Deaths Ruled as Suicides from Heights
Şebnem Köker Case
Şebnem Köker, a 29-year-old nurse, died after falling from a hotel window in Istanbul. Her father, Abdullah Köker, expressed doubt about the official ruling of suicide, citing her extreme fear of heights.
Police initially focused on suicide, querying Ms. Köker's mental health. They did not initially disclose that Timuçin Bayhan, a commercial ship captain, was present in the hotel room with Şebnem. Bayhan initially stated to police that he was asleep in another room and heard a thud.
An autopsy indicated a significant level of alcohol in Şebnem's blood. Subsequent witness accounts provided varying details of events from Bayhan. Security camera footage showed Şebnem and Bayhan arguing outside the hotel. Evidence from the hotel room, including blood spots and a torn fingernail, suggested a possible physical altercation.
Şebnem had communicated concerns to friends about Bayhan, including him reading her messages and using identical nicknames for her and his wife.
She also expressed anxiety to a friend, stating, "I'm in a bit of a tight spot."
Bayhan was later interviewed as a suspect, providing new information that they had argued over his refusal to leave his wife and that Şebnem had mentioned a past suicide attempt involving pills. He maintained he did not see her fall.
A weighted mannequin test, conducted by investigators, suggested her body fell rather than being pushed. Bayhan was acquitted in late 2022, with the court citing a "lack of concrete evidence" for murder and noting Şebnem's intoxication. In June 2024, the chief public prosecutor's office of Turkey's highest appeals court recommended re-examining the case, including commissioning a physics report.
Aysun Yıldırım Case
In February 2018, Aysun Yıldırım, a 26-year-old preparing for a customs official exam, died after falling 17 meters from her office window in Istanbul. Her parents, Hüsniye and İbrahim Yıldırım, disputed the prosecutor's conclusion of suicide, noting the prosecutor did not visit the crime scene. The prosecutor released her body for burial only after a workaround was found regarding a document attesting to suicide.
Forensic evidence later revealed Aysun had DNA under her fingernails matching a client she had been seeing. Phone location data placed this client at the crime scene within four hours of her death. Police also found a footprint on a couch in her office, but no fingerprints on the narrow window she allegedly fell from. A car painter working nearby reported hearing a scream and a thud.
The client was arrested in late 2019 but subsequently released. Lawyer Leyla Süren is pursuing the case, including plans to take it to the European Court of Human Rights, alleging discrimination in the investigation.
Broader Context of Suspicious Deaths
Hundreds of women in Turkey are officially recorded annually as dying by "throwing themselves from a high place." Campaigns against gender-based violence, such as We Will Stop Femicide (WWSF), assert that these figures may obscure cases of femicide, where women are murdered due to their gender.
Gülsüm Kav, founder of WWSF, indicates a rise in deaths by falling, linking it to the difficulty of proving whether such deaths are suicides, accidents, or homicides.
Gülsüm Kav further notes that this difficulty is especially pronounced given improved forensic techniques for other causes of death. Turkish government data on femicides is often criticized by WWSF for undercounting cases; WWSF recorded 394 femicides and 258 suspicious deaths in 2024, with 40 attributed to falling.
Campaigners highlight that forensic experts possess methods, such as computer modeling and physics reports (as used in the 2019 Şule Çet case conviction), to determine if a person was pushed or fell. Families of the deceased women frequently report difficulties in obtaining justice and claim that authorities may ignore or obscure femicides.