Turkish ‘serial killer’ murdered three to cover up first crime: Reports

The story of Atalay Filiz, a suspected murderer who has been sought internationally for the past three years for the murder of two people, including a Russian woman, hit the headlines recently after he emerged as the prime suspect in the murder of history teacher Fatma Kayıkçı in Istanbul’s Tuzla district. 

Neighbors reported hearing cries from Kayıkçı’s apartment in Tuzla’s Postane neighborhood on May 27. A police investigation revealed that Kayıkçı was missing while her shoes and traces of her blood were discovered at the apartment of one of her neighbors residing on the ground floor: Filiz.

Filiz, however, was known to his neighbors as Furkan Altın, and the fact that he was being sought for the murder of two others only came to light after fingerprints from the apartment turned out to match those from the earlier crimes. 

The suspect remains at large almost a week after Kayıkçı’s body was recovered from beneath a tree in an uncultivated plot of land in Tuzla.

Filiz has been on the run since the murder of Göktuğ Demirarslan, the son of Maj. Gen. Hasan Hüseyin Demiraraslan, and his Russian girlfriend, Elena Radchikova, on Sept. 16, 2013. Meanwhile, there were reports suggesting Filiz’s former girlfriend, also a Russian national and friends with Radchikova, a woman named Olga Seregina, has also been missing since 2013 amid reports Filiz might have murdered her as well. 

According to the latest allegations, Seregina was Filiz’s first murder and he committed the subsequent crimes in order to cover up his first killing – which he reportedly committed after the woman attempted to break up with him. 

Radchikova, a friend of Seregina, and Demirarslan grew suspicious of Filiz, heightening his fears that he would be apprehended. Filiz then allegedly murdered the couple with rifles as they were entering their home in Ankara. 

Following the double murder, Filiz allegedly crossed the border into Greece and remained on the run for two years. He is believed to have returned to Turkey in 2014 using a counterfeit passport and lived under a false identity since. 

According to statements by Fatma Kayıkçı’s stepson, Bekir Kayıkçı, Filiz worked at their family’s teahouse as a boarding employee for a year and a half, claiming to have run away from his family home to show his parents that he was able to stand on his own two feet. Kayıkçı said they wanted to provide insurance for Filiz, whom they believed to be Furkan Altın, but he declined, saying he was indebted to the institution.

Police believe Fatma Kayıkçı might have grown suspicious of Filiz’s real identity, causing her to become the man’s latest victim. 


Russian victim’s mother long suspected Filiz

A friend of Seregina’s spoke to Turkish daily Habertürk and claimed the woman decided to leave Filiz after meeting his parents and holidaying in the Turkish resort town of Fethiye in August 2011. Seregina reportedly said she got to know Filiz better during the holiday and complained of “cultural incompatibilities.”

A few months later, in December 2011, Olga went missing and no reports of her whereabouts have emerged since.

Meanwhile, Olga’s mother, Lyu Seregina, also spoke to Habertürk and said she always suspected that Filiz murdered her daughter although she defined him as a “well-mannered and calm kid.”

“We only met online. The only person responsible for the disappearance of my daughter is Atalay. I have had suspicions about him since the beginning,” she was reported as saying.

Police are yet to locate the whereabouts of Filiz while information pours in from citizens who claim to have spotted the suspect across the country. 

So far, he is believed to have been seen in the Aegean province of İzmir and northwestern province of Edirne, both major routes to infiltrate into European territory. 

Meanwhile, police conducted a search inside a storehouse in the Hadımköy district of Istanbul, which Atalay rented in 2014.

A number of books and CDs were seized during the searches, while one bicycle was also found inside the storehouse.

Atalay is reported to be in the Çeşme district of the Aegean province of İzmir, likely planning to try to illegally cross over to a Greek island, according to private broadcaster CNN Türk.

Police have opened a phone line to find Atalay. Everyone with information on his whereabouts is urged to call +902122144030.