İstanbul Police Chief: Sarai Sierra Killed By Blow To Head

New Yorker Sarai Sierra, who was found dead Saturday afternoon in İstanbul, died from blunt force trauma to the head, according to Turkish police.



Police on Saturday evening identified the body of a woman they found behind the ancient city walls in the low-income neighborhood of Cankurtaran as Sierra by her New York driver's license.



On Sunday afternoon, İstanbul Police Chief Hüseyin Çapkın refuted widespread claims that Sierra, who disappeared two weeks ago while vacationing in İstanbul, had been stabbed to death.



"The investigation continues. The forensic medical report has not yet been released," Çapkın, the first police official to comment on the case, told Turkish media at İstanbul Ataturk Airport. "But we are now certain she was killed by a blow to the head," Çapkın added.



Sierra, 33, disappeared two weeks ago while vacationing in İstanbul. She last contacted her family on the morning of Jan. 21, the day before she was supposed to begin her journey back to New York. She never showed up for her first flight out of İstanbul.



Last week, the Turkish National Police Department, calling the case its highest priority, established a special task force for the investigation of Sierra's disappearance. Her brother, David Jimenez, and husband, Steven, arrived in İstanbul last Monday to join the search. Before heading to Turkey, they told American media they had not yet told Sierra's two children, ages 9 and 11, their mother was missing.



Family and friends have said Sierra, an amateur photographer, came to İstanbul to capture the beauty of the city. Pointing to the shadier backstreets of Beyoğlu where Sierra stayed and the side trips she made to Amsterdam and Munich, suspicions that Sierra was a CIA operative, drug trafficker, and so on, have circulated in Turkish media. But Çapkın refuted these claims, too.



"She was just a tourist," he said on Sunday.



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"The investigation continues. The forensic medical report has not yet been released. But we are now certain she was killed by a blow to the head,"



"She was just a tourist."



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