20-year-old Turkish woman brutally murdered, body burned

The burned body of a 20-year-old female student who had been missing for two days was discovered Feb. 13 in a riverbed near Tarsus district of the southern province of Mersin. 

Three suspects have been detained for stabbing Özgecan Aslan to death and later burning her remains.

The family of Aslan, who was a phycology student at Ça? University, had filed a missing report with the police on Feb. 11 after failing to contact her. As the search for the missing girl continued, gendarmerie forces stopped a minibus on Feb. 12 on suspicion. 

The gendarmerie found blood stains and a hat in the minibus. The driver of the vehicle, 26-year-old S.A., his 50-year-old father N.A. and 20-year-old F.A. were detained when the victim's father recognized the hat and said it belonged to his daughter. 

During the interrogation, N.A. and F.G. admitted to the crime. According to the suspects' testimonies, Aslan was the last passenger on the minibus and S.A. drove the vehicle to a remote location.

When he attempted to rape the woman, she fought back and used pepper spray against her attacker. S.A. then stabbed Aslan several times and hit her with an iron pipe and killed.

After the murder, S.A. went back home with the body and asked for his father and friend's help to get rid of the body. The three then tried to burn Aslan's body to get rid of the evidence.

The remains of a woman were found Feb. 13 at the location the suspects gave. One of Özgecan Aslan's close friends, who was with her on the day she went missing, failed to identify the severely damaged body, but she said the clothes on the body matched what Aslan wore the day she disappeared.

"We were together at the school until noon, then we went...