Note that she's the only "too cool to wear a name tag" person on that photography walk...
GUILTY Turkey - Sarai Sierra, 33, NY woman murdered, Istanbul, 21 Jan 2013 - #3
- Thread starter Snoopster
- Start date
- Status
Note that she's the only "too cool to wear a name tag" person on that photography walk...
Social media shows marital discord between Sarai Sierra and husband days before the Staten Island mother was found dead
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...rietal-strife-article-1.1260331#ixzz2KaegbiRN
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...rietal-strife-article-1.1260331#ixzz2KaegbiRN
Twelve years ago, before I went to Istanbul, I noticed a lot of travel sites warning tourists to not have drinks of any type, including tea, with strangers who were overly friendly and wanting to go have drinks together. It said there was a problem of criminals putting date rape chemicals into the drinks of tourists of both genders and then robbing them while they were knocked out. It said the tourists would typically wake up with no clothing on.
StCirq,
I personally welcome any opinion on Turkey and Turks, whether it be prejudiced or not, because I believe suppressed prejudice is even more dangerous.
And believe me I am always open to discussing any human rights violation in Turkey. However, this is not the place for it.
If you had said, there has been reports on French media about an attack on three elder Armenian women, two resulting in death. Could Sarai's murder be a hate crime fueled by some sort of extreme nationalism or xenophobia as the recent attack on Armenian women suggest?
I would have said no and no. But we could have discussed it.
But you said Turkish police is spending some much time for an American, yet they haven't done much to find the perpetrators of the attacks on Armenians. Could it be that Turkey doesn't care about Armenians and Turkey's only worry is that Sarai's murder can decrease their tourism revenues?
Then, your post no longer contributes to finding out who killed Sarai Sierra. Does it?
This case is about a female tourist who was brutally murdered. Two little kids will never be able to see their mom again. As if it's not already difficult to discuss various theories under this awakening truth, bringing in our very own personal political agenda will only make things worse.
Please, let's discuss Turkey's political and social issues at another forum. This is just not the right place. It will be betrayal on humanity to turn Sarai's and two elder Armenian's murder into hors d'oeuvre to accompany our own political agenda. No matter how delicious they may taste for some people.
Thank you very much for your understanding and cooperation.
Hmm, has never happened to me and I tend to drink tea if someone offers it to me. It would be a shame for a visitor to miss out on a part of Turkish hospitality - it's traditional to sit and have tea and I've had it everywhere from the green grocers to the chemist's.
I did hear about a case of a Korean male tourist going missing a few years ago. Will look for a link.
I did hear about a case of a Korean male tourist going missing a few years ago. Will look for a link.
While looking for that link, I came across this page: http://www.virtualtourist.com/trave...Dangers-Istanbul-warnings_for_women-BR-1.html
Some of you may find it interesting - some people's first hand accounts of visiting Turkey warning others.
I especially liked this part:
"A foreigner woman visiting Turkey shouldn't never show her neck, neckline, belly button, back or legs if she doesn't want to be seen as a prostitute or a woman desperately looking for sex."
Ha ha. This is obviously where I've been going wrong all these years, daring to show my neck out in public.
Some of you may find it interesting - some people's first hand accounts of visiting Turkey warning others.
I especially liked this part:
"A foreigner woman visiting Turkey shouldn't never show her neck, neckline, belly button, back or legs if she doesn't want to be seen as a prostitute or a woman desperately looking for sex."
Ha ha. This is obviously where I've been going wrong all these years, daring to show my neck out in public.
Yes, but it could explain why you keep waking up the next morning in the green grocer's garden and the chemist's back yard with your wallet missing...
I'm joking.
Such crimes happen in a lot of big tourist spots. If you are a tourist and you don't know the culture, it's always best not to accept food and drink from strangers unless you are accompanied by a local you know and trust.
That's just common sense. But the more comfortable you get with a foreign culture, of course you learn to relax -- or abandon these precautions.
You show your neck in public? MAY I HAVE YOUR PHONE NUMBER PLEASE??!!!
One comment on another website said: From all the information and misinformation swirling around my guess is she was met by some locals who pose as tourist guides and promised by them opportunities for great views of local sites. She went and they tried to rob her, she resisted, and that was that.
I think this is a possibility, since she liked to use social networking to get to know men to meet up with. I chatted with several women in Istanbul on Yahoo Messenger. This was in before Myspace and Facebook came out. Most of the ladies were nice, but one of them who wanted to show me around and did show me around...also pickpocketed me. Based on the comment above, maybe it's a common ruse used on both genders of tourists.
I think this is a possibility, since she liked to use social networking to get to know men to meet up with. I chatted with several women in Istanbul on Yahoo Messenger. This was in before Myspace and Facebook came out. Most of the ladies were nice, but one of them who wanted to show me around and did show me around...also pickpocketed me. Based on the comment above, maybe it's a common ruse used on both genders of tourists.
Welcome to this thread!!!!!!
Many theories are possible -- you can try reading through the 3 threads on the case here, because believe me, we've covered them all.
The main problem with the "local tour guide turned robber" theory is that they have her on video at 20 different points walking all the way across town alone (up to the Galata Bridge). So unless she was meeting someone at the walls themselves, that theory seems unlikely. And why would she meet a guide at the walls? If she knew how to get there alone, what would she need a guide for?
MLE, you just reminded me of a similar experience that a former colleague of mine had here. He had also been chatting to a Turkish girl online, then when he went out to meet her in Taksim, she scammed him. It was really sad.
The men seem to be after sex usually rather than money, but I have heard some horrible stories about men in Sultanahmet. While there are some decent people in the tourism trade, it also attracts an element of really low class people with no morals. Just a few examples of Sultanahmet scum:
- The carpet shop guy who sleeps with tourists, films it, then blackmails them in order to extort money from them. He threatens to put the video on the internet. This is going on now and he does this trick with multiple females.
- The guy who is an unofficial "guide". He targets females on their own or in pairs, shows them around, takes them for tea, but then tries to rob them. This happened to another colleague of mine.
The men seem to be after sex usually rather than money, but I have heard some horrible stories about men in Sultanahmet. While there are some decent people in the tourism trade, it also attracts an element of really low class people with no morals. Just a few examples of Sultanahmet scum:
- The carpet shop guy who sleeps with tourists, films it, then blackmails them in order to extort money from them. He threatens to put the video on the internet. This is going on now and he does this trick with multiple females.
- The guy who is an unofficial "guide". He targets females on their own or in pairs, shows them around, takes them for tea, but then tries to rob them. This happened to another colleague of mine.
This is O/T, and Yashim is going to go bananas, but my favorite Istanbul true scam was this one: handsome, well-dressed young local man meets young tourist woman. He invites her and her 3 friends to dinner with his friends. All of the guys are polite, young, handsome, well-dressed, charming. They take the ladies to a 5-star restaurant and all have a great time. As the meal is winding down, the guy gets a text from a friend outside promising them free tickets to a club. The guys leave to pick them up. The girls wait. And wait. And wait. The guys are never seen again. The girls have to pick up the $1200 meal tab themselves!!!!
I'm not saying it happens often in Istanbul, but WOW. I am no scammer, but all that just for a free 5-star meal? I have to admire the audacity of these guys, along with their willingness to go to great lengths for gourmet cooking!!!!!
Maybe the restaurant is also in on it and marks the prices up, sharing the extra profits with the guys?
Nothing would surprise me...I've heard far far worse. Some women have lost their life savings and even married these sort of cheating people.
Yes, those are sad.
I slightly admire the restaurant scam, though, because they use no violence, have no desire to sexually assault the women, and cheat them out of nothing more serious than a nice dinner!
Thanks, ToutCa.
That's a good point. I tend to agree with you. For argument's sake, maybe she was interested in meeting a guy and didn't really want a tour guide but just wanted company. It's what happened to me when I got pickpocketed in 2001. I was in it for the company, not really to be shown around.
I wonder if he and I got scammed by the same girl. It happened to me in Taksim in 2001. The girl was around 26 at the time, very beautiful except for her teeth which were badly stained, blonde, multicolored bluish eyes, went by the name Digdem. She was fluent in Turkish and her English was quite good. Being young and shallow, I sort of wanted to back out on account of her teeth, but then I thought to myself, "Don't hurt her feelings. We can have a good time anyway." Fortunately, I split my money up in multiple pockets, under my shoe insoles, and so on, so I was only robbed of maybe a couple hundred dollars. In retrospect, I'm glad it happened because it was a good lesson that I needed to learn.
You are very honest about your bad experience!!!Yes, you are right, it's possible Sarai went to meet up with a pal of some kind.
We know she was trying to meet Taylan, her Istanbul Turkish Instagram buddy, at the Galata Bridge when she vanished. His story is that they had met twice previously, and he tried to meet her that day and failed. Unconfirmed reports say he told police he had sex with her the night before, but that his DNA does not match the DNA of the killer.
If she and Taylan really didn't meet, it's possible she tried to meet a different internet buddy or local contact at or very near the walls. There are a number of vague possibilities, but nothing solid.
Lavy reported this morning that mainstream Turkish TV news says cops are looking hard at 5 suspects, some of them online contacts.
I guess the big question right now is if it was a local contact/pal/guide, some sort of partner in illicit activity of some kind, or a random assault.
bourne
"The truth shall set you free." ~JUSTICE FOR REBEC
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2012
- Messages
- 2,406
- Reaction score
- 15
Quite frankly, there's been a lot of irrelevant chitchat here, so I don't see what's wrong with this poster commenting on whatever the heck s/he wants.
Really? This happened in Turkey?
A guy slept with a woman and filmed it. Filmed it? Really?
And then threatened to put in on the Internet? The Internet?
Is that true?
Is it really true? In Turkey?
For all these years, I thought these kind of things only happened in Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, The Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Comoros, Congo, Costa Rica, Côte d'Ivoire, Croatia, Curaçao, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Korea, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyz Republic, Lao, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macao, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Montserrat, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Samoa, San Marino, São Tomé and Príncipe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Sint Maarten, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Spain, Sri Lanka, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
But now Turkey, too?
OMG
This should be what they mean when they say you live and learn.
CMac2
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2010
- Messages
- 1,604
- Reaction score
- 74
- Status