Natalee Holloway's remains.
John Christopher Ludwick died Wednesday after 23-year-old Emily Heistand wrestled a knife from him and plunged it into his abdomen during a struggle on her driveway.
The 32-year-old staggered off but was found collapsed in the street a few blocks away and airlifted to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Cops in North Port, Florida have declined to charge Heistand saying she 'fought for her life' after Ludwick donned a black mask and hoodie and ambushed her as she got out of her car at around 6.45am.
DailyMail.com has been told the pair were previously lovers but the petite mother-of-one reunited with her ex-boyfriend in February and told Ludwick it was over.
Brave: Emily Heistand, 23, fatally stabbed John Christopher Ludwick in the abdomen after he ambushed her and tried to kidnap her on her driveway on Wednesday morning
Ludwick, 32, was a former friend of Joran Van der Sloot - a prime suspect in the Natalee Holloway case. He had previously claimed that Van der Sloot told him where the missing teen was buried and paid him $1,500 to cremate the remains
Crime scene: Ludwick attempted the kidnap of Emily Heistand on the driveway of her home
In a further twist, we can also reveal that when their relationship soured, Heistand acted as an unofficial 'informant', passing on 'secrets' that later featured in a controversial TV investigation into the Holloway case.
Ludwick was a former friend of Joran Van der Sloot, prime suspect in the Alabama teen's 2005 disappearance on a high school graduation trip to Aruba.
He claimed in a TV documentary that Van der Sloot told him five years later where she was buried and paid him $1,500 to dig her up and cremate the remains.
'The idea was to crush everything to the point where it wasn't recognizable as her bones or skull or anything like that,' he told The Disappearance of Natalee Holloway, which aired last fall.
Bone fragments were found at the spot where Ludwick said the gruesome disposal took place however forensic analysis showed they didn't belong to 18-year-old Holloway.
Neither he nor Van der Sloot - currently languishing in a Peruvian jail for the 2010 murder of another woman - have ever been charged.
The Oxygen network mini-series was centered on a new investigation carried out by Holloway's father, Dave, and his private investigator, TJ Ward, who learned about Ludwick's claims via a former roommate.
Gabriel Madrigal, Ludwick's ex-roommate, gathered leads and videotaped Ludwick's apparent confessions when the two men lived together from November 2016 to July of 2017.
In the wake of Ludwick's shock death, he told DailyMail.com that Heistand was a frequent overnight guest.
Madrigal said the woman remained friendly with Ludwick despite hearing about his apparent involvement in the Holloway case but decided to get back with her previous boyfriend after his release from prison in February.
Vanished: Natalee Holloway was on a high school graduation trip to Aruba when she disappeared after an evening at a nightclub in May 2005. Her body was never recovered
The 18-year-old's disappearance sparked international media attention
'John said if you go back to him I'm going to kill you b***h,' Madrigal told DailyMail.com. 'But John is someone who barks and barks. He usually does absolutely nothing.'
In a video interview Madrigal recorded last year, he asked Heistand, who has a young daughter, why she chose to remain friends with Ludwick.
'Until he gets in trouble it's not real,' she says in the footage. 'Dude, he tells me a different story every time. I don't know what to believe.
'I feel like if it really happened he'd be in trouble. When he gets charged I'll be like, my dog killed somebody.'
Asked whether she was worried Ludwick may try to kill her, she laughed and replied: 'He doesn't have the balls to kill me, little John. I think John's a good person he just did some stupid s**t.'
Heistand can then be seen climbing into a white car with Ludwick, whose rap sheet includes convictions for possessing marijuana and controlled substances.
However in a subsequent video she appears to have changed her tune, saying: 'I think what he did is disturbing and he's like obsessed with me and it's gross.'
She then explains that she's been taking advantage of the fact Ludwick is 'in love' with her to procure information for Madrigal that would later be featured in the documentary.
'He just tells me he has a big secret. He wants to be in a relationship with me,' Heistand says.
'I made him feel comfortable with me like I want to be with him. He has a big secret that could solve everything.'
Mother-of-one Heistand previously dated Ludwick and served as an unofficial informant passing on secrets about the unsolved murder that she had learned from him. Above she is pictured during an interview in 2017
Gabriel Madrigal, Ludwick's ex-roommate, gathered leads and videotaped Ludwick's apparent confessions when the two men lived together from November 2016 to July of 2017
Acting on Madrigal's information, TJ Ward located what appeared to be human bones in Aruba sparking hopes of a major breakthrough.
However DNA testing concluded that only one of the fragments was human and it did not belong to Holloway.
Her mother Beth Holloway subsequently sued the network, alleging the six-part series was a 'farce' that gave her false hope her daughter's remains had been discovered and caused her unnecessary suffering.
The North Port Police Department said this week it had reached out to investigators in charge of the 13-year-old Holloway case.
'We are aware of Mr Ludwick's history and comments surrounding the disappearance of Natalee Ann Holloway in Aruba during May of 2005,' a statement said.
'The correct authorities who are working that case have been notified.'
A police report obtained by DailyMail.com reveals that Heistand had pulled into her driveway early Wednesday when a man in a dark hoodie and mask ran towards her and pushed her back into the driver's seat.
In spite of the disguise she immediately recognized Ludwick, who pressed a knife to her throat and tried to stuff a cloth into her mouth.
RELATED ARTICLES
Man who claims he burned and disposed of missing Natalee... 
Schizophrenic ex-boyfriend was rejected while trying to...
Killer known as the 'stocking strangler' who raped and...
Share this article
ShareAs he tried to push her towards the passenger's side and start the car, Heistand - whose name is redacted in the document - fought back and grabbed the knife in her right hand.
She scrambled out of the car and when 5ft 11in Ludwick tried to pull her back she 'swung her right hand backwards'.
Heistand raced inside and dialed 911 before telling police she feared she had stabbed or cut her attacker because there was blood on the knife.
Van der Sloot was arrested multiple times in connection to the murder of Natalee Holloway but has never been charged
An eyewitness interviewed by DailyMail.com confirmed the young mom's account, saying she was walking her dog and heard screaming coming from Heistand's rented home on the grounds of a church.
The witness said she saw a man in black with his arms around a blonde woman who was screaming in terror and trying to flee.
'She was absolutely acting in self-defense,' the woman said, asking to remain anonymous. 'They were struggling, she broke away. She didn't look back, her only concern was getting away from him.'
A second witness, Jeffery Caudill, 34, told DailyMail.com he was driving to work when he saw Ludwick stumbling into a nearby street and called an ambulance.
'He collapsed in front of me then got up, walked across the road, and collapsed again. This time his head hit the asphalt hard,' he said. 'Honestly, I just thought he was drunk.'
Heistand told DailyMail.com: 'I have no comment until the police release their official statement.'
North Port Police Department spokesman Joshua Taylor confirmed Thursday that nobody would face charges over the killing.
'From every ounce of evidence we have so far, she was a victim in this case,' Taylor told reporters.
A man standing outside the single story home where Heistand lives with her mother and daughter on the grounds of the Trinity United Methodist Church said she was not available for comment.
Ludwick lived at home with his grieving father John, 60, who also declined to speak.
Natalee Holloway was on a graduation trip to Aruba with 130 classmates from Mountain Brook High School just outside Birmingham, when she disappeared on May 30, 2005.
She was last seen with three men including Van der Sloot, who was a 17-year-old Dutch national who lived on the island at the time, after an evening at a nightclub.
Van der Sloot soon became the prime suspect but despite being arrested twice he was never charged in connection with her disappearance.
Five years to the day after she vanished Van der Sloot killed student Stephany Flores in Lima, Peru, after she allegedly accessed his computer and discovered his connection to Natalee's case.
He is now serving a 28-year sentence in the isolated Challapalca prison, 16,000 ft. up in the Andes near Peru's borders with Bolivia and Chile.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pa3IpbCmmZmhe6S7ja6iaKaVrMBwrdGtoJyklWKCdnyYcHBqZ4CesLXB0Z6bZnqcpLulsYysq5qakpqxbrnAp2ScqpWirrWxw2aFmqyRobKmeaeoo6Wnp5bGb7TTpqM%3D