A Staten Island mom of two was found dead in Istanbul 11 days after she was due home from a solo trip in which she’d planned to pursue her interest in photography, Turkish news reports said.
Locals discovered Sarai Sierra, 33, lifeless and bloodied near one of Istanbul’s city walls, bringing a tragic end to an exhaustive search.
Authorities detained 11 people, including two women, after the grisly find, Turkish news outlets said.
Sierra, mother of two boys aged 9 and 11, vanished on Jan. 22, the day her family expected her to arrive home on a United flight to Newark Airport, where her husband, Steven, awaited her.
Immediately, pictures of Sierra, hazel-eyed and wearing a tan hat and brown leather jacket, circulated around Istanbul and on the Internet.
But the petite woman, recognizable to locals from posters and media coverage, was found near the city’s western end, a short distance from the 19th century Galata Bridge. Her New York driver’s license was found nearby. It is a photogenic spot where tourists and locals gather to watch giant ships as they traverse the storied straits of Bosphorus.
Turkish media carried conflicting reports saying she’d either been stabbed or bludgeoned to death. Anadolu, a state-run news agency, theorized her body may have been dumped there.
Turkish police later said she suffered a fatal blow to the head.
Istanbul police chief Huseyin Capkin said Sunday that forensic experts had not concluded their autopsy report on the victim, Sarai Sierra, but that it was “clear” the head injury caused her death.
Shortly after her body was discovered, a woman told police she had seen a white car parked nearby as she drove by on Tuesday night.
She said a man was trying to remove “something” from the car.
“At that moment, I noticed a woman’s hand,” the news agency Anadolu quoted the woman as telling reporters. The agency said she declined to give her name.
Sierra had planned on Jan. 21 to meet a man identified by local authorities as “Taylan” at the Galata Bridge for a photography session.
“We did not meet that day, but we had met before,” Taylan told the Hurriyet Daily News, after being let go.
Authorities last week questioned Taylan, after he was identified from Internet messages cops received from Sierra’s husband. Taylan said he and Sierra met on the Internet.
Taylan was released without being charged. It was unclear last night if he was among the 11 people picked up by cops yesterday.
Sierra had originally booked the vacation with a friend, but when her pal bailed out at the last minute, she chose to take off alone for Istanbul on Jan. 7.
She didn’t stay put in Turkey for long. Five days after arriving, Sierra grabbed another flight to Amsterdam. Then, she traveled to Munich. She was back in Istanbul on Jan. 19.
At a hostel in Tarlabasi, a district of winding narrow streets undergoing urban renewal, her “passport and medical cards were still in her room,” her relatives wrote on Facebook.
A special Turkish police squad set up to search for Sierra found video footage of her at a shopping mall on Jan. 20. A Turkish missing-persons association also joined the search.
With Post Wire Services