Police have arrested three suspects in the Ödemiş district of Turkey's western Izmir province after the death of 10-year-old Ceylin Atik, whose body was found in the apartment opposite her house.
Atik went missing while she was playing in the park outside her house. The girl's grandfather reported her missing to the police, who started an investigation that led to the apartment opposite. Two days after her disappearance, the police found Atik's body in the apartment of suspects S.T., his wife Ş.T. and the wife's mother R.Ö.
Ş.T. reportedly admitted to killing Atik during police questioning.
According to the confession, Ş.T. invited Atik to play with her son, with the actual aim of holding her there to extract money from Atik's family.
Atik's grandfather received an anonymous text message reading, "Do not tell the police. We'll kill your grandchild."
When Atik began shouting that she wanted to go home, Ş.T. reportedly covered the girl's mouth with a carpet. After the girl fainted, Ş.T. struck her on the head with a box and then hid her body in a trunk.
Ş.T. and the other family members could not remove the body from the house because of panic in the neighborhood over Atik's disappearance.
Local residents alerted the police to the apartment because of a suspicious smell.
Once the body was discovered, residents surrounded the apartment, pelted it with stones and tried to cross police lines. Police around the building called for reinforcements from the gendarmerie and riot police.
İzmir Police Chief Hüseyin Aşkın visited the scene to calm residents, saying, "It's a very saddening incident. We're very upset that our little one has been killed like this."
