A note saying ‘I was the killer’ appears in unsolved murder of Armenian woman

ISTANBUL

Küçük's son grieves his mother in the front of her apartment.

A thief robbing a shop next-door to the apartment of a murdered elderly Armenian woman in central Istanbul left a note saying, "I was the killer," as an intense police investigation continues, reported daily Hürriyet.

On Dec. 28, 2012, 84-year-old Maritsa Küçük was stabbed several times at her home in Istanbul's Samatya neighborhood. Following the murder, investigators established a special team to look for the perpetrator. The Istanbul Police Directorate has drawn a police sketch of the suspect and is performing a search against the images of the security cameras located in the neighborhood. Security measures have also been drastically increased.

According to daily Hürriyet's report, the shop owner, identified as R. M., found the safe intact in its place, but with this message inscribed on its top: "It would have been good for me to take it, because I needed the money. I took few things, I was the killer." R. M. told Hürriyet that the thief had entered the shop during the morning and added that he knew Küçük before the tragedy.

However, police officials contacted by the Hürriyet Daily News didn't confirm the incident. Yesayi Demir, director of Surp Kevork Church, told the Daily News that it was "too early to make any comment."

After Küçük's murder, two other attacks were carried out in the past month against elderly Armenian women in the Samatya and Bakırköy districts. One of the women, 87-year-old Turfanda Aşık, lost an eye, while the other woman was robbed and severely injured. Most recently, 84-year-old Sultan Akyar was attacked in Samatya, after which she underwent eye surgery. On Jan. 27 a march was organized in Samatya district to protest the attacks.