GUILTY Turkey - Sarai Sierra, 33, NY woman murdered, Istanbul, 21 Jan 2013 - #3

[alpmighty]

Greetings…

Are homeless people or junkies there typically English-speakers? It’s possible whoever did this attempted to engage or lure Sarai as opposed to ambushing her.

Thanks!

As a Turkish guy, I can answer this question with extreme certainity: No. Perhaps they'd have picked up 'Yes' and 'No' or 'Hello' and 'Bye' etc. from the mainstream culture. But ability to communicate in English? Nope.

 

[citizenofworld]

Two explanations:

1) She didn't keep her driver license in her bag/wallet in case it was snatched. Some people carry their driver's license (and sometimes one of their credit cards) separately.

2) The perp intentionally took it out in case someone noticed the license or police stops him for random search. And instead of hiding it some other place, he left it there.

It doesn't make sense, because you can easily and cheaply get a new license in the U.S., if it's lost or stolen.

A passport? I understand, but she knew it was back in her room.

The killer wanted her to be i.d.ed, hence leaving it there. I think there's remorse for the crime - last respect for the dead.

She may have had no credit cards, otherwise, her husband wouldn't have sent her money. Maybe a debit card, but why are they saying he "sent" her money. That's wiring.

 

[EncyclopediaBrown]

Husband and family would know that though.

you lost me. the package was from the US, it wasn't from her family? weird that it's contents were never published - even if it was documents, if it isn't crucial to the case, they would have let the details fly.

 

[EncyclopediaBrown]

It doesn't make sense, because you can easily and cheaply get a new license in the U.S., if it's lost or stolen.

A passport? I understand, but she knew it was back in her room.

The killer wanted her to be i.d.ed, hence leaving it there. I think there's remorse for the crime - last respect for the dead.

She may have had no credit cards, otherwise, her husband wouldn't have sent her money. Maybe a debit card, but why are they saying he "sent" her money. That's wiring.

your passport is super important, so you shouldn't carry it on you. they are hell to replace and expensive. her license was her only form of id there. so what i am saying is maybe she carried it in her pocket, not her purse. i find it strange that the perp would go looking for her id in her bag to leave it there. respect or not, isn't time of essence?

 

[belimom]

Disagree with this statement.

Family waited until the date of her ORIGINAL flight on Jan 25 came and went without her. Then contacting airlines and maybe multiple additional calls to IG people, got emergency passports on Monday Jan 28, flew out on Jan 29.

Big Big expense and hassle invovled in this. How long do they stay? Where do they stay? How to get around in a completely strange place? Whom do they contact? This is a huge and horrible task for them.

I don't see any gap in the timeline that indicates Taylan deliberately stalled.

I asked this before: WHO REPORTED HER MISSING TO TURKISH AUTHORITIES?

And what about that apt landlord. Not returning to flat for a week. No additional contact or money paid. Her passport in the room, along with luggage. What did he do with this information>

I don't know who made the call in the end. I think her husband asked Tarkan to call LE, and Tarkan told him to (or something like that). Not sure who actually made the call...

 

[Rolandred]

it's possible she maybe had to sign something for a loan or something related to school. and maybe divorce papers b-c it surely would send her back running if she knew her marriage was over. (okay that's a longshot):banghead:

Maybe there were rumblings of or indirect threats of divorce and I'll take the kids from you sort of thing...(based on the tweets recently released by husband about cheating) ...perhaps a reason to cut the trip short giving reason as her mum said, "she missed her boys"...who knows?

 

[alpmighty]

you lost me. the package was from the US, it wasn't from her family? weird that it's contents were never published - even if it was documents, if it isn't crucial to the case, they would have let the details fly.

Ah, sorry about that. So, would it make sense in procedure to send such documents while she was away for three weeks?

 

[english]

Disagree with this statement.

Family waited until the date of her ORIGINAL flight on Jan 25 came and went without her. Then contacting airlines and maybe multiple additional calls to IG people, got emergency passports on Monday Jan 28, flew out on Jan 29.

Big Big expense and hassle invovled in this. How long do they stay? Where do they stay? How to get around in a completely strange place? Whom do they contact? This is a huge and horrible task for them.

I don't see any gap in the timeline that indicates Taylan deliberately stalled.

I asked this before: WHO REPORTED HER MISSING TO TURKISH AUTHORITIES?

And what about that apt landlord. Not returning to flat for a week. No additional contact or money paid. Her passport in the room, along with luggage. What did he do with this information>

Also husband and brother had to wait for church to raise the money to pay for their trip.


If the landlord did not have another booking for the room he may not have even gone in there to see that her stuff was still there. But he should have been suspicious that she had not handed over her key.

 

[citizenofworld]

I believe it was said that her Turkish phone was found in her room/apartment, along with her medical cards and other belongings. LE stated early on (while she was still "missing") that because her Turkish phone was left in her room, they were unable to track her movements at the time. The Galaxy S3 and iPad are missing.

Why would she need a Turkish phone if she had a prepaid card in her Galaxy phone? I guess to make it cheaper for locals to contact her? That means she would have been in touch with them a lot...otherwise, why not email. If they are on Instagram, they can see email on their phones.

 

[belimom]

Back to Ammer. I went back to his IG account just to see what he was posting recently, since Sarai's death. He is joking, carrying on, etc. Yes, he did make a post or two about the FBI, etc. And had made some posts about Sarai being missing.

But I find it odd that in the past few days, he has acted like it's no big deal. I guess if I had played host/tour guide to a foreign tourist who I had known on IG for months and then they went missing and were found murdered, it would take me longer than a couple of days to bounce back.

Just an observation.

 

[alpmighty]

Why would she need a Turkish phone if she had a prepaid card in her Galaxy phone? I guess to make it cheaper for locals to contact her? That means she would have been in touch with them a lot...otherwise, why not email. If they are on Instagram, they can see email on their phones.

Different networks in the US offer different Galaxy S3 variants, depending on their network technology. I wrote about this in one of my earlier posts. For instance, a Galaxy S3 from AT&T is GSM compatible, and thus would work in Turkey, either roaming or with a local SIM card, if SS called AT&T customer service while she was in the US and has gotten an unlock code from them. However, there are US operators like Sprint and Verizon, which are CDMA. Galaxy S3s they offer, although looking exactly the same from the outside, are internally completely different. They are not compatible with GSM networks, and thus will not work in Turkey either through roaming or using a Turkish SIM card. (There are no CDMA networks in Turkey)

 

[Chewy]

The package could have been something as simple as her leaving a document in the airport while going through customs. I highly doubt that anyone from America sent her anything, she'd be home before she got the package.

 

[Yellow]

Disagree with this statement.

Family waited until the date of her ORIGINAL flight on Jan 25 came and went without her. Then contacting airlines and maybe multiple additional calls to IG people, got emergency passports on Monday Jan 28, flew out on Jan 29.

Big Big expense and hassle invovled in this. How long do they stay? Where do they stay? How to get around in a completely strange place? Whom do they contact? This is a huge and horrible task for them.

I don't see any gap in the timeline that indicates Taylan deliberately stalled.

I asked this before: WHO REPORTED HER MISSING TO TURKISH AUTHORITIES?

And what about that apt landlord. Not returning to flat for a week. No additional contact or money paid. Her passport in the room, along with luggage. What did he do with this information>

Maybe "stalled" is not the right word bc it may or may not be deliberate.. I did not say deliberately stalled, I meant stall as in delay....the Daily news article (there are 2) said that husband asked Taylan to call LE in Turkey, and he told them to call US authorities instead... So it seems like there was some delay in reporting it to Turkey bc Taylan was not going to do it. Maybe taylan ended up doing it, I am not sure, but according to that article, he told them to go to US authorities. I am sure it would have been more efficient for someone in turkey to report rather than husband call up from US and navigate a different language, unless they had US consulate do it.

It could have been Taylan did not know what to do, maybe he did not want to involve himself w Turkish police (for completely separate reasons, who knows). Maybe he just did not want to be involved bc he suspected something about SS

 

[english]

Ah, sorry about that. So, would it make sense in procedure to send such documents while she was away for three weeks?

Maybe there never was a mail delivery. Maybe the postman just wanted to get his name in the paper.

 

[EncyclopediaBrown]

Ah, sorry about that. So, would it make sense in procedure to send such documents while she was away for three weeks?

well if she was coming back to start school soon, maybe the signature was necessary. or divorce papers...or maybe it was just cards from her kids telling her that they missed her? oh well, who cares, i don't think it's paramount to the case.

 

[Chewy]

Different networks in the US offer different Galaxy S3 variants, depending on their network technology. I wrote about this in one of my earlier posts. For instance, a Galaxy S3 from AT&T is GSM compatible, and thus would work in Turkey, either roaming or with a local SIM card, if SS called AT&T customer service while she was in the US and has gotten an unlock code from them. However, there are US operators like Sprint and Verizon, which are CDMA. Galaxy S3s they offer, although looking exactly the same from the outside, are internally completely different. They are not compatible with GSM networks, and thus will not work in Turkey either through roaming or using a Turkish SIM card. (There are no CDMA networks in Turkey)

OMG NOW I understand what you are saying. It's funny a friend of mine wanted to start a company where you could rent a cell phone in a foreign country for your trip, I think it was Jamaica, because the roaming charges are so high.

Soooo maybe the package she received was a rented cell phone? Maybe this is part of the 95% that the cops aren't sharing with the public.

http://www.cellomobile.com/rent.aspx?gclid=COyM_e29r7UCFcef4Aod60gA3A

We deliver your GSM cell phone rental to your door while you are still home, so you can avoid the high costs of renting a cell phone abroad or in airports. By using our international cell phone service, you will save a fortune on your international communication costs abroad.

 

[alpmighty]

Maybe there never was a mail delivery. Maybe the postman just wanted to get his name in the paper.

As a government employee, he would not want that type of attention, because his superiors might actually go ahead and attempt to discover whether he is lying or not.

 

[english]

As a government employee, he would not want that type of attention, because his superiors might actually go ahead and attempt to discover whether he is lying or not.

I know that and I shouldn't have said it. I was just being flippant.

 

[alpmighty]

OMG NOW I understand what you are saying. It's funny a friend of mine wanted to start a company where you could rent a cell phone in a foreign country for your trip, I think it was Jamaica, because the roaming charges are so high.

Soooo maybe the package she received was a rented cell phone? Maybe this is part of the 95% that the cops aren't sharing with the public.

http://www.cellomobile.com/rent.aspx?gclid=COyM_e29r7UCFcef4Aod60gA3A

Impossible, it's illegal to personally import cell phones from abroad in Turkey through parcel or mail delivery. As I wrote before, customs do actively look for cell phones among incoming parcels and when they find such a parcel, they just send it back to the point of origin.

There's only one way you can get a cell phone from abroad to Turkey: If you have the cell phone on you, or with your luggage at your point of arrival.

Otherwise, you have to have a licensed and established Turkish company to import cell phones.

Such controls are in place because until they were implemented, smuggling cell phones were big time and the gov decided they were losing too much tax revenue.

 

[Chewy]

Greetings…

Following are a few questions that have crossed my mind while reading some of the recent comments.

Why do some speculate this was a disorganized crime?

Do you think this was the perp’s first time commiting murder? Why?

Could the fact that her driver’s license was tossed aside indicate that the perp is an English-speaker who didn’t want anything with her identification on his person? That is if it didn’t fall out of a pocket when her pants were torn off.

Are homeless people or junkies there typically English-speakers? It’s possible whoever did this attempted to engage or lure Sarai as opposed to ambushing her.

I think answers to this question might narrow the pool of possible suspects, though it’s obvious how difficult determining this would be.

I keep trying to imagine Sarai caught in a life-and-death struggle, with threats and insults being hurled at her in a language not her own, but for some reason something in this scenario doesn’t quite match.

I have no idea what kind of difference knowing the killer’s language would make in solving this mystery, but something just keeps bringing me back to this point.

Does the fact that the bodhy was left covered indicate that the killer cared about her and felt remorse?

If you have just killed someone, why go to all the trouble to cover your victim’s body when you can just as easily conceal it in a cave? In a situation like that, I think time would be of the essence.

Could someone who thinks of homelessness as a blight on their community, or who harbors a personal grudge against indigents have orchestrated this whole crime to “clean up” the area? Possibly someone had a good reason to want that area cleaned up.

Sorry, I have more questions than any certain theories or statements at this time. I’d like to know more about what the killer did, the motive &c, but detectives don’t publicize this kine of information with good reason.

Again, anybody may feel free to address them. Excuse me if some of these topics were covered previously.

Thanks!

I actually thought of this myself. :waitasec: