8 dead in wake of Adana shooting
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Daily News with wires
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Haziran 03, 2009 00:00
ISTANBUL - The bodies of eight murder victims were discovered early yesterday in an apartment in the southern province of Adana. The younger brother of one of the victims was detained and confessed to the killings, officials said.
Adana Gov. İlhan Atış said eight people, including three women, three children and two men, were shot and killed. "In order to shed a light on the cause of these murders, our investigators are continuing their efforts," he said. The 38-year-old suspect, Murat Yüksel, the younger brother of one of the victims, 40-year-old nurse Nalan Yüksel, has confessed to the murder, Atış later told reporters. Officials named the victims as Yüksel; her 62-year-old mother, Günay Yüksel; her 64-year-old father, İbrahim Yüksel; and two sons, 17-year-old Halil İbrahim Kopar and 19-year-old Arıf Kopar.
Nalan Yüksel's older brother Ali Yüksel and his wife, Gül, and 6-year-old Vedat were also among the dead, news agencies reported. Nalan Yüksel had divorced nine years ago, the reports added. The suspect, captured with what was believed to be the murder weapon, was taken to a police station for questioning. Police officers investigating the case picked him up at his home while he was writing a suicide note, news agencies said. Media reports suggested the motive for the murder was a disagreement among the family members over financial issues.
Earlier suicide attempt
The suspect reportedly attempted to commit suicide three months earlier by setting himself and his car on fire and was reportedly discharged from the military, where he served as a petty officer, after it was discovered that he was married to a foreign national, according to the Anatolia news agency.
A colleague of Nalan Yüksel, a doctor working at the same clinic, called police early in the morning after she failed to show up for work and did not answer her phones, according to reports. The bodies were discovered after firefighters and police broke into the flat on suspicion that the family may have been asphyxiated as the result of a faulty boiler system, the reports said.
TV channels said the murders might have been committed with a gun silencer, citing police officers. None of the other residents of the apartment building reportedly heard or saw anything. Earlier, Adana Mayor Aytaç Durak claimed that all but one male victim was covered with a blanket, giving the impression that the uncovered male might have killed the others before turning the gun on himself, an assumption that was later disproved. The incident occurred in the Huzurevleri neighborhood of Adana, fourth largest city of Turkey. Mainly middle and lower-middle class families reside in this newly built developing neighborhood. A neighbor of the family, Hasan Çingoz, told the Doğan news agency that the Yüksels had been living in the flat for five years. "We did not hear any gunshot or so forth. There had been a couple of quarrels within the family," he said. "We don't know anything about the motive for the incident."
Nalan Yüksel's older brother Ali Yüksel and his wife, Gül, and 6-year-old Vedat were also among the dead, news agencies reported. Nalan Yüksel had divorced nine years ago, the reports added. The suspect, captured with what was believed to be the murder weapon, was taken to a police station for questioning. Police officers investigating the case picked him up at his home while he was writing a suicide note, news agencies said. Media reports suggested the motive for the murder was a disagreement among the family members over financial issues.
Earlier suicide attempt
The suspect reportedly attempted to commit suicide three months earlier by setting himself and his car on fire and was reportedly discharged from the military, where he served as a petty officer, after it was discovered that he was married to a foreign national, according to the Anatolia news agency.
A colleague of Nalan Yüksel, a doctor working at the same clinic, called police early in the morning after she failed to show up for work and did not answer her phones, according to reports. The bodies were discovered after firefighters and police broke into the flat on suspicion that the family may have been asphyxiated as the result of a faulty boiler system, the reports said.
TV channels said the murders might have been committed with a gun silencer, citing police officers. None of the other residents of the apartment building reportedly heard or saw anything. Earlier, Adana Mayor Aytaç Durak claimed that all but one male victim was covered with a blanket, giving the impression that the uncovered male might have killed the others before turning the gun on himself, an assumption that was later disproved. The incident occurred in the Huzurevleri neighborhood of Adana, fourth largest city of Turkey. Mainly middle and lower-middle class families reside in this newly built developing neighborhood. A neighbor of the family, Hasan Çingoz, told the Doğan news agency that the Yüksels had been living in the flat for five years. "We did not hear any gunshot or so forth. There had been a couple of quarrels within the family," he said. "We don't know anything about the motive for the incident."