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

[Chewy]

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.

Could be, could be that she wanted something authentic. I live in Bay Ridge Brooklyn and i didn't realize until reading some of the posts on here how certain things in certain cultures are just "obvious" to me as "off" just because I've lived closely to people like this over the last few years. There's a lot of shows on TV about living in NY and most of them are so far removed from reality that it's not funny. I think "The King of Queens" is one of the only shows that come close.


If you look at where they lived, their cultural background etc, the fact that she has kids, the fact that it is during the school season, this thing just doesn't make any sense at all as a "Photography Trip to See the World"

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.

I like to break the norm, I'm not judging her for breaking the mold and trying something wild and different. My own mother spent 6 months backpacking through Europe and left 6 kids at home including a six month old baby when I was a kid. It's not normal to do this to your family in order to "find yourself." There are plenty of other outlets in the world available. If she wanted to keep a commitment to go to Turkey on some life long dream of hers I'd believe it if she went with her friend and didn't have sex with the guy while she was there.

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.

So do I.

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.

It's not about judging the person, it's about figuring out important clues. Something about this doesn't add up. Many people have said the same thing. It's not "one or two" issues, it's many issues. Her story doesn't gel and it's obvious she was lying to her husband.

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.

You are discussing something again about judging. It's not about judging to say it is not a normal thing to do. It is just an indication that there is more to this story than a random act of violence.

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.

I think it does. It think people who don't understand how big of a deal it is for her to do this probably don't have kids. It means that her passions meant enough for her to risk her kids not having a mother in order to do this.

This is not judging her as a mother, it's observing her mental state.

Basically two kinds of people would do this

A. Someone who is passionate about something in such a way that they can't not do it without sacrificing part of their identity.

It's clear this is how she and her husband and family tried to present it to the world, that she went to Istanbul on a photography trip. Well I know a lot of photographers and they all say that is total BS because the idea of being in such a glorious rare opportunity of a space without your camera for once in a lifetime shots is inconceivable to them. If it was about photography she would have taken her camera no matter what.


She didn't. The trip was not about photography.

In the beginning it was also suggested that she was going to meet her Instagram Pals but this turned out not to be true at all. It speaks to the way her family rationalized this to everyone around them as a trip of "Passion for Photography."

It wasn't.

The other reason someone does something like this is that they are desperate to get out of their situation and see the world. She may have felt it was her opportunity to see the world and come alive.

The problem for me with this is that she slept with a stranger over there and that just seems completely bizarre. She obviously went on this trip to see someone.

So this more and more looks like an escape plan gone wrong. The fact that her shoes and bag are missing could be that women attacked her.


Who knows.

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.

My comments above point out the difference in judgment and sleuthing. However I don't feel sorry for her. I feel sorry for her children. They are the true victims in all this. I also feel bad for her husband having to deal with all of this because someone wanted a chance to find themselves. No I simply don't believe it.

There are beautiful opportunities for photography in the Grand Canyon, in many other places in the US.

To me this looks like she was involved in something that wound up getting her killed.

But as I've said, we'll see.

 

[alpmighty]

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.

Okay, so naturally S3 being on contract, LE will attempt to fetch the IMEI from the US operator and will be able to get geo data from the Turkish operators. Of course if the US operator is CDMA, S3 wouldn't work with Turkish operators, it would only work in Wi-Fi hotspots which will prevent up to second tracing before and after her death.

If the Galaxy S3 came from a US operator which is not using GSM, then all LE could do is get IP information from Skype and other online services she was using. They'd be able to accurately locate where the wireless hotspot that the phone connected through is around. Sure, they could fetch the device specific wi-fi MAC ID as well. Samsung and most likely AT&T would have that MAC ID. But then again, MAC ID is only identified to the router or access point, and unless it was a commercial hotspot of any type (those are legally bound to retain MAC ID records) home wireless access points or routers (small businesses would certainly have a home type access point or router) do not retain those data. Most such home devices store that data on flash memory, if you power cycle the device, the data is gone.

 

[ThinkHard]

I don't think what Chewy is saying what she did was criminal. Just that her choice of destinations, including the sofa of man in Amsterdam who she had only met online, seem unusual for a happily married woman.

Chewy has made it by clear in their belief that she was involved in illegal activity in several posts.

 

[english]

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.

This question is not directed at you Herat. I'm sorry if I've missed it, but where did we get the information that her spare pair of shoes were high heels?

 

[NewYork625]

Chewy has made it by clear in their belief that she was involved in illegal activity in several posts.

Sorry, I missed that. I am having trouble keeping up, and tend to read from the latest posts backwards, never quite reading back to where I left off. :blushing:

 

[Yashim]

Personally I do not think she was involved in illegal activity, and I personally feel that a great deal of the speculation along those theories has more to do with prejudices and assumption about traveling as a single traveler without her husband or children, and her chosen country of Turkey. And has very little to do with anything else we have read about this case.

Well, here in Turkey, it was her side trips that got us confused.

Traveling alone and visiting Istanbul isn't that weird.

But today I went to that mall in the footage, its food court looks like university cafeteria. And there were Arby's, Burger King and 4 other similar fast-food restaurants, which are also available on Istiklal Avenue. This, IMO, suggests she just didn't know much about the area and her local friends weren't of much help. This might have contributed to the inconsistencies in her time in Istanbul, which got us even more confused.

 

[CMac2]

No matter where you come from, Istanbul is always more than sightseeing.

Right. Don't forget the bathroom sex!

 

[Herat]

This question is not directed at you Herat. I'm sorry if I've missed it, but where did we get the information that her spare pair of shoes were high heels?

I don't have anything to quote, but reading the voluminous Volume 1 and Volume 2 of Sarai Sierra's disappearance threads on this board, the second pair is often described as a pair of high heels.

This could all be repeating erroneous information.

My comments are all speculative, as we have seen no photo documentation of any of this.

 

[Rolandred]

There appears to be an update:

Turkish police told MailOnline they have only made public five per cent of what they know about her murder

Though authorities will not have results for two weeks, they have managed to narrow it down to a small group of Sarai Sierra's internet contacts as well as a homeless person who was at the scene when her body was found.
One person who is believed to be talking to investigators is Ammer Reduron, who Sarai connected with on Instagram in the months before her trip and stayed with while she was in Amsterdam.
Little is known about the 32-year-old Dutch national, but last year he posted on a site similar to Craigslist that he lives in an immigrant ghetto in Amsterdam called Zuidoost.
Though his Facebook page lists that he works for Cisco Systems, the company's international headquarters told MailOnline there was no information for him in the company directory.
Last week, Reduron claimed he was not a suspect and admitted Sarai stayed with him when she went to Amsterdam on a side trip - also saying her husband Steven knew this and was OK with it as the two were friends.
'Taking care of her,' he said last week. 'Meaning showing my city and being a good friend to her. She had a wonderful time here.'
On his Facebook, the 32-year-old 'checks in' at Amsterdam airport on January 15, which is purportedly when he went to pick up Sarai.
On January 23 - ten days before her body was found, Sarai's sister Christina Jiminez become Facebook friends with him.

Police however, are giving little away as to what they have uncovered in the investigation.

more at the link

[LINK]

Thank you - so helpful. I suspected the LE knew way more - the crime scene was really investigated quite thoroughly - and where she was found may have been a "home" for a homeless person - whether that person found her or not who knows. Maybe she got involved with the IG "friends" who were fake tour guides or not - or drug running - or not...Anyway - IMO Ammer looks Mid-Eastern/Turk extraction -not Dutch - maybe has contacts in Turkey (just speculating). One should always be careful when people are so public with their profiles...I did take a look at his facebook page and found it odd so much information public -

So thank you again!

 

[alpmighty]

Could be, could be that she wanted something authentic. I live in Bay Ridge Brooklyn and i didn't realize until reading some of the posts on here how certain things in certain cultures are just "obvious" to me as "off" just because I've lived closely to people like this over the last few years. There's a lot of shows on TV about living in NY and most of them are so far removed from reality that it's not funny. I think "The King of Queens" is one of the only shows that come close.


If you look at where they lived, their cultural background etc, the fact that she has kids, the fact that it is during the school season, this thing just doesn't make any sense at all as a "Photography Trip to See the World"




I like to break the norm, I'm not judging her for breaking the mold and trying something wild and different. My own mother spent 6 months backpacking through Europe and left 6 kids at home including a six month old baby when I was a kid. It's not normal to do this to your family in order to "find yourself." There are plenty of other outlets in the world available. If she wanted to keep a commitment to go to Turkey on some life long dream of hers I'd believe it if she went with her friend and didn't have sex with the guy while she was there.





So do I.



It's not about judging the person, it's about figuring out important clues. Something about this doesn't add up. Many people have said the same thing. It's not "one or two" issues, it's many issues. Her story doesn't gel and it's obvious she was lying to her husband.





You are discussing something again about judging. It's not about judging to say it is not a normal thing to do. It is just an indication that there is more to this story than a random act of violence.




I think it does. It think people who don't understand how big of a deal it is for her to do this probably don't have kids. It means that her passions meant enough for her to risk her kids not having a mother in order to do this.

This is not judging her as a mother, it's observing her mental state.

Basically two kinds of people would do this

A. Someone who is passionate about something in such a way that they can't not do it without sacrificing part of their identity.

It's clear this is how she and her husband and family tried to present it to the world, that she went to Istanbul on a photography trip. Well I know a lot of photographers and they all say that is total BS because the idea of being in such a glorious rare opportunity of a space without your camera for once in a lifetime shots is inconceivable to them. If it was about photography she would have taken her camera no matter what.


She didn't. The trip was not about photography.

In the beginning it was also suggested that she was going to meet her Instagram Pals but this turned out not to be true at all. It speaks to the way her family rationalized this to everyone around them as a trip of "Passion for Photography."

It wasn't.

The other reason someone does something like this is that they are desperate to get out of their situation and see the world. She may have felt it was her opportunity to see the world and come alive.

The problem for me with this is that she slept with a stranger over there and that just seems completely bizarre. She obviously went on this trip to see someone.

So this more and more looks like an escape plan gone wrong. The fact that her shoes and bag are missing could be that women attacked her.


Who knows.



My comments above point out the difference in judgment and sleuthing. However I don't feel sorry for her. I feel sorry for her children. They are the true victims in all this. I also feel bad for her husband having to deal with all of this because someone wanted a chance to find themselves. No I simply don't believe it.

There are beautiful opportunities for photography in the Grand Canyon, in many other places in the US.

To me this looks like she was involved in something that wound up getting her killed.

But as I've said, we'll see.

I think the best thing we can do is to stay impersonal with SS.

As I've shared before, I'm Turkish, and a visitor ending up like SS did infuriates me to the core. She being a mother and a woman only adds more to my frustration. No one deserves to die, especially like this.

That being said, I do not allow my sentiment to cloud my judgement. We need to consider every angle there is. We cannot lose our objectivity.

Let us leave our personal sentiments aside, for they can only mislead us.

She may have had a love tyrst. She might have been a willing drug mule. She might have just wanted to shoot photographs. Heck, she can be the most irresponsible, uncaring and evil mother in the world. Still, no one deserves to die like this. That is the only sentiment, only conclusion, only mandate that we can assure ourselves of not misleading our ability to judge.

No one deserves to die like this, my friends. That's something that we all can agree on. Is it not?

 

[Chewy]

I don't think what Chewy is saying what she did was criminal. Just that her choice of destinations, including the sofa of man in Amsterdam who she had only met online, seem unusual for a happily married woman.

Yep. I also think that people who are projecting this into a "judgment" are either single or don't have kids.

It's not about "Tisk tisk tisk, that bad woman how could she do this to her kids"

It's about "What in the world would compel her to leave her kids behind like that? How in the world did it seem ok to stay in the house of a man in another country like that?"

I see you are from NY as well so I think you understand what I mean about the culture and whatnot.

One of my best friends is a man, and I trust him tremendously as does my husband. If I wanted to stay with him in another country it would be ok.

But to leave my kids in the middle of the school year and go on a trip like this where any issue that came up could completely disrupt their lives?

It would take a LOT to make me feel it was worth it. A lot. IF Turkey was her passion and she'd always dreamed of it and didn't want to give it up then that would make sense to me a little.

But this whole thing doesn't look like that. It looks like she went there to meet specific people. Not because she wanted to go to Turkey. And it seems like there is way way more to the story than is told.

 

[NewYork625]

Has anyone else noticed Sarai's IG profile picture seems to symbolize that there are two different sides to her?

 

[Yashim]

Right. Don't forget the bathroom sex!

That's what I was referring to! Is there even more?

 

[CMac2]

My comments above point out the difference in judgment and sleuthing. However I don't feel sorry for her. I feel sorry for her children. They are the true victims in all this. I also feel bad for her husband having to deal with all of this because someone wanted a chance to find themselves. No I simply don't believe it.

I feel horribly sorry for SS, in addition to her husband and children. The entire scenario is a tragedy. SS was very obviously a victim- the victim of a brutal murder. Her children and husband are victims as well, but no one deserves to be murdered. Simply going on a trip to a foreign land for three weeks- even if she was meeting up with men behind her husband's back- does not make her a person who deserved to die a violent death, and deserves no empathy.

 

[alpmighty]

Thank you - so helpful. I suspected the LE knew way more - the crime scene was really investigated quite thoroughly - and where she was found may have been a "home" for a homeless person - whether that person found her or not who knows. Maybe she got involved with the IG "friends" who were fake tour guides or not - or drug running - or not...Anyway - IMO Ammer looks Mid-Eastern/Turk extraction -not Dutch - maybe has contacts in Turkey (just speculating). One should always be careful when people are so public with their profiles...I did take a look at his facebook page and found it odd so much information public -

So thank you again!

Ammer is not a Turkish name at all. More likely Arabic. Only Turkish name that can be related with the name Ammer is Muammer. Unless somebody can point out a good reason for dropping the "mu", he isn't Turkish.

 

[alpmighty]

Ammer is not a Turkish name at all. More likely Arabic. Only Turkish name that can be related with the name Ammer is Muammer. Unless somebody can point out a good reason for dropping the "mu", he isn't Turkish.

It turns out Ammar is an Arabic name, meaning long, prosperous life. It's also the name of a small river in Germany.

 

[CMac2]

That's what I was referring to! Is there even more?

I dunno. You tell me. I'm the foreigner!

 

[Herat]

I think the best thing we can do is to stay impersonal with her.
No one deserves to die like this, my friends. That's something that we all can agree on, I think.

Kudos to that.

I am trying to refrain from any speculative comments that are hurtful about her husband or family. Looking at the photos of her in NYC make her seem so fragile and lacking in duplicitous intent other than to explore her art of photography.

 

[Chewy]

Chewy has made it by clear in their belief that she was involved in illegal activity in several posts.

Chewy has made it clear in several posts that I think she was an UNKNOWING participant in illegal activity. I have repeatedly stated this and even gone so far (this is the third time) of reminding people that I am not saying she willingly participated in it.

So please do not speak for me since you are clearly misunderstanding it.

 

[EncyclopediaBrown]

hey there. i'm new here. nice to meet you all!

just my own thoughts as i join the discussion --

i don't think she knowingly went to a seedy area of the city. she probably chose to stay there because it was close to people she wanted to meet. she wanted to be close by having no contacts in the city. meeting people online and meeting them in person is quite normal. i have done it. her staying with guys - well, she obviously wasn't happy in her relationship - i don't even like to meet guys now that i am in a relationship - let alone sleep on their couches. maybe the guy in amsterdam has more information then had been previously told. it was stated in a previous post that she had mentioned that she wasn't feeling so safe with some of the people in turkey - her landlord or something. maybe there is more information that he has on that. and maybe, hopefully, that is it. it would be really odd if he is somewhat connected to her being murdered in turkey. outlandish. i think she chose turkey not because of photography - although she liked taking pictures - but because she wanted to meet these people she had been talking to. her marriage was on the rocks, she wants to 'save' her relationship, so she decides to take a solo trip - maybe it was their last ditch effort to save the relationship - she goes away and has this adventure and clears her mind. the turkish police haven't given us anything - it's possible they are on the other people she has met on instagram or facebook and they are keeping it mum until they get in contact with these people and are trying not to scare this person away. taylan or whatever, she met him twice -- if she was really into this guy she wouldn't have waited so long to get back in contact. there has to be somebody else.

i noticed while perusing her instagram that she changed her account name about 4 months or so back -- not sure if that's even relevant to any of this...i can post a screengrab if any of you are interested in that.

also - i haven't seen anywhere anything about her receiving mail. anyone have a link to that?