Hamdi Kayapınar, a serial killer convicted of seven murders, was sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment yesterday by a Turkish court, two years after he was released from prison.
Kayapınar was once a notorious serial killer who described himself as the "hunter" after his first capture years ago. Legal loopholes and lax laws spared him from the life sentence normally handed down to convicted murderers but his last murder finally put him behind bars for good.
He was caught on security camera when he murdered Sami Yılmaz, a security guard, in his hometown Kayseri in central Turkey last year and was arrested. Kayapınar was already convicted of six killings between 1998 and 2001 and served time when he was captured. Police had easily identified him and found the hunting rifle he used in the murder. Kayapınar had claimed he killed the guard to steal his pistol.
Kayapınar was 14-years-old when he committed his first murder in 1994, strangling his sister to death - out of jealousy as he said. He was released four years later. His next arrest was in 2001, the year he committed the last of a string of murders of random people. He was also convicted of injuring two others, including two police officers. He has confessed to the murders which he said he committed because he felt like "an outcast in society," as his family rejected him after the murder of his sister. Kayapınar then told the court the random murders were "a way of hunting" for him, describing his victims as "prey" and his robbery of their possessions simply as "spoils." He was recaptured in 2016 after he disappeared during a temporary leave from prison where he was serving life for his crimes. He was released in 2017, after completing the minimum term required to be eligible for parole.
