Police have connected the DNA of a homeless man with the Staten Island mom who was brutally slain in Istanbul after she went missing last month, according to a Turkish media report.
Investigators made the match after plucking a hair sample of a man named Ziya T. and comparing it with the blood recovered from Sarai Sierra’s T-shirt and fingernails after she was killed, Turkey’s Dogan News Agency reported.
Turkish authorities had considered Ziya to be a leading suspect in the case.
Police discovered the hair strand on a pillow at Ziya’s brother-in-law’s house, the same place the vagrant stayed for the three days after Sierra went missing, the report said.
The 33-year-old mother of two was found dead from a blow to the head behind Istanbul’s ancient walls on Feb. 2.
The Turkish paper Hürriyet Daily News also cites two people who say they witnessed the suspect in the neighborhood where Sierra’s body was found.
One man told police that Ziya was covered with scars and scrapes that may have come from a scuffle.
Sierra went missing on Jan. 21. She was buried on Staten Island last week.