GUILTY Turkey - Sarai Sierra, 33, NY woman murdered, Istanbul, 21 Jan 2013 - #2

[KrysJP]

I'm new here so be gentle with me! I'd like to offer my thoughts - it's only a rough scenario without exact details - feel free to rip it apart as it may give me other directions to lean toward.

Sarai had had money problems, possibly marital problems too. Her husband and/or brother were offered the chance to make some money. All it involved was Sarai and her friend delivering a package from Istanbul to Amsterdam, no chance of them getting caught. When put to Sarai and her friend that they could have the trip of a lifetime with all expenses paid, be able to sort out their debt problems and maybe have enough left over to take the boys to Disneyland, they agreed. After no doubt being hesitant at first, Sarai got excited that she would also be able to indulge her newly discovered passion for photography and maybe even meet up with some of her fellow IGers. Her friend got cold feet and backed out. A second scenario is that Sarai was offered the deal and discussed it with her husband who agreed this would be a way to solve their money problems.

All flights were booked and paid for in the US. All goes well in Istanbul. Sarai meets her contact, collects the package and safely delivers it to Amsterdam. I don't think Ammer is involved, but I do think he and his fellow countrymen badmouthed Turks. Sarai returns to Istanbul and decides to bring forward her flight home as she isn't so trusting of her contacts now.

On the day before she is due to fly home, somewhere in the Galata district she meets up with her contact at a pre-arranged time to collect her earnings. (I haven't thought out how she was able to keep in touch with her contacts other than maybe she was given a turkish mobile.) A second member of the smuggling gang was assigned to follow her and snatch back the payout when the opportunity arose. She could hardly go the police and say she'd had her bag snatched - what was in the bag madam? - my phone, ipad and $10000!. As Taylan/Tarkan who may or may not have had sex with her hadn't bothered showing up, what was she going to do now, maybe she'd take a stroll along the waterfront. She walks along the water side of the road whilst the gang member, not believing his luck that she's made it so easy for him, follows at a distance on the other side of the road. Is it possible that the other side of the road is not covered by cameras as Sarai was not able to be tracked once she had crossed the road? Once she had, the gang member sees his opportunity and attempts to snatch back the payout which Sarai has put inside her jacket. Who would expect such a little lady to put up such a big struggle and be able to make so much noise and so the rock comes into play. Without generalising, life can be cheap in Turkey. Cool, calm and collected, the gang member stuffs the jacket and it's contents inside her bag without noticing her driving licence fall out of her pocket. He makes an attempt to conceal the body/frame the local down and outs and he's on his way out of there.

When Sarai doesn't arrive home as planned, her husband/brother try contacting her IG friends, who don't know her whereabouts. They now know something has gone wrong with the job but can hardly go the police about it, can they? All they can do is go to Istanbul themselves and be co-operative with but not helpful to the investigators.

Just some other observations along my way :

I think it was last year, there was a street art festival in Tarlabasi which, given her love of graffitti could have drawn her to stay in the area. (If I was on my first trip abroad I would have had to show some photos immediately and worry about editing them later. There should have been some amazing art for her to photograph in her area).

I would be very interested to know how she travelled to and from the airport each time. The cheapest way I have found to do it is to pre-book a transfer on the internet. Did she do this, take a taxi, take public transport or did someone chauffeur her?

As far as her message about going to the Asian side, I've met several tourists there who think that Galata, Taksim etc are the European side and as soon as you cross the water, ie cross the Galata Bridge to Sultan Ahmet, Sirkeci, Cankuratan, they are on the Asian side. If she was "the most uninformed tourist there" maybe she had this idea.

I've always thought that the DNA taken from 22 people was to rule them OUT as suspects rather than to rule them IN. I imagine most of these are the wall-dwellers.

Maybe Taylan/Tarkan felt obligated to meet with her once she was in his city. They met for coffee a couple of times, he may have got lucky. IF he did, I bet he won't be so keen on opportunistic sex with a passing acquaintance in the future.

Maybe her phone and i-pad being taken was not a deliberate action but incidental. They could well be at the bottom of the Bosphorous.

In the beginning, reports stated that the friend had backed out as she was not working at the time. Her facebook pages states "Personal Wedding Coordinator · New York, New York · 2004 to present".

I don't believe she was killed by a serial killer, but I'm surprised this hasn't been discussed - http://haber.mynet.com/sarai-seri-katilin-5-kurbani-mi-677185-guncel.

I find this exchange from webstagram interesting :
forward #saraisierra #lastweek #action #search #help #the_citylife #all_shots #instagramhub #instagramers #please #tragic #helpme 2w .
devonmiles1981 If you have seen her please let me know, she was last seen in #istanbul to check out the asian side of the city but never returned and all her stuff was still in her room @sahhrudd was the last person to see her. Please help us to find this lovely woman and mother of 2 kids. We pray for her and her family that she will return home safely!! 2w.
devonmiles1981 #ighelp #person #miss #family #look #searching 2w.
devonmiles1981 #come #home #safe #bless #pray 2w.
surndrdabooty How did you know @sahhrudd was the last person to see her, 6 days ago? 1w.
devonmiles1981 @surndrdabooty that is old info, i was told by steven not to mention his name no more, more names have showed up if you follow the news which i assume you follow 1w

welcome, and AWSOME speculating, BUT why would she have Tylan meet her by the bridge IF your saying she was supposed to meet with the perp?

 

[Munich]

Steven Sierra asked Taylan to call the police, said Polat, reading from the statement his client gave cops.

THIS IS NEW TO US!!!!!!

Remember, it was mentioned somewhere that SS brother had alerted a 'friend' from Istanbul to call the police? NOW it makes sense!!!!

Wouldn't that insinuate they had a prior relationship? Odd. [ETA: perhaps I misunderstood, but it sounded like SS's brother had a friend, not that this was a friend of SS.]

Something else made it sound as though Taylan told Steven Sierra to contact US authorities when they were first in contact through one of her accounts.

 

[citizenofworld]

Did Sarai ever say which photography contest she wanted to enter?

 

[ToutCa]

Did Sarai ever say which photography contest she wanted to enter?

The only contest or contests I know about were online Instagram contests. She entered one or more such and would hashtag the photos accordingly as well as post comments relating to the contests -- one of them asked participants to take at least 2 photos of landscapes with the camera at ground level or something like that?

 

[ThinkHard]

A very thoughtful article on the significance and implications of Sarai's Sierra's murder, written by a female American writer living in Istanbul:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/02/08/the-murder-of-sarai-sierra/

She covers a lot of ground and it is worth a read. Sobering.

Again thanks for the article.

Though I have to say I am so sick of people comparing the Pippa Bacca incident to this...Pippa Bacca was HITCHIKING from Italy to Palestine ine WEDDING DRESS! In Rural Turkey......this case is nothing like that....HITCHIKING in the US can get you murdered too!

 

[english]

welcome, and AWSOME speculating, BUT why would she have Tylan meet her by the bridge IF your saying she was supposed to meet with the perp?

I'm speculating that the meeting with the perp happened before lunchtime on the Beyoglu side of the bridge and she suggested meeting up with Taylan on the Eminonu side of the bridge later in the day.

 

[ThinkHard]

I'm speculating that the meeting with the perp happened before lunchtime on the Beyoglu side of the bridge and she suggested meeting up with Taylan on the Eminonu side of the bridge later in the day.

Huh? How does that make sense? She was seen on the bridge at 1210...then on serkeci at 1:15. Taylan was supposed to meet her at the eminonu side at 1245.

 

[ThinkHard]

Additionally I just want to bring this up, first I'm just annoyed with all these articles citing so much violence happens in Turkey against women. Without bothering to compare those statistics to anything else. Yes they mention that almost all of these incidents are domestic in nature....but don't we have a VERY big problem with domestic violence right her in the US.

I'm not saying domestic violence in Turkey isn't a problem. because it is. But it is not the only country with that as a problem. When you site stats with no comparables you make a very weak point and a journalist with any merit would know this.

If we can learn anything from this information however....if random murder against women in Turkey is so low, but murder by a lover or former lover is so high.....doesn't this tell us that it is far more likely like SS was murdered by a person who at least felt as though there was something between them?

One more thing I just want to add...when you hear of honor killings taking place in Turkey, very very often these honor killings are being done by Kurdish people to other Kurdish people, and is not an accurate reflection of what main stream Turkish society finds acceptable.

 

[Yashim]

You can tell us better than I can, for sure!

The article won't help us understand what happened to SS, but isn't it about what rumors have gone around and how they got started?

Help a non-native-speaker out, Yashim!

ToutCa, my Turkish in not advantage here. You also got it right. All I am saying is what she is saying in that very sentence is not making sense to a local like me. I am sure if the columnist had reread her article, she might have edited it.

 

[vtmeme]

I agree with a lot of what you said.

This is for munich's post #1702. Sorry new to posting here. Guess I have a lot to learn.

 

[Yashim]

Good posts, Munich and English. That "early return to meet the deadline for a new task or taking something back to US" by Munich is an interesting addition. But to do that she would ask to be paid, thus wouldn't need her husband to wire her money.

If TK is telling the truth, it's him who suggests SS to spend her last day in Istanbul in the peninsula. If she were going there to collect her pay, why would she ask TK to come along. And if she really told TK "don't worry if you can't make it, I'll go by myself" then perhaps she didn't have anyone else to ask.

And if she was involved in drug-trafficing, LE would have solved the case by now. I believe they already have good intel on those type of crimes.

We just need more facts to make sense of the currently available facts. Otherwise, our scenarios will get more ridiculous by each minute. I am expecting someone to suggest that she committed suicide and stage it like a murder to frame TK for not returning her love saying he was happily married. (Recall Alan Parker's The Life of David Gale; anything is possible.)

Moreover, we haven't seen the exact and complete account of the crime scene. Even the size of the blood-stained stone is of importance. If it 5 kg., then I'll agree to the rage element. If a small stone, more likely a weak attacker couldn't restrain her and had to use a stone. We also don't know where exactly her driver's license and jewelry was. On her or burried in the soil or under a rock. When we do, then we will know whether they were left in the crime scene intentionally. Because if intentionally left, then it may have been staged to let LE to identify the body and arrest the usual suspects.

I am still sticking to the random attack scenario, whether the perp be a druggie, homeless or peeper. Regardless of her reason to be in Istanbul, she just wandered off to a dangerous spot, led by the false sense of security she had due to her positive experience so far.

 

[Yashim]

In rape and murder cases, do they initially look for someone with a motive to rape or to murder?

 

[Yashim]

Additionally I just want to bring this up, first I'm just annoyed with all these articles citing so much violence happens in Turkey against women. Without bothering to compare those statistics to anything else. Yes they mention that almost all of these incidents are domestic in nature....but don't we have a VERY big problem with domestic violence right her in the US.

.....

I'm not saying domestic violence in Turkey isn't a problem. because it is. But it is not the only country with that as a problem. When you site stats with no comparables you make a very weak point and a journalist with any merit would know this.
?

OT but your post totally reminded me of this story. A friend of mine went to Azerbaijan for business. He saw a couple arguing in a bus stop, and then the man starts hitting the woman. My friend tries to intervene. The woman says to my friend: "Go mind your own business, you s.o.b."

 

[KrysJP]

She lived in Stapleton on Staten Island though. I doubt rent would have been that high.

sorry, I have to correct you here. She lived in Silverlake not Stapleton.

 

[ToutCa]

Even the size of the blood-stained stone is of importance. If it 5 kg., then I'll agree to the rage element. If a small stone, more likely a weak attacker couldn't restrain her and had to use a stone.

If they say it was a tiny pebble, I'm retiring from this case.

 

[KrysJP]

Wouldn't that insinuate they had a prior relationship? Odd. [ETA: perhaps I misunderstood, but it sounded like SS's brother had a friend, not that this was a friend of SS.]

Something else made it sound as though Taylan told Steven Sierra to contact US authorities when they were first in contact through one of her accounts.

maybe it was misinterpreted. I think Steven told Taylan to contact authorities and somehow it came out that her brother told a friend to call police. Wish we knew full details on this

 

[CocoChanel]

Additionally I just want to bring this up, first I'm just annoyed with all these articles citing so much violence happens in Turkey against women. Without bothering to compare those statistics to anything else. Yes they mention that almost all of these incidents are domestic in nature....but don't we have a VERY big problem with domestic violence right her in the US.

I'm not saying domestic violence in Turkey isn't a problem. because it is. But it is not the only country with that as a problem. When you site stats with no comparables you make a very weak point and a journalist with any merit would know this.

If we can learn anything from this information however....if random murder against women in Turkey is so low, but murder by a lover or former lover is so high.....doesn't this tell us that it is far more likely like SS was murdered by a person who at least felt as though there was something between them?

One more thing I just want to add...when you hear of honor killings taking place in Turkey, very very often these honor killings are being done by Kurdish people to other Kurdish people, and is not an accurate reflection of what main stream Turkish society finds acceptable.

BBM
EXCELLENT and straight-forward point.
Exactly!

 

[ThinkHard]

I will absolutely admit to being wrong, no problem, if it turns out to being either one of these things

But in my opinion, she was NOT a drug mule, and this was NOT random.

 

[english]

Huh? How does that make sense? She was seen on the bridge at 1210...then on serkeci at 1:15. Taylan was supposed to meet her at the eminonu side at 1245.

What am I missing in what I've said? It makes sense to me! Just for example, if she was to meet with someone at the Galata tower at 11am, she could take a stroll across the bridge and even stop for some lunch before a planned meeting up with Taylan at 12:45.

 

[ToutCa]

I will absolutely admit to being wrong, no problem, if it turns out to being either one of these things

But in my opinion, she was NOT a drug mule, and this was NOT random.

I'm totally torn right now.

If the DNA report turns out to be FALSE:
80% Taylan, 10% random, 10% other guy pal or drug dealer

If the DNA report turns out to be TRUE:
60% random, 40% other guy pal or drug dealer

Yes, I'm that useless!