Background
Sevgi Gevşek was a 27-year-old mother of one living in the Dulkadiroğlu district of Kahramanmaraş. On 17 November 2021 she came out onto the street in Sakarya neighbourhood badly hurt and asked for help, and was taken to hospital. Found to have a torn liver, she underwent a liver transplant in Malatya but died on 23 November 2021.
At the hospital she was reported to have said she had stabbed herself, while the first person who helped her said she told him others had stabbed her.
Dulkadiroğlu is one of the central districts of Kahramanmaraş; the event took place in a neighbourhood near the city centre and quickly entered the local news. The accounts of the first person to help her and of hospital staff soon became central to the file.
What happened
Prosecutors sought to try her husband for intentional killing; his father and a friend were tried for destroying evidence. A Forensic Medicine Institute report found one wound rather than the three cited in the indictment and said it could have been made by her or by someone else. The husband denied the charges and said she hurt herself after an argument.
These conflicting accounts became the central point of dispute in the file.
Investigation and legal process
At the verdict hearing on 9 June 2022, the Kahramanmaraş 1st High Criminal Court acquitted the husband and the two other defendants by majority, saying there was no concrete evidence beyond doubt. One member of the panel dissented. The family appealed and the Court of Cassation's 1st Criminal Chamber overturned the acquittal, ruling that treating the death as suicide did not fit the evidence in the file.
At the retrial, in June 2026 the Kahramanmaraş court sentenced the husband to aggravated life imprisonment for intentionally killing a spouse. According to reports, the family's lawyer described the ruling as a precedent for femicide cases. The sources do not say whether the ruling has been appealed, so it may not yet be final.
Where it stands today
The Gevşek case shows how doubt about whether a death was suicide or killing can be reassessed within the justice system. Almost five years of legal struggle ended through the family's persistence and a higher court's reversal. Dark Location presents this page in memory of Sevgi Gevşek and to draw attention to families who pursue justice in similar cases.