As I have followed this story with pain, my heart bleeds that she was murdered. My goodness gracious. I am speechless
oman Found Dead After Vanishing on Vacation in Istanbul
By SEBNEM ARSU and MARC SANTORA
Published: February 2, 2013
ISTANBUL — A Staten Island woman who failed to return home from a vacation alone in Turkey last month, setting off a frantic search by American and Turkish authorities, was found dead on Saturday, according to her family and the Turkish authorities.
David Martinez, via Associated Press
Sarai Sierra in an undated family photo in New York.
The body of the woman, Sarai Sierra, 33, was discovered near a major roadway along Istanbul’s ancient city walls, the semiofficial Anatolian Agency reported. Her family was informed of the death on Saturday afternoon and said they were awaiting a more detailed briefing from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which assisted Turkish authorities in the inquiry.
Local reports said she had been stabbed, but American law enforcement officials cautioned that the investigation was in its early stages and they declined to provide details as to how Ms. Sierra died. One law enforcement official said Turkish authorities notified State Department officials in the country on Saturday that they had found her body. The State Department did not respond to requests for comment.
Her family said they had lost contact with her on Jan. 21, the day she was supposed to leave Turkey. It was her first trip overseas.
Ms. Sierra, a married mother of two children, had originally planned to travel with a friend, but when the friend could not go, she decided to press on alone. She arrived in Turkey on Jan. 7 for what she told her family was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to practice her favorite hobby: photography.
On Staten Island on Saturday, her father, Dennis Jimenez, 59, described her as a hard worker who spent all of her spare time with her sons, who are 11 and 9.
She worked part time in a chiropractor’s office and was studying for a bachelor’s degree at the College of Staten Island.
She had been planning and saving for the trip for several months.
Ms. Sierra chronicled her travels around Istanbul, as well as side trips to Amsterdam and Munich, on her page on the social media outlet Instagram, memyself_sarai. The last photo was posted on Jan. 20.
Soon after she failed to arrive at Newark Liberty International Airport as scheduled, her Instagram page quickly filled with prayers and pleas for information from friends and relatives.
Her husband, Steven Sierra, and brother, David Jimenez, flew to Istanbul last week.
Before they left, Mr. Sierra told The Staten Island Advance that his wife had kept him informed of all her travel plans.
“She kept me 100 percent updated,” her husband said. “Every day while she was there she pretty much kept in contact with us, letting us know what she was up to, where she was going, whether it be through texting or whether it be through video chat, she was touching base with us.”
After her disappearance was reported to the local authorities, the Turkish authorities said the police had watched hundreds of hours of surveillance video and sent officers to chase down leads across the country.
Late last week, the focus turned to a man the authorities believed was the last person to contact Ms. Sierra. He was identified in local news reports only as Taylan. He was questioned by the police and released, according to the local reports. Nine other people are still being questioned.
Ms. Sierra, according to both Turkish and American officials, had an e-mail correspondence with Taylan before she arrived in Istanbul and was in touch with him on the day she disappeared.
“I’ll be across from the Galata Tower in a while, will you come?” Ms. Sierra reportedly wrote in an e-mail sent on Jan. 21 at 11 a.m., referring to a popular tourist attraction in downtown Istanbul. The text of the message was first reported in the Turkish paper Vatan.
The tower is a short walk from the hostel in the Tarlabasi district where Ms. Sierra had rented a room.
Ms. Sierra sent another message at 11:33 a.m., saying, “I’m leaving, call me if you want to reach me.”
Taylan replied at 12:45 p.m., writing, “I’ll come there, hope you have wireless.”
When the police searched her room, they found her cellphone and passport and other belongings.
Taylan, according to the Turkish media, denied to the Istanbul police any intimate relations with Ms. Sierra, whom he had met on the Internet four months ago. He said they were both active on Instagram, which is used to share photography, and continued to communicate via his Gmail account.
“She told me that she wanted to come to Istanbul to take pictures, and I told her that it was a good idea,” Taylan told the police, as quoted by Vatan on Saturday. “She came to Istanbul, we continued talking over the net and met face to face for the first time on Jan. 13, talked about each other’s lives, wandered around and then left separately.”
He said he went to the Galata Tower to meet her, but did not find her, according to media reports.
News coverage of the rare disappearance of an American tourist captivated Turkey, and the local police created a special unit to investigate it. As the hunt for Ms. Sierra proceeded, 28 officers in the police security surveillance unit were assigned to search through hours of video that 260 patrol teams collected from more than 500 street cameras in Istanbul’s Beyoglu district, the Anatolian Agency reported.
Packed with bars, movie theaters, cafes and restaurants, the neighborhood is popular with tourists and locals alike.
Ms. Sierra’s father said he never had any indication that anything was wrong.
“We talked by Skype every day,” he said. “Every day she would tell me, ‘Dad, don’t forget to pick me up at the airport.’ ”
“She’s a closely devoted mother and wife and daughter,” Mr. Jimenez added. “I’m devastated.”
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