This 21-year-old journalism student who worked part-time as a waitress was cut up with a pruning saw and had her head thrown off a cliff after she accepted an offer to sleep on the sofa of a friend after work.
Cops have arrested civil engineer and real estate agent Mustafa Murat Ayhan, 48, who is accused of strangling the journalism student to death before dismembering her body and burying it in the woods. He was also found to have written his name on her body using a razor blade.
Police say they have recovered most of the remains of murdered Azra Gulendam Haytaoglu, but some parts have not been found including her head, which he apparently threw off a cliff.
He confessed to committing the brutal crime following his arrest in the south-western Turkish city of Antalya.
His arrest came after cops scoured CCTV footage following the young woman’s disappearance on Wednesday, 28th July and caught him coming and going to his flat several times with the same suitcase.
He is believed to have sexually assaulted the 21-year-old before strangling her to death in his bathroom, though he denies the first charge.
He confessed to dismembering her body with a pruning saw he said he bought from a market.
The divorced father of one showed the police where he took the victim’s body parts in a suitcase and buried them in an area of forest close to the village of Varsak in the district of Kepez.
The young woman’s remains were subsequently exhumed and taken for a post-mortem examination in Antalya.
Coroners found the suspect had etched his own name onto the deceased woman’s body with a razor blade after killing her.
The suspect said he had consumed alcohol and drugs before killing Azra, whom he knew from the cafe where she worked as a waitress. It is not known how well they were acquainted, but she had told her sister the last time they spoke that she was going to crash for the night on a friend’s sofa.
He said he had offered his living room for Azra to spend the night and claimed he had only tried to cover her with a sheet when he accidentally touched her on the hip and she woke up.
He then claimed she screamed and that he throttled her to stop her from screaming, but she stopped moving and he realised she was no longer breathing or had a pulse.
His neighbours do not buy his version of events, claiming he is constantly drunk, causes parking issues and always brings different women back home with him.
Neighbours attested to hearing shouting from his flat on the night of the crime and reported a bad smell coming from his flat in the following days.
He is currently in preventive custody and awaits trial for murder.
Azra’s remains will be buried in her hometown of Kadirli in the south of the country.
