TURKEY: A retired married couple were tragically shot dead at their small farmhouse by an armed intruder right in front of their daughter. Three years later, the gunman was finally arrested, a hitman who had been hired to kill their neighbors and had simply been given the wrong address.
(I don't normally include the names of those who are not directly the victim or the perpetrator, but I did make a bit of an exception here. I thought it could avoid some confusion or redundancy when writing about the initial investigation. Fortunately, for privacy's sake, most of them aren't provided with their full names anyway.
Since I now work on two cases at once, one being a case on my backlog and another being a suggestion, this write-up was basically already finished by the time I uploaded yesterday's case)
Metin Büyükşen, born in 1963, was well respected by those in his life and community, earning him the title "Metin Hoca" for decades of work as a civil servant and the many acts of generosity he displayed towards those he met. He also met his wife, Necla Büyükşen, born in 1964, through his job, as she also worked as a civil servant. After Necla was diagnosed with breast cancer, the two decided it was finally time to retire.
The couple, now in their mid-50s, settled in their rural hometown of İsmil, a farming community outside Karatay, a relatively small city in Konya Province in Central Turkey. The home they had built was a humble single-story dwelling with few valuables inside, not even a couch; the two made do sitting on a mat. The two would regularly make trips into the city for Necla's cancer treatments, and she wound up beating cancer.
During the course of their lifetime, the couple had three children: a son named Osman who had become a pediatrician, another son named Uğur who was living in the same neighbourhood as them with his family and their 24-year-old daughter Fatma Büşra, who lived with them.
At around 10:00 p.m. on September 3, 2018, Metin, Necla and Fatma were sitting in the living room; they had left the front door unlocked, something most of their neighbours did in kind as the area was rather safe, but that night, somebody opened the door.
The man who then helped himself into their home was tall and heavily built, standing approximately 175 centimetres tall, wearing a balaclava that completely covered his face, a black short-sleeved T-shirt, black trousers, and black gloves. But the most alarming thing of all was the shotgun he was carrying in his hands, fitted with a homemade suppressor.
Without a single word, the shooter opened fire, striking Metin first and then Necla, killing the couple instantly. Their daughter Büşra was with them and directly in the killer's line of fire, but when he pulled the trigger on her, the weapon jammed. Seeing her oppertunity, Büşra threw a teapot at the killer and tried to run away, with the gunman giving chase. Eventually, he caught up, striking Büşra across the head with the butt of the shotgun.
The killer chased Büşra into her bedroom and held her against the bed, repeatedly striking her on the head with the butt of the rifle. The blows almost knocked Büşra unconscious, but still alive, she decided to play dead until the killer stopped striking her. Eventually, convinced he had beaten her to death, the shooter then left their home the same way he came in.
With the killer gone, Büşra escaped through an open window, jumping from the window onto the street below, where she broke some bones in her foot from the impact but through sheer adreline alone continued limping away.
She flagged down a passing car, which took her to the nearest police station, where she told the officers what had happened. While Büşra was taken to the hospital, police were dispatched to the couple's home in İsmil, where they found Metin and Necla's bodies.
The police began their investigation absolutely stumped; the living room was covered in blood, but only the victim's, and while two spent shotgun shells were recovered, the police found themselves unable to trace their origin. Robbery was ruled out not just because of the swift execution style of the murders or the lack of any valuables missing, but also because the family weren't wealthy at all and had barely any material goods someone would want to break in to steal.
Police and onlookers at the scene
Additionally, the crime scene had been disrupted prior to the police's arrival by the other locals who discovered the bodies on their own. Many walked inside the home carrying drinks like tea and soda, and others tried to put Metin and Necla's bodies into body bags on their own without either of them calling the police despite with 5 phones being present at the crime scene.
The only conclusion the police could reach at the scene was that, based on the manner in which the murders were carried out, the couple had likely been targeted in a professional hit, which only raised further questions, as initially, there seemed to be no convincing reason why one would want to contract a hitman to murder the family.
The first suspects were their son, Uğur, and daughter-in-law, Betül Büyükşen. The police detected gunpowder residue on Uğur's hands and clothes, so just like that, case closed? Well, no, despite how damning that seemed at first, he had an excuse; he said the gunpowder came from when he hugged his sister after hearing the news. His alibi was eventually verified. But that didn't mean the police dropped all suspicions against Uğur; in fact, looking into the family's background made them suspect Uğur had recruited the gunman.
Uğur's parents were not the biggest fans of Betül, with the dispute stemming from a mehr, a mandatory marital payment under Islamic tradition. In other words, a dowry. Neither Uğur nor Betül were willing to make this payment, which was the source of fierce arguments in the family.
On August 14, only 20 days before the murders, Betül had temporarily driven her in-laws from their own house, telling them they had no claim to the property and instead she and Uğur were entitled to it due to the dowry. During this period, Metin and Necla lived in Istanbul and told the relatives hosting them that they were scared they might be harmed. They returned to İsmil 20 days after their temporary exile and less than a full day later, the two were shot dead.
Despite the circumstantial evidence now stacked against them, such as Betül deleting more than 200 messages off her phone the day of the murder, a phone that was never seized or examined, no hard evidence implicating Uğur or his side of the family ever emerged, though everyone in the community now believed them responsible.
Meanwhile, the couple's other son, Osman, resigned as a pediatrician in April 2019 and left Istanbul, almost as soon as he opened his practice, so that he could devote his time strictly to seeking justice for the murders of his parents, launching a never-ending public campaign on social media and whatever television station he could get on as a guest, petitioning to the police to reopen the case.
In 2020, Osman appeared on the TV show Müge Anlı ile Tatlı Sert, a program for relatives of victims of unsolved crimes or missing persons, to discuss their cases with a live audience and draw more attention to the crimes that had befallen their relatives.
While on the show, Osman broke down into tears, stating that because the investigation had gone cold, he could never look at his family the same way, as he had no way of knowing if they were truly innocent of his parent's murders or not. In an emotional display, despite COVID-19 measures technically forbidding it, Müge Anlı teared up herself and embraced him.
However, Büşra defended herself and her siblings, arguing that they would have no reason not to come back and finish the job if she had just watched them kill their parents and therefore be able to identify them.
Betül called into the show herself after Osman brought up the 200 messages she had deleted in an effort to defend herself and give her side of the story. And her side of the story was as follows
"I never did anything like that. I wasn't like that; she's the one who did it. I know how many boyfriends she's had. I myself gave two of my phones to the gendarmerie. I was 11 years old when my aunt's son was born; he's my cousin. Actually, Büşra was messaging much more than me. How shameful. I deleted the messages on my phone from the day before. Then funeral messages came, and I deleted those too. It was Büşra who cleaned up the messages. She was also boasting to us, saying, 'If you don't sign, no one can access your phone.'"
This became one of the most-watched episodes in the show's history. The publicity from that episode prompted the police to reopen the case in November 2020.
This new investigation began simply enough: they reviewed all the interviews and reports from the initial investigation to see if they had missed anything, and sure enough, they did. Living 500 meters away from Metin and Necla, Tuğba Dayanır was their closest neighbour.
When the police questioned Tuğba after the murders, she gave a similar description to everyone else: that there was a single masked assailant. But on April 13, 2019, when she was being interviewed as part of a TV show, Tuğba now claimed that there were two masked attackers and he was the only individual questioned to give such an account. So the police were quite interested in why he changed her story.
The police also looked into Tuğba's background and discovered that back in August 2018, he walked into the police station to file a report against Emre E., accusing him of having created two different social media accounts to send her a barrage of messages of a sexually harassing nature. In these messages, Emre threatened to "put two idiots on her trail".
It looked like the police found out why she said there were two gunmen, but it begs the question: if she was the target, why was the Büyükşen home attacked instead? Well, one curious fact that immideately jumped out at the police is that Tuğba later changed her phone and SIM card immediately after reporting these threats. She was also allegedly in contact with Betül's father the day of the murders, a fact she never told anyone.
The police then put Tuğba under surveillance and also dug a bit deeper into her background. She had worked alongside a man named Beyazıt Y. and had been in a relationship with a man named Tacettin S.; however, Tacettin had ended the relationship only a few days prior to the double murder.
On November 9, 2019, Tacettin would go on to marry a woman named Feride S. Feride and a 28-year-old woman named Esra Taş both shared the same great-aunt's husband's sibling as a common relative, and the police started looking into Esra, her associates and the call and phone records of all of them, and in so doing believed they had finally solved the case after being unsolved for three years.
On July 13, 2021, multiple raids were conducted across Konya, leading to the arrests of 25 people, ranging from those suspected to be directly involved in the murders to others who were innocent and later released.
The police then searched the homes and workplaces of those arrested, seizing 2 ski masks, 2 pairs of gloves, 31 mobile phones, 11 external storage devices, 8 shotguns, 3 computers, 42 SIM cards, 8 memory cards, and 2 tablets.
Among those arrested were Esra and her current partner, who would both confess, leading the police to finally paint this picture of what had likely gone down.
Esra worked at a cafe in İsmil and had begun a relationship of her own with a man named Hüseyin Kalınkayış, who was the son of a neighbouring family located only 500 meters away from the Büyükşens', or rather, the two began an affair with one another as both parties were already married at the time.
Eventually, after just one year, Hüseyin would break off the relationship of his own accord after mounting pressure from his family. Esra was furious and blamed his parents for bringing their relationship to an end and preventing her from being with him and only them, as Hüseyin himself was never the recipient of any threats over breaking up with her.
Eventually, Esra began a new relationship with a married father of three and firearm enthusiast, 45-year-old Abdullah Başdemir, who worked on a farm outside of Konya.
However, Esra was still enraged over her initial break-up and continued blaming Hüseyin's parents for it, and eventually she wanted to see them dead. She told Abdullah about this desire, and he agreed to help her make it come true. Unfortunately, neither Esra nor Abdullah knew the home address of Hüseyin's parents, which they needed to pass along to whatever hitmen the couple would hire.
To get that address, Esra telephoned a 40-year-old friend of Hüseyin's named Zekeriya Okşen on August 31, 2018, and told him, "I am pregnant with Hüseyin's child. His family won't let him see me. He won't answer my phone calls. I need to reach him. Can you give me his address?" Seeing no reason to doubt this claim, Zekeriya freely gave up his friend's address.
The problem, it wasn't really an address. Rather, Zekeriya, not actually knowing the exact address itself, such as the numbers and street name, had instead given Esra just the general location where Hüseyin's home could be found.
Mustafa Okşen, another friend, gave Esra additional information as well but still fell short of an actual address. Esra also called Mustafa shortly before the murders to ask if Hüseyin's parents were home, to which he said yes.
With every home in the area looking mostly the same, this was a far-from-helpful description, but regardless, Esra passed it along to Abdullah, who then recruited a 47-year-old secruity guard and friend of Abdullah's named Ertuğrul Çelik and according to their confessions, an Afghan national named Abdulhamid Uzbek, a shepherd who worked on Abdullah's farm.
On September 3, 2018, Ertuğrul obtained a shotgun, likely form Abdullah, which he fitted with a homemade suppressor and then denned some black clothing and black gloves before making his way to the address he had been given, or rather lack thereof. He wandered the streets until he found the first house that matched the description he'd been given, which, unfortunately, happened to be Metin and Necla's.
After Ertuğrul reported back to Abdullah, he told Ersa, "I had those who were bothering you dealt with. I had them killed," and then said, "You're getting away with it today." Ertuğrul, having also not been given a description of his targets, just their phone number, had no way of knowing he had killed the wrong people and therefore Abdullah erroneously believed Ertuğrul was talking about Hüseyin's parents.
On July 18, based on this confession, the police later arrested Abdulhamid in the Turkish capital, Ankara, and why was he in the city, well because he quit his job three days after the murder, though when the police began their interrogation he vehemently denied any involvement. When asked why he ran away so abruptly, he said that he was in Turkey illegally, having hopped across the border in 2015 and therefore feared being deported when the police began swarming the countryside in response to the double murder.
When Abdulhamid had his phone searched, the police saw pictures of him and Abdullah posing with firearms; however, Abdulhamid claimed those pictures were old and taken elsewhere and therefore not evidence implicating him before then exercising his right to remain silent.
Eventually, Büşra was brought in to point out the killer from a line-up, with everyone involved made to wear ski masks, just as Büşra would've seen the killer.
One might wonder how she'd be capable of identifying the shooter, and the answer was simple: although the gunman's face was obscured by the masks, his eyes were still distinctive and recognizable. Although she didn't recognize Abdulhamid, she confidently identified the eyes of the gunman as belonging to Ertuğrul.
Zekeriya and Mustafa Okşen were also arrested, accused of being accomplices to the murder as they were accused of providing Esra with the address. However, Mustafa passed away on August 17 while behind bars of a heart attack at the age of 39.
Meanwhile, Abdulhamid continued to profess his innocence; he said that Abdullah approched him and asked, "I have enemies. Would you kill them?" and offered him 100,000 Turkish Lira. Abdullah said he refused, so Abdullah simply went to one of his other shepherds, also an Afghan national, and made the same proposition. Abdullah admitted the interaction took place but claimed he was simply joking when he said it.
On October 22, due to a lack of evidence implicating him, Abdulhamid was later released, with Ertuğrul going on trial as the only man accused of carrying out the murder.
That trial began before the Konya 5th High Criminal Court on September 21, 2022, with only 4 of those arrested being brought to the court as defendants, those being Ertuğrul Çelik, the suspected murderer, Esra Taş and Abdullah Başdemir accused of inciting the murders and Zekeriya Okşen, accused of being an accomplice and helping Esra obtain the address of Hüseyin's parents.
Ertuğrul also denied any involvement. He told the court that he had never met the Büyükşen family, had never been to their home and that he was simply a scapegoat to cover up for one of Metin and Necla's sons, whom he claimed to be the real murderer. He said that the police "Put the family's own internal actions onto me".
He also told the court that he would confess if the police were able to use the cell towers to track his cell data and put him at the scene of the crime that night. They couldn't; his phone was nowhere near, but this wasn't the bulletproof defence Ertuğrul thought it was, since the prosecutor said he could've easily kept his phone at home.
Ertuğrul's defence attorney also attacked the credibility of Büşra's identification, arguing that her initial description of the assailant, from everything to the height, build and clothing, was provided after having gone through a traumatic event and therefore unreliable. Ertuğrul also said that he had aged considerably in the three years after the murders and even more by the time of the trial, questioning how anyone could confidently identify him based on a brief encounter 3 years prior in near total darkness with all but the eyes obscured.
Zekeriya was also brought to trial for his role, and he denied any involvement or knowledge of Esra's plan. He said that he sincerely believed Esra's pregnancy story, and as evidenced by the call, he didn't even know the exact address to begin with.
Abdullah retracted his confession and told the court that he had only met Esra recently and that the two were never in any serious relationship, only sometimes meeting her at parties or events; therefore, he said he had no motive to arrange a murder on her behalf. To quote Abdullah himself, "Why would I do something like that for a woman I've only known for three days?"
He argued that the prosecution's main evidence against him, his phone records, didn't show what the prosecution claimed and argued that his initial confession was given under duress. Finally, Abdullah repeated Ertuğrul's claim of being a scapegoat, addressing Osman directly by saying he had no desire to see the real murderers face justice and simply wanted a scapegoat instead.
Esra said much the same; she denied ever having a grudge against Hüseyin's parents and argued that her confession should be deemed inadmissible. She went on to accuse the police of bringing in her brother to instruct him to tell her to say that Abdullah was the culprit.
Esra was a believer of many superstitions and black magic which led to a bizzare devlopment during the trial. During a phone call she made made from prison, Esra instructed her mother to take a piece of cloth tied to the chin of a deceased person and pray on the day of the trial and to say while praying "May the judge's mouth be tied, may the prosecutor's mouth be tied." and then instructig her to tie and untie it three times hoping it would cast a spell preventing the judge or prosecutor from speaking.
On May 5, 2023, the court passed down the following sentences for the double murder of Metin and Necla Büyükşen. Ertuğrul Çelik was handed down two life sentences for the double homicide alongside 4 years' imprisonment for trespassing into their home and 9 months' imprisonment for non-fatally assaulting Büşra.
Esra Taş was also given two life sentences for the incitement of two murders as well as 4 years' imprisonment for inciting a home invasion. Abdullah Başdemir was handed down an identical sentence on the same charges.
The final defendant, Zekeriya Okşen, would be found not guilty after the court ruled the prosecution had submitted essentially no evidence that he knew what Esra was planning. That meant that Mustafa Okşen hadn't suffered from that heart attack and lived to see the inside of a courtroom; he'd likely have been acquitted as well.
As Metin and Necla's son, Osman, walked out of the courthouse after the verdicts to address the press, members of Abdullah's family verbally confronted him and the rest of the Büyükşen children before they began to assault them, forcing the police to separate the families and then provide Metin and Necla's children with protection as they escorted the three away from the court.
A scene from this confrontation
Zekeriya's acquittal ultimately went uncontested, but Ertuğrul, Esra and Abdullah all appealed their convictions, and on December 5, 2023, the 1st Criminal Chamber of the Konya Regional Court of Appeals upheld their sentences, prompting the three to then appeal to Turkey's Court of Cassation.
On July 20, 2025, the Supreme Court's 1st Criminal Chamber issued a final ruling in the case, upholding all convictions and sentences.
One aspect of this case that remains continuous is if there was another man who accompanied Ertuğrul to the home owing to Tuğba's statement. However, after Abdulhamid's release, no further investigations into the possibility of a second man were conducted.
With the case now over and the truth revealed, the three siblings, Osman, Büşra and Uğur, have all repaired their relationship, resolving their disputes and apologizing and forgiving one another for suspecting each other of being involved in the murder of their parents. The three have also stated that they were satisfied with the sentences.
The three posing for a photograph outside of the Büyükşen family home
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