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

[Yashim]

I've traveled all over the place as well. (Not 50 countries though) But I have not traveled somewhere that I didn't have a contact on the other side that was secure. I wouldn't do it alone.

She's got two little kids at home (9and 11 are little in my book) and the whole thing just seems very weird.

The amount of loose ends despite the discovered facts can only indicate

1) somebody's protecting the perp

2) this is a random act of violence

 

[Herat]

I think you missed the point of what I was saying. I wasnt trying to go into the shoes

I did get the point of your comment and I think it's a good one. But they did end up taking the purse.

And I was trying to go into the shoes bit.

 

[Yashim]

Quite frankly, her children may have been the motivating factor in her decision to leave if the drug mule theory and marital strife is to be considered. People are inherently complex, "rational" motivations and decisions that we may assume for ourselves cannot be transferred to others.

She was depressed or she was going through a phase. She told her mom she needed this vacation.

 

[NewYork625]

This is a very interesting theory. I do think that the homeless person they have is not a suspect but a witness. It's pretty obvious that the reason her body was put there was to make the cops think that the homeless people mugged her and killed her. Also if homeless people sleep around there it could make sense about the blanket (if there was one) being put over her to make her look like a sleeping homeless person.



This is awesome thinking. I like especially the last part about the witness. I've seen first hand "witnesses" embellish stories and flat out lie to try to draw themselves into a story that they enjoy the attention from.




Great post as well. It could be that she enraged a homeless person who was schizophrenic. That would be another theory that makes a lot of sense.





Me either, perhaps this is old fashioned of me as a mother. I've actually been offered a free trip to India by a friend of ours that moved there who is very lonely. Even though he's a friend, there's something really weird to me about packing up and leaving my kids to go around the world to visit a man as a married woman.

I do think it is possible that even as a married woman with small children, she may have had more than photography on her mind when she made the trip. She and her husband had common reasons for problems with their relationship (financial problems, she married at a young age...). Plus her husband's IG messages at the time imply there was something not quite right with their relationship.

 

[ThinkHard]

If she wasn't raped she wasn't raped, no mystery there. The spy angle is just Hollywood IMO. But if she was an unwitting mule how would you know?

If she was an unwilling drug mule who was scared for her life, why then would she walk alone to a remote area of the golden horn? That doesn't add up to me.

 

[alpmighty]

If there aren't any more operators offering this device which has coverage in NY, then we can reduce the number of variants of Galaxy S3 that she had to three. AT&T, Verizon and Sprint all offer different variants. Verizon and Sprint ones wouldn't work in Turkey at all. They are CDMA only. You can't roam or use local disposable operator SIM cards. However, AT&T one can be used in Turkey, both roaming and with a local operator. (Assuming AT&T hands out the phone unlocked)

I've researched it and learned that if she was carrying the AT&T variant, they always come locked but per request from AT&T customer service, without regard to whether the device was subsidized or not, they just hand you the unlock code.

So the question is now, would she use roaming or would she obtain a Turkish prepaid line?

With a limited budget, one would perhaps be inclined towards to skip using roaming, relying on Skype or preferring a prepaid Turkish line/card.

It all depends on AT&T roaming charges. Are they outrageous as it's the case when I go the States my operator charges me an arm and a leg for roaming?

 

[belimom]

"intermediate" I have kids, 10, 8 and 1 the 10 and 8 year olds are in 4th and 2nd grade, not an age I would pick up, trapse off to another country to go "photograph" for weeks at a time, especially during the school year. And I never said "babysitting", sure the dad can take car of them.

As a mom, I just can't understand it, obviously she felt differently.

I feel the same as you - my kids are 10 and 5. I couldn't do it. However, I have friends who never take their kids with them on vacation, whether alone or with their husband. And I do believe she was having some sort of early mid-life crisis. Even a friend in NY commented that Sarai had said she needed a break. She married young, had kids young, etc. I believe she was trying to 'find herself'.

We discussed this upthread and had perspectives running the full length of the spectrum. I just think she was on a soul-searching trip - and part of that was needing to get out of 'wife mode' and out of 'mommy mode'.

On a totally different note, I do think she got wrapped up in something (a tryst, or something more sinister) and wanted to come home early to get away from whatever "it" was. I also wonder if this had something to do with her murder.

 

[alpmighty]

If she was an unwilling drug mule who was scared for her life, why then would she walk alone to a remote area of the golden horn? That doesn't add up to me.

Exactly. If you are forced into being a mule; run away, skip town, it makes sense. Go to LE, yes, again makes sense. Go to the nearest US consulate or embassy, yes. Go to remote areas by yourself, doesn't make sense at all.

 

[NewYork625]

There's been an official statement from the chief of TNP Istanbul that there were no indications of rape or any indications that she was a mule, or a spy.

If I remember correctly, she was naked from the waist down. An attempted rape does not always leave evidence if it is never completed. Perhaps the person attempting the rape killed her before he could complete the act, or he was physically unable to complete the act as intended.

 

[Munich]

No. Um seriously did you read anything I posted? :waitasec: Her story doesn't add up. And her story is very different than other people's stories.

From where she chose to stay
Her decision to travel alone.
Her decision to cut her trip short
Her decision to hook up with a stranger in another country
The fact that she has small children at home

(this might be a difficult one to comprehend if you don't have kids, but most people who have kids will evaluate the risk of something they want to do for fun, with the risk they put their kids in by doing so. Not everyone conforms to this mindset but as you pointed out so frequently, she's a church going mother who has been married for 20 years with a pretty decent past. She's certainly not the type to do this kind of thing unless something is wrong.)

Lead detective in me in this case says "FOUL PLAY" and not a random hit.

She was a woman on a budget, perhaps she was trying to both fulfill her desires and save money for her family, so she stayed somewhere as affordable as possible.

Maybe she connected on an emotional level with someone and they made her feel special so she wanted to visit them or maybe she wanted to challenge herself. Her brother and husband said she did a triathlon when it was a stretch, so she clearly liked a challenge and break from the norm.

Her friend bailed on her, so she decided when will I have this chance again or she had her ticket already and that was the largest expense, so she went. Sometimes if you wait for people to have the same vacation times, money, or perfect life circumstances you just end up waiting forever. I admire that she followed her heart.

Her marriage could be turbulent, it could be a lot of things, it doesn't matter what she did, even if it doesn't match the moral code of a lot of people. She was married at 19 and for nearly 15 years. There wasn't much time to get to know what she wanted out of life. Suddenly this new found passion was igniting a positive response and she appreciated the attention. There's nothing wrong with that. She doesn't need to be portrayed as a hussy or a saint. She's just human.

She left her children in the care of family who she clearly trusted. Again, nothing to be judged. It might not be the choice a lot of people would make, but she felt the big enough need to do it for herself for whatever reason.

This has nothing to do with having children or not, but more so with being compassionate to the fact we all live different lives with different struggles and different circumstances. Some days people decide to do one thing and 5 years later they are in a different place and wouldn't consider it.

Judging her or her situation and taking the moral high road isn't going to solve this case or help remember her for who she was and how she made those close to her feel.

ETA: She wasn't just a mother, but also a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend.

 

[ThinkHard]

I did get the point of your comment and I think it's a good one. But they did end up taking the purse.

And I was trying to go into the shoes bit.

Yes I would like to know about the shoes. Because if they were off that to me leaves three option...

She was undressed after she was killed.

There was more then one perp, as someone would have to hold her, while someone else removed shoes.

Or she willingly removed the shoes before the attack began.

And if they are completely missing I wonder if it because evidence on the bottom would prove she had been alive and walking someplace else, and was not killed there.

 

[Chewy]

The amount of loose ends despite the discovered facts can only indicate

1) somebody's protecting the perp

2) this is a random act of violence

The fact that she had her jewelry on makes me think is isn't a mugging. They did say it was clear her body had been moved. Seems pretty obvious to me that whoever put her body there was hoping that the cops would think that it was a random act of violence by a homeless person.

I do think it is possible that even as a married woman with small children, she may have had more than photography on her mind when she made the trip. She and her husband had common reasons for problems with their relationship (financial problems, she married at a young age...). Plus her husband's IG messages at the time imply there was something not quite right with their relationship.

It seems like the IG angle was a cover to make it look like a "bunch of friends' IG type trip, but she only met the guy there right? Maybe he convinced her to come.

It's school season, if she needed a break I could see Florida maybe or California, but Istanbul? She definitely was there for more than a "trip" and site seeing.

 

[alpmighty]

I feel the same as you - my kids are 10 and 5. I couldn't do it. However, I have friends who never take their kids with them on vacation, whether alone or with their husband. And I do believe she was having some sort of early mid-life crisis. Even a friend in NY commented that Sarai had said she needed a break. She married young, had kids young, etc. I believe she was trying to 'find herself'.

We discussed this upthread and had perspectives running the full length of the spectrum. I just think she was on a soul-searching trip - and part of that was needing to get out of 'wife mode' and out of 'mommy mode'.

On a totally different note, I do think she got wrapped up in something (a tryst, or something more sinister) and wanted to come home early to get away from whatever "it" was. I also wonder if this had something to do with her murder.

I do not think we can safely deduce anything from the fact that she was travelling alone, unless one of the contributors personally know her and attest to her type of personality, family structure and her upbringing/background. Every person is different. Add to that the layer of culture, her background, which can be vastly different from any contributor here. Stereotyping would help to an extent, sure, but then again personal variables are still a heck of a challange.

An equation with so many unknown variables cannot be solved with accuracy.

 

[belimom]

If she was an unwilling drug mule who was scared for her life, why then would she walk alone to a remote area of the golden horn? That doesn't add up to me.

Not sure I buy into the drug mule thing, but I can see her being told to go there. As in, if you're leaving the country, we need so-and-so from you. Only once there, they couldn't let her go.

My only problem with the whole drug mule idea is that I think if that were the case, they would have put her in a car and made her disappear - unless they were trying to set it up to look like a random attack. Then again, by leaving the body there, you leave evidence: DNA, fibers, etc.

Whoever did this did so in a hurry, without thinking it all the way through. Maybe a lower-level street dealer may have lost their cool (I don't know the names for the different levels of the drug trade) if she showed up without the goods or without money or whatever, but the head honcho would not have wanted to chance leaving a trail.

I believe it was an acquaintance. I just can't figure out the motive. I don't think it was a jealous lover.

I've watched too much TV, I think. I have no idea how drug deals work...

 

[Herat]

If she was an unwilling drug mule who was scared for her life, why then would she walk alone to a remote area of the golden horn? That doesn't add up to me.

And why would she be carrying a pair of high heels?

It's not as if one can carry contraband in a pair of high heels.

 

[ThinkHard]

I've researched it and learned that if she was carrying the AT&T variant, they always come locked but per request from AT&T customer service, without regard to whether the device was subsidized or not, they just hand you the unlock code.

So the question is now, would she use roaming or would she obtain a Turkish prepaid line?

With a limited budget, one would perhaps be inclined towards to skip using roaming, relying on Skype or preferring a prepaid Turkish line/card.

It all depends on AT&T roaming charges. Are they outrageous as it's the case when I go the States my operator charges me an arm and a leg for roaming?

Yes att roaming charges are outrageous in turkey. However you do not need your phone unlocked to roam in turkey, you only need it unlocked if you want to use a Turkish sims card. It will automatically start roaming once you land and turn on your phone, and it will show roaming in the turkcell network. If you don't want to be charged for roaming you have to disable data roaming.

 

[NewYork625]

She was a woman on a budget, perhaps she was trying to both fulfill her desires and save money for her family, so she stayed somewhere as affordable as possible.

Maybe she connected on an emotional level with someone and they made her feel special so she wanted to visit them or maybe she wanted to challenge herself. Her brother and husband said she did a triathlon when it was a stretch, so she clearly liked a challenge and break from the norm.

Her friend bailed on her, so she decided when will I have this chance again or she had her ticket already and that was the largest expense, so she went. Sometimes if you want for people to have the same vacation times, money, or perfect life circumstances you just end up waiting forever. I admire that she followed her heart.

Her marriage could be turbulent, it could be a lot of things, it doesn't matter what she did, even if it doesn't match the moral code of a lot of people. She was married at 19 and for nearly 15 years. There wasn't much time to get to know what she wanted out of life. Suddenly this new found passion was igniting a positive response and she appreciate the attention. There's nothing wrong with that. She doesn't need to be portrayed as a hussy or a saint. She's just human.

She left her children in the care of family who she clearly trusted. Again, nothing to be judged. It might not be the choice a lot of people would make, but she felt the big enough need to do it for herself for whatever reason.

This has nothing to do with having children or not, but more so with being compassionate to the fact we all live different lives with different struggles and different circumstances. Some days people decide to do one thing and 5 years later they are in a different place and wouldn't consider it.

Judging her or her situation and taking the moral high road isn't going to solve this case or help remember her for who she was and how she made those close to her feel.

Well said!

 

[alpmighty]

If I remember correctly, she was naked from the waist down. An attempted rape does not always leave evidence if it is never completed. Perhaps the person attempting the rape killed her before he could complete the act, or he was physically unable to complete the act as intended.

We don't have confirmation or denial regarding the state of her clothing when the body was found from LE either. One of the detectives assigned to this case, when asked about the state of her clothing when the body was found replied: "Pants or no pants or pants down to knee level, what does it matter? An actual rape didn't happen."

 

[Yashim]

The only thing with that theory is that wouldn't her license have at least in theory been in her bag? As well as her extra pair of shoes?

And both of those were reportedly found with the body. So in theory someone would have had to go through her bag.

Just a thought.

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.

 

[belimom]

I do not think we can safely deduce anything from the fact that she was travelling alone, unless one of the contributors personally know her and attest to her type of personality, family structure and her upbringing/background. Every person is different. Add to that the layer of culture, her background, which can be vastly different from any contributor here. Stereotyping would help to an extent, sure, but then again personal variables are still a heck of a challange.

An equation with so many unknown variables cannot be solved with accuracy.

Agreed -- we really don't know. But I'm just putting together what we've been sleuthing day in and day out for weeks now. Staying on the couch of a man who was a virtual stranger (fact), supposedly having sex with another man in the restroom of a club (this is obviously unproven), speculation about marriage issues, telling neighbors she needed a break, not contacting her husband for almost a week after 1/14 (he said in an interview that he hadn't heard from her since 1/14 - does that mean at all or just via phone?).

That's what we do: sleuth. With whatever info we are given... We toss out theories.