{"id":33522,"date":"2013-02-07T12:32:10","date_gmt":"2013-02-07T10:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=33522"},"modified":"2013-02-07T12:32:10","modified_gmt":"2013-02-07T10:32:10","slug":"us-tourist-killed-istanbulmurdered-new-yorker-sarai-sierra-body-back-to-usa-us-news-33522","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/us-tourist-killed-istanbulmurdered-new-yorker-sarai-sierra-body-back-to-usa-us-news-33522\/","title":{"rendered":"US Tourist Killed Istanbul:Murdered New Yorker Sarai Sierra body back to USA \/US News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

The body of a New York City woman Sarai Sierra killed while on a solo vacation in Turkey is being returned to the US.<\/h1>\n

The remains of Sarai Sierra, 33, are expected to arrive on Thursday, the New York Daily News reported.<\/p>\n

Turkish Airlines is providing the transportation for free, after Ms Sierra’s family expressed concerns about how they would pay to bring her body home.<\/p>\n

Ms Sierra was found near Istanbul’s ancient city walls 12 days after she failed to board her flight back to the US.<\/p>\n

Sierra’s husband, Steven, went to Istanbul after she went missing to help in the search for her. He is expected to return to New York on Wednesday to finalise funeral arrangements.<\/p>\n

A Staten Island funeral home had offered its services free of charge, but it was unclear whether the family had accepted the offer.<\/p>\n

Turkish authorities concluded Ms Sierra was killed by a blow to the head.<\/p>\n

She had been in regular contact with her family on Staten Island during her three-week trip, which she took alone after a childhood friend, Magalena Rodriguez, backed out.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At a news conference in New York, Ms Rodriguez fought back tears as she said she wished she had not changed her plans.<\/p>\n

The FBI is aiding Turkish police in investigating her death.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week prosecutors obtained a court order to take blood and DNA samples from 21 people questioned in the case, according to Turkish state media.<\/p>\n

Ms Sierra’s family has said she was on her first trip abroad pursuing a new hobby of photography.<\/p>\n

She posted some of her work on the photo-sharing website Instagram, and her page there has attracted thousands of new visitors since news broke of her disappearance.<\/p>\n

The victim’s mother, in an interview on NBC’s Today show, said the family has not yet told Ms Sierra’s two children, aged nine and 11, of their mother’s fate.<\/p>\n

“The father’s going to talk to them when he gets back and we’ll all be there to support, ” Betzaida Jimenez said.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The body of a New York City woman Sarai Sierra killed while on a solo vacation in Turkey is being returned to the US.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":702,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,80,63,1,118,14],"tags":[45392,45388,45109,45390,45387,45393,45391,45108,45389,45289,6022],"class_list":["post-33522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-general","category-hot","category-world","tag-new-york-city-woman-sarrai","tag-new-york-woman-sarai-sierra","tag-sarai-sierra","tag-sarai-sierra-body-back-to-usa","tag-sarai-sierra-istanbul-murdered","tag-sarai-sierra-killed-istanbul","tag-sarai-sierra-returned-us","tag-turkey-dead-us-tourist","tag-turkey-sarai-sierra","tag-us-tourist-killed-istanbul","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/702"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}