GUILTY Turkey - Sarai Sierra, 33, NY woman murdered, Istanbul, 21 Jan 2013 - #5

[3x1ymama]

I wish we knew for sure that her sister did receive the txt at 9:20 am NYC time. Because that would mean that the text was sent at 4:20 pm Istanbul time. And if that is a fact it either means that Sarai was either still alive at 4:20 in the afternoon in Istanbul and survived for at least 3 hrs after her last camera sighting near the walls.

Or it means that someone wanted family and LE to believe she was still alive at 4:20 pm Istanbul time. And because we can guess that Ziya does not know English. Someone other then Ziya would have had to have those electronics to send that text.

....

I wonder if maybe she typed the text and hit 'SEND' but the text did not go thru for some reason until later in the day -- if she was in a "dead zone" for cell coverage when she typed it, the text wouldn't go out until the phone was back in tower range. Do we know if there are such dead spots in places she was seen?

 

[delal]

There aren't really places like that in those areas. Unless she was inside a cave underground or on the metro.

I'm wondering about Z, who's helping him hide.

 

[ThinkHard]

This is what I think transpired:

1. Too bad SS didn't keep her more androgynous look on the 21st, with her hair tucked into her unisex cap. She dress nicely since she had hoped to meet Taylan, and that is her on the video.

2. People had described her as adventurous. (Who among us would sleep on the couch of an instagram acquaintance in Amsterdam?) She was also trusting and naive. She thought, though , she was a good judge of character. Early on her minister described her as 9 going on 32 (or whatever her age is.) This trait alone led to her demise.

3. Perhaps Taylan had mentioned the night before about going to the walls and trying to get portraits of the people there.

4. She decided that since Taylan didn't show, today would be her last day to capture great photos.

5. She went to the walls and assumed it to be safe. It was daylight, and a traveled road. Perhaps she was on the other side of the road. Z appeared and seemed charming, safe, and cooperative. Perhaps he motioned kindly for her to come across the road. He may have motioned for her to come into his cave.She did not feel brave enough to do this, but she may have glanced in.

6. Z then pulls her in to rape her. He pulls down her pants. She is fighting back, but given her size ,she is not a challenge for him. But then she starts a loud piercing scream. He knew he must silence her. He has her on the ground, and his adrenaline and testosterone is flowing, and in his unstable fashion, he begins to pulverize her with the rock, he get carried away.

7. Later, Z moves the body away from his territory. Another scavenger comes upon the body and decides to remove the jewelry. He takes off her earrings and then looks for a wallet. He finds her driver's license and realizes she is the one that everyone is searching for. He drops the earrings and the license. He wants nothing to do with her, but now his fingerprints are on her.

8. Z flees to his homeland. While on the run, he sells her ipad and phone, which he took from her. In part for the value, but also because her last photos were of him. When he sells them, he asks for everything to be erased, which the buyer does, and it entails turning on the devices.

And that's the way I think it went down.

Umm sorry but no. Read through some of the posts from the past 5 pages because we have covered some stuff on that. But in summary...

Well where to I begin...ok let's just jump to point 7. So exactly how long are you theororizing that Z left her there before moving her to this other spot. You really think while she was just left laying there dead and bloody with an unrecognizable face, another person decided to remove her earrings, but then when they saw her name on the license and connected it to the publicity changed their mind. I'm sorry I'm confused is this when she is lying where she was killed or where she was found? Because if it is where she was killed, her disapearance wasnt public knowledge until at least feb 25th, so her bdy was just lying in the open for another random to come across for 4 days! That's makes no sense. Then we would also have to believe that he dropped the earrings and left them there, that when z came back to move the body he saw the earrings and moved those too with the body. Now if you were trying to imply that her body was already moved when this other random came along, then given how hidden it was and it was in a cave with a tiny opening with little light, I doubt someone tried to climb in to steal jewelry off her.

And quite frankly I'm sorry but the idea of someone coming across a dead body, of a woman he clearly isn't local, and deciding to rob it instead of report it just doesn't not make any sense at all.

I'm sorry but your theory is missing a lot of elements that we have discussed in detail on this board as being highly impossible. I just don see it.

 

[ThinkHard]

I wonder if maybe she typed the text and hit 'SEND' but the text did not go thru for some reason until later in the day -- if she was in a "dead zone" for cell coverage when she typed it, the text wouldn't go out until the phone was back in tower range. Do we know if there are such dead spots in places she was seen?

Given her route that morning, its unlikely she would have hit a non dead spot well before she made it to the walls. So I doubt this is the case in the timing here.

Meaning that she was in highly touristy not dead cell phone areas that entire morning pretty much up to when she got to the wall....where the wall is is not very touristy, but everything else along her rout, very touristy ....hope that makes sense.

 

[english]

My current questions regarding Z :

Where was he between 21 January and 5 February when he showed up in Karabuk? I'm sure the homeless people have their own possessions as such in that they do not use another's blanket. He must have known it wouldn't take too long to trace the blanket to him, for the police to start looking for him, and where is the first place they would look? Why wait so long to go to family's homes if he was on the run from Istanbul? And why stay there for 3 days when the police could arrive at any time?

If he had clean clothes to put on why did he not do so immediately so that he was not seen with blood stained clothing? I can't believe he was wearing blood stained clothing on the bus to Karabuk. What happened to his blood stained clothes? Did his sister wash them?

I'm assuming he took a bus from Istanbul to Karabuk. Where did he get the money for the ticket? Did he have a few spare lira in his pocket? Or did he sell an i-pad and phone to a dodgy dealer to fund his escape? Did he have to wait until 5 February before he found a buyer and got some money? Did he sell them on 30 January and the buyer turned them on to check they were working (and again the next day when examining the purchases)?

If Z had the electrical items, would they have held charge long enough for him to operate them on 30 and 31 January? I'm assuming again that he had no access to electricity in his homeless state.

His family say he left for Hatay on 8 February. The police have examined the passenger records for all long distance buses leaving from both Karabuk and Safranbolu and not traced him. Could his family be giving false information?

I don't doubt that the hair and skin samples recovered from the bed and used for dna analysis belong to Z. But, as suggested previously, I'm surprised the sister left a dirty bed for the length of time between Z's departure and the arrival of the police, unless she was expecting him back to use the bed again.

For the record, I am completely 50/50 on Z being the killer or the scapegoat.

 

[Herat]

For our Turkish friends -- alpmighty- where are you?

How likely is it that a person easily recognized as of Laz origin is going to head for Syria?

Wouldn't that make him even more conspicuous? or conspicuously out of place?

 

[Chewy]

The whole thing looks like a set up to me, to throw suspicion on a homeless person. It seems to be working.

The pants pulled down "Suggest attempted rape" The stolen items were items that had data in them. The other valuables left.

She was hidden so as not to be found for several days.

And who knows, maybe Z found her and then tried to steal the jewelry, freaked out and changed his mind and went into hiding because he wanted to be far away from the body. If he moved her he may not have realized she was dead. Gets blood on him, doesn't notice, someone points it out to him, he panics and runs.

I'm still not convinced that this was a random attack.

Also to the comment about "As a photographer of Urban Decay" I'd suggest that if she was a photographer of urban decay she'd have more of it in her photos. I haven't seen all of them but the pix she took around the bridges and railroad tracks in NYC are really not what I'd call urban decay. There are some crazy areas of that in NYC. Hers were relatively mild (again from what I've seen) so I don't think she was going over there to get urban decay pix.

 

[Herat]

Also to the comment about "As a photographer of Urban Decay" I'd suggest that if she was a photographer of urban decay she'd have more of it in her photos. I haven't seen all of them but the pix she took around the bridges and railroad tracks in NYC are really not what I'd call urban decay. There are some crazy areas of that in NYC. Hers were relatively mild (again from what I've seen) so I don't think she was going over there to get urban decay pix.

Yeah, you're right about that.

Her photos are not very impressive to me. Very impersonal. Very detached and uninvolved with the scene. No people in them. Nothing distinctive or unique about her personal point of view in there.

 

[bet2173]

If Z's hometown is Karabuk and if he borrowed only 100 TL (60 dollars) for his escape why the hell is he not thinking to flee to Armenia, Azebaijan or Iran but to Syria instead which is sooo far away from Karabuk. Last week there was an explosion at the gate of the Turkish-Syrian border. I'm sure the police is keeping a tight control after the incidence.

 

[bet2173]

Oops ignore my question above. I've checked all the distances from Karabuk to the other borders Syria seems to be the nearest. Sorry

 

[Yashim]

For our Turkish friends -- alpmighty- where are you?

How likely is it that a person easily recognized as of Laz origin is going to head for Syria?

Wouldn't that make him even more conspicuous? or conspicuously out of place?

I can't say anything about Laz. But a homeless guy wouldn't even leave the city.

But believe me. I have never heard of a crime of this type in Istanbul, with every detail included. More violent, yes. But nothing like this.

If I was told that a homeless would commit such a crime, and smash the victim's face until unrecognizable, and then wrap her in his own blanket and hide the body in the vicinity of where he lived, I honestly wouldn't know what I'd think because I wouldn't even listen to the story that far, thinking it's fictitious.

Maybe other local guys can help, but I never heard of a face smashing even in the most violent crimes. I even know of cases where victim's face was burnt by hydrochloric acid; but this crime and the escape is so non-Turkish.

 

[Rochelle]

I wonder if maybe she typed the text and hit 'SEND' but the text did not go thru for some reason until later in the day -- if she was in a "dead zone" for cell coverage when she typed it, the text wouldn't go out until the phone was back in tower range. Do we know if there are such dead spots in places she was seen?

I agree with you. I know it's happened to me both with texts and voicemail - some received as late as a day after they had been sent! (And I was always within "range" ie: no dead zones!) Unless there are records that show SS phone sent the text at 4:30 p.m. - I don't believe this info has been made available yet.
BTW - new here. Spending alot of time reading these threads and speculating along with you all! Thanks, especially to the Turkish translators - google's translations only serve to confuse matters more!!

 

[SANDOVAL]

The whole thing looks like a set up to me, to throw suspicion on a homeless person. It seems to be working.

The pants pulled down "Suggest attempted rape" The stolen items were items that had data in them. The other valuables left.

She was hidden so as not to be found for several days.

And who knows, maybe Z found her and then tried to steal the jewelry, freaked out and changed his mind and went into hiding because he wanted to be far away from the body. If he moved her he may not have realized she was dead. Gets blood on him, doesn't notice, someone points it out to him, he panics and runs.

I'm still not convinced that this was a random attack.

Also to the comment about "As a photographer of Urban Decay" I'd suggest that if she was a photographer of urban decay she'd have more of it in her photos. I haven't seen all of them but the pix she took around the bridges and railroad tracks in NYC are really not what I'd call urban decay. There are some crazy areas of that in NYC. Hers were relatively mild (again from what I've seen) so I don't think she was going over there to get urban decay pix.

'' If he moved her he may not have realized she was dead''
Do you mean maybe she was still recognizable, and was finished off afterwards or what? How could anyone not realize? Sorry.

 

[Yashim]

If Z's hometown is Karabuk and if he borrowed only 100 TL (60 dollars) for his escape why the hell is he not thinking to flee to Armenia, Azebaijan or Iran but to Syria instead which is sooo far away from Karabuk. Last week there was an explosion at the gate of the Turkish-Syrian border. I'm sure the police is keeping a tight control after the incidence.

Syria Border is not a natural border, i.e. there is no mountain or rivers dividing it. During peace time, such borders are easier to control, during times like this much harder.

There are even town that were divided into half by the border.

So going to Syria is the best option, not the safest but the easiest. And Turkey doesn't even recognize the current Syrian government and will not resume diplomatic relationship just to get Ziya back. Yet if that happens, that wouldn't surprise me eitherl.

 

[Herat]

I think the driver's license and earrings were left because the perp felt they could easily trace him to the decedent. Possibly through prior experience or stories from friends about trying to fence jewelry.

I think the cell phone was taken because the perp thought it had photos of him. The I-pad was likely in the purse/bag and likely taken inadvertantly.

She was somewhat careful in that she had left cash and her passport in the apartment, so she may not have been carrying much more than the cash for a meal, her driver's license, and the I-pad in a small bag or purse.

 

[Yashim]

I have one theory why LE is giving out so few details.

I believe they are worried that someone else may take the fall.

Someone like Ziya. Running away, even indirectly telling LE where they can find him, and getting caught eventually.

Whoever LE catches, they'll see if his story holds with the details in the crime scene or where the body was found.

 

[StCirq]

I have spent ages looking for that today. I thought Yashim had posted it, but i can't find it now. Does anyone recall that, or has it been deleted?

I don't have time to search for it now, but it was a report from someone named Hasam B., I believe, a witness who reported SS was seen with Z, using hand gestures in an apparent attempt to communicate.

 

[Yashim]

I have spent ages looking for that today. I thought Yashim had posted it, but i can't find it now. Does anyone recall that, or has it been deleted?

Don't look for it. Make up your own.

I am sure you know more than the reporter who "created" it.

 

[Herat]

I have one theory why LE is giving out so few details.

I believe they are worried that someone else may take the fall.

Someone like Ziya. Running away, even indirectly telling LE where they can find him, and getting caught eventually.

Whoever LE catches, they'll see if his story holds with the details in the crime scene or where the body was found.

LE is worried that someone else will sacrifice themselves for a mentally disturbed homeless guy from the hinterlands?

I think none of this is making sense to LE either and Z is just the most proximate perp.

 

[SANDOVAL]

Don't look for it. Make up your own.

I am sure you know more than the reporter who "created" it.

OK I have made up my own, and i'm sticking with it until proven way off: SS was surprised in her room.