Background
Three women were killed in the Korkuteli and Elmalı districts of Antalya between 2011 and 2012. Havva Yıldırım died in Korkuteli on 11 September 2011, and Kadriye Tetik and her daughter Sevda Atalay died in Elmalı on 17 February 2012. Because the events fell under two different district prosecutors, the files moved separately for years and no one was identified.
For the families, those years meant living not only with loss but with the weight of delayed justice.
What happened
According to official statements, the three deaths shared a similar method, a resemblance investigators later treated as an important lead when the files were reconsidered. Biological samples gathered in the first investigations were preserved, but the techniques of the time produced no match.
In the Korkuteli case, material taken from under the victim's fingernails eventually became the most important piece of evidence.
The loss of a mother and daughter together in Elmalı gave the file an especially heavy place in local memory. That the three events took place roughly five months apart in neighbouring districts kept questions alive over the years, but a firm link could only be established through laboratory analysis.
The loss of a mother and daughter together in Elmalı gave the file an especially heavy place in local memory. That the three events took place roughly five months apart in neighbouring districts kept questions alive over the years, but a firm link could only be established through laboratory analysis.
Investigation and legal process
In 2026 the Justice Ministry's newly created Unsolved Crimes Research Department began reviewing old files. Gendarmerie crime investigation teams in Antalya re-analysed the DNA samples taken in 2011 using current methods, and a special working group compared DNA from nine people with the Korkuteli samples.
A suspect was caught and jailed pending trial on 30 March 2026. Suspects already under investigation by the Elmalı prosecutor's office were added to the Korkuteli file; reports said the fingernail samples contained genetic profiles from more than one man and that the profiles of two suspects were consistent with them. Those two were also arrested. Justice Minister Akın Gürlek included the case in a 25 June 2026 announcement that 19 killings in 16 files had been solved.
The legal process for those in custody is ongoing; until a court rules, the accusations remain allegations.
Where it stands today
The case is cited as an example of how preserved biological evidence can be re-examined years later with new technology. For the families, what matters most is that what happened is recorded and answered for in court. Dark Location presents this page in memory of Havva Yıldırım, Kadriye Tetik and Sevda Atalay, and to draw attention to similar unresolved files.
The file is one of the visible examples of Turkey's effort to re-examine killings more than a decade old with no identified perpetrator. In such reviews, old forensic reports, crime scene photographs, phone records and preserved biological samples are assessed again. Whether this work succeeds depends on how carefully evidence was kept from the first day.
The file is one of the visible examples of Turkey's effort to re-examine killings more than a decade old with no identified perpetrator. In such reviews, old forensic reports, crime scene photographs, phone records and preserved biological samples are assessed again. Whether this work succeeds depends on how carefully evidence was kept from the first day.