E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
AP
Turkish men pin up a photo of Sarai Sierra, a New York City woman who disappeared while on vacation in Istanbul.
The cellphone of a New York City mom missing in Istanbul has been used twice since she vanished, a Turkish newspaper reported Friday.
Sarai Sierra, 33, hasn’t been seen heard from since Jan. 21, the day before she was supposed to catch a flight home from a two-week vacation.
But police believe the amateur photographer is alive because her phone was used for a Skype call on Wednesday and turned on again Thursday, the Sabah newspaper reported, according to the Turkish daily Hurriyet.
Cops briefly detained a man who exchanged online messages with Sierra after meeting her online four months ago, contacted her while she was in Istanbul and made plans to rendezvous with her on a bridge she wanted to photograph, Hurriyet said.
The man reportedly told police the two never connected, and investigators are now hoping to question three other people she corresponded with on Facebook and Twitter.
Sierra left for her first trip abroad on Jan. 7 — flying solo after a close friend dropped out of the prepaid trip, her family has said.
Her husband, Steven Sierra, said his wife stayed in close contact, talking to him and their children, ages 9 and 11, by phone and Skype.
The last communication from her came Jan. 21, when she sent her sister a brief message saying she would be home the next day.
When she didn't show up at the airport, her husband called her hostel, which said her passport and other personal items were still there.
Police uncovered surveillance-camera footage of Sierra walking around Istanbul during her visit; she appeared to be alone and well.
Steven Sierra and Sarai's brother, David Jimenez, flew to Turkey earlier this week and turned over her online communications to police.
"I don't want to come home without my sister," Jimenez told NBC New York before the trip.
Leave a Comment:
The woman appears to be very attractive. Most likely she was kidnapped for either the sex trade or ransom. Given the recent bombing of the US embassy she may have been kidnapped for the purpose of some Islamic or terrorist group. Of course there are serial killers and lovers but neither seems likely. We may never know what happened to her. I wonder if she is a Muslim.
Turkey is no longer a safe place for Americans much less a foreign attractive woman to visit. Even in America a woman has to be careful where she travels but at least our dominant religion does not condemn a woman walking out alone to photograph the landscape as imprudent or even whorish. Turkey will turn on the west when it suits them to do so. They walk a razor's edge with other Muslim countries.
Also, why leave her passport with her hotel clerk at the hotel she never checked out of? Even if she did want to disappear you'd think she'd still be smart enough to take her passport, you know in case she ever wanted to rent another room or anything like that. She could always hide it and use it later if need be. Nobody would try and disappear without a passport, that much I do know. She could never leave the country without it and never rent a hotel room either. Nope, something very serious happened here and I'd take a closer look at the guy she was "supposed" to meet on the bridge...
She sounds like an intelligent, mature, confident person. I hope with all of my heart that this turns out ok.
I must say I feel badly for the friend that had to back out of the trip. She must have all of the above posts, thoughts going through her mind.
What if the husband is involved. Wouldn't be the first time a spouse has arraigned the end of there significant other !
Why the hell would anyone want to go to Turkey they are Muslim savages that rape and kill women and kill children, and why would this woman leave her children and husband to meet up with some man she met on line, it sounds like she wanted to have a fling with this guy and just because this guy say's he never met up with her doesn't mean his telling the truth maybe she met up with someone and something happened to her in Turkey that happens all the time especially since she was there alone and they have human sex trafficking all over the world, and they just blew up the American Embassy in Turkey that shows they don't like Americans there.
Why does this information have to be reported?? The phone could have been a source of finding out who the assailant was. Dumb police - dumb media.
OK.., so.., a young-woman, travelling.., alone.., to Turkey! I don't wish anyone harm, and I don't mean to disrespect the dead, but doing what this woman did, in the social-climate of todays world, is NOT SMART.
No one knows what she was she doing there, looking for a man ? pictures ? looking for adventures? finally dead
!
Turks are infamous for the hideous sexual crimes they commit. Were any committed here? She does look she could be Jewish, which certainly doesn't help you in that part of the world. She would have been far better off wearing a burka and not speaking while she was in Turkey. Sorry for the family's loss. I'm sure she's gone.
If I had to guess I would say that the Turks probably cut her up in such a way that she dies a very slow death. They are very sadistic like that!!
strange story,.....the husband knows things .....
many things dont make sense here
U.S. embassy bombed and an American female photographer killed, perhaps coincidence or an attempt to unravel the peaceful relationship between the U.S. and Turkey? Hopefully the Turkish police or someone is tracking the locations of the most recent calls from her cell phone. Perhaps the individual using her phone to contact her Skype account was searching for any funds or information leading to her financial information. Did the person use her password to gain entry into the account? Did they find her camera and computer among her things or with the body that was located and identified as her? What was her occupational field in NYC and did she have a life insurance policy, if so when was it taken out? Sometimes things aren't what they seem when you get beyond the obvious.
If Sarai Sierra was a professional photographer, in order to make money as one she had to travel. New York City is a great place with lots of locations to take excellent photos, but eventually a photographer has to venture to other locations in order to get their photographs published. After viewing her photographs, I would say she was a want-a-be professional photographer who wanted to expand her horizons. If her only occupational field was photography, then what occupational field was her husband in? Considering they had to young children and living in New York City, such a trip would be very expensive. How did she afford it? Was she commissioned by a magazine or some other type of business to take photos of Istanbul? Was she making money off her photographs published in her Skype account? A lot of unanswered questions which if were answered could help solve the puzzle of what happened to Sarai Sierra and why.
U.S. embassy bombed and an American female photographer killed, perhaps coincidence or an attempt to unravel the peaceful relationship between the U.S. and Turkey? Hopefully the Turkish police or someone is tracking the locations of the most recent calls from her cell phone. Perhaps the individual using her phone to contact her Skype account was searching for any funds or information leading to her financial information. Did the person use her password to gain entry into the account? Did they find her camera and computer among her things or with the body that was located and identified as her? What was her occupational field in NYC and did she have a life insurance policy, if so when was it taken out? Sometimes things aren't what they seem when you get beyond the obvious.