Outsmarting police, Turkish TV presenter helps with capture of rapist murderer

Müge Anlı, the presenter of the popular TV show "Müge Anlı İle Tatlı Sert" once again proved her caliber to bring murder suspects to justice when a guest confessed to the murder of an infant girl on live TV.

Anlı, who hosts the popular daytime show focusing on missing people on ATV channel, is known for her pleasant and occasionally tough approach to her guests (hence the title of the show "sweet and tough" in Turkish). She has helped with the resolution of disappearance and murder cases by the intimate questioning of the suspects who often appear on her show to vindicate themselves. However, the latest case made the headlines for its gruesome details.

Himmet Aktürk, a junk collector, agreed to appear on an edition of the live show last week where the parents of 4-year-old Irmak Kupal regularly attended in a bid to alert potential witnesses to come forward to help find their daughter. Kupal disappeared while playing outside near her home in the western town of Alaşehir and it was suspected that she was kidnapped. Aktürk was the last person to see the girl before she disappeared. When he gave contradicting statements on the TV show about the case, Anlı, flanked by a former police investigator, turned up the pressure on the man. During a commercial break, Aktürk, breaking into tears, confessed he killed Kupal and described the place where he dumped her body. The show's staff alerted the police and Aktürk was detained in the studio.

A search at the site he described revealed Kupal's body and a subsequent autopsy confirmed Aktürk's confession of the murder by strangling the young girl, who was also raped before her death. The suspect himself confessed to the rape in his interrogation with police. Aktürk also told police he put the body in a sack and stashed the sack underneath a wheelbarrow he uses to collect junk, and then dumped her body into a garbage dumpster. Aktürk said a day later he took her body and buried her in a vineyard after realizing the dumpster was not emptied.

A court ordered the arrest of Aktürk who already served a light prison term for sexually abusing his nephew.

With her strict style of questioning, Anlı has also helped police to find the murderer of a man three years ago after the victim's girlfriend confessed to her new boyfriend, who was in the studio with her, that she killed him.