20-year-old Turkish woman brutally murdered, body burned

MERSİN – Doğan News Agency

Twenty-year-old Özgecan Aslan was a psychology student at Çağ University in Mersin. DHA Photo.

The burned body of a 20-year-old female student who had been missing for two days was discovered Feb. 13 in a riverbed in the Tarsus district of the southern province of Mersin.

Three suspects have been detained for stabbing Özgecan Aslan to death and later burning her remains.

The family of Aslan, who was a psychology student at Çağ University, had filed a missing report with the police on Feb. 11 after failing to contact her. As the search for the missing girl continued, gendarmerie forces stopped a suspicious minibus on Feb. 12, discovering blood stains and a hat in the minibus.

The driver of the vehicle, 26-year-old S.A., his 50-year-old father, N.A., and 20-year-old F.G. were detained when the victim’s father recognized the hat and said it belonged to his daughter.

During the interrogation, N.A. and F.G. admitted to the crime. According to the suspects’ testimonies, after all other passengers disembarked from the minibus, S.A. exited the scheduled route in spite of Aslan’s protestations and drove to a secluded spot.

When he attempted to rape the woman, she fought back and used pepper spray against her attacker. S.A. then stabbed Aslan several times and hit her with an iron pipe, killing her.

He also allegedly cut off Aslan’s fingers in an effort to ensure that no DNA match would be made with the scratches the woman made on his face during the struggle.

After the murder, S.A. went back home with the body and asked for his father and friend’s help in disposing of the remains. The three then tried to burn Aslan’s body to eliminate any evidence.

The remains of a woman were found Feb. 13 at a location indicated by the suspects. One of Aslan’s close friends, who was with her on the day she went missing, failed to identify the severely damaged body, but she said the clothes on the body matched what Aslan wore the day she disappeared.

“We were together at the school until noon, then we went shopping, ate something and got on a minibus to go home,” the witness said. “I got off near my home and she stayed on the minibus to go home. I later learned that she did not go home and was missing.”

The gendarmerie and the police have launched an investigation to find out the details and the reasons for the murder.