Nevzat Bahtiyar, the last suspect in the Narin Güran investigation, was the least-discussed name in the case. Although he made a partial confession, he was the most silent among the defendants. His inconsistent statements were interpreted by the court as the words of someone unable to express themselves, effectively rendering them insignificant.
In this section, I have chosen not to postpone discussing Nevzat Bahtiyar and his statements, which for me means taking on the most challenging phase of these dry and complex case files.
As you may recall, when Nevzat Bahtiyar was apprehended, he claimed that Salim Güran—who had been arrested eight days earlier on suspicion of murder—had given him Narin’s lifeless body; however, he had changed his story three times.
Most likely, when someone’s accomplice is arrested, their first concern is that the accomplice might give them away by talking. If their role in the crime is incomparably minor, they are expected to be more likely to turn informant. Especially if they were coerced into participating in the crime…
In Bahtiyar’s case, however, neither such concern nor any inclination to confess was evident following Salim Güran’s arrest. He chose to remain silent until he was apprehended. In fact, four days before his arrest, he had been summoned to the Gendarmerie Command because he had called Salim Güran at 3:08 p.m.; at first, he did not recall the call, but admitted it when the records were shown to him. He had made a false statement, claiming that he had been outside the village all day on the day of the incident.
It seems highly unlikely that a criminal in this situation would offer a completely different account of how the incident unfolded when his accomplice is already in custody. He knows that his accomplice’s statement will be sought after his own. He might even think that he was arrested based on the confession of the person already in custody. Bahtiyar’s statements changed constantly from the time of his arrest until the conclusion of his trial. We can examine three distinct scenarios in broad terms.
First Script
He said that at 3:08 p.m., he had a brief phone conversation with Salim Güran regarding a water issue at his home, and then left his house in his car. He stated that when he turned onto the road leading to the cemetery, he noticed Salim Güran’s car following behind him. He explained that Güran signaled him to stop, pointed to a lifeless body wrapped in a blanket on the front passenger seat of his car, and said, ’You’re going to get rid of this.“.
According to Bahtiyar, Güran first threatened him by saying, “Think of your family,” and then offered to pay him 200,000 lira after the harvest. After that, he asked, ‘Do you have a sack?’ and Bahtiyar took a sack out of his trunk. He claimed they placed the lifeless body in the sack and loaded it into his own vehicle. He said Güran gave a simple order like, “Throw it into the lake, get rid of it,” and then left the scene.
Following Bahtiyar’s arrest, his wife, who was questioned, provided a similar account. According to her, Nevzat had called Salim Güran at 3:08 p.m. During the call, Salim Güran had said he was eating at home and would call the authorities after finishing his meal. Nevzat Bahtiyar, however, had left the house immediately after this conversation.
Nevzat Bahtiyar’s initial statement was nearly identical to the accounts provided by users who commented on Salim Güran’s final Facebook post—and identified themselves as gas station employees—following his detention on August 31. Because of this similarity, the statement was quickly accepted by the public. Yet precisely for this reason, it was a statement that security agencies should have viewed with skepticism.
Investigations revealed that the accounts in question were fake; neither the gas station nor the alleged employees existed. Furthermore, the timeline of the incident did not allow for Salim Güran to have left the village, stopped at such a gas station, and then returned.
At the first hearing, Nevzat Bahtiyar was asked whether he had seen these posts; he replied, “I haven’t seen them, but I’ve heard about them.”.
However, one common thread between these posts and Bahtiyar’s statement pointed to a piece of physical evidence: it matched the DNA found in Salim Güran’s vehicle. What was interesting was that these posts had been published on the very day the DNA was identified. Furthermore, the posts gave the impression that the author was aware of the investigation’s scenarios. They referred to Anne Yüksel Güran and her brother Enes Güran, and touched upon the communication traffic we frequently heard about in the media—which has since been proven to be baseless. As for Uncle Salim Güran, a scenario had been constructed based on the footage of him leaving the village at 6:55 PM.
Carrying a body in the front seat wasn’t exactly a common occurrence either, but anyone familiar with Salim Güran’s car could only have made such a claim in this way—since the car’s rear windows were tinted!
The problem was not limited to these issues alone. For Salim Güran to have been able to follow him as Nevzat Bahtiyar described, he would first have had to pass in front of the school and thus be captured on the school’s security camera. However, no such recording was found on the school’s security camera. There is no record in Bahtiyar’s interrogation transcripts of any questions being asked regarding this contradiction; however, during the prosecution’s interrogation, Bahtiyar presented a new scenario that resolved this contradiction.
A Candle for Narin Güran III: Prejudices, Media and Collective Evil
Scenario Two
According to the second account, Nevzat Bahtiyar went outside after a conversation regarding a water problem at 3:08 p.m. and began watering the garden with a hose he had taken from his mother’s plumbing. About 15 minutes later, Salim Güran called out to Bahtiyar from the hill where his father Arif Güran’s (Narin’s) house was located, saying, ’Nevzat, wait for me, we have business to discuss.“ Bahtiyar began waiting for him in front of his house.
Salim Güran, in his own car ‘not from the school’s side, but from the mosque’s side’ (The minutes record these exact words) He had come to the front of Bahtiyar’s house and, after saying, “Get in your car and follow me,” had handed Bahtiyar the lifeless body on the gravel road. Bahtiyar backed up and returned to his residence, took a sack, and instead of taking the lifeless body to the burial site, placed it in the sack right in front of his house.
An examination of the Daran 2 surveillance footage reviewed during the trial revealed that no vehicle was seen traveling from the mosque road toward Bahtiyar’s residence.
Bahtiyar also stated, in response to a question from the prosecutors, that two women who were family members might have had a relationship with Salim Güran, and that there were rumors to that effect in the village.
The second hypothesis guiding the investigation: He saw something he wasn’t supposed to see / Motive for the crime
Although there is no evidence to suggest such relationships exist, let’s take a closer look at the basis for this claim and similar rumors.
In my first article, I mentioned that the investigation was shaped by a hypothesis regarding the time of the incident. The assumption that Narin “saw something she shouldn’t have seen”—which was developed to explain the motive for the murder—was equally decisive in the investigation.
Narin, who had left home to go to class, had stopped by her uncle’s house to check on her cousins, with whom she had planned to go to class. Upon learning that her cousins weren’t home, she headed straight to class. Footage from the school’s security camera shows her moving quickly and glancing back over her shoulder from time to time.
Law enforcement found Narin’s behavior “suspicious” and, based on this, had formed the assumption that she had witnessed an act that would not be viewed favorably. We can also see this approach in Arif Güran’s court testimony, in which he recounted the conversations he had with law enforcement personnel during the first few days after Narin went missing:
“She was running over from Uncle Narin Hüseyin’s house. He pointed to the camera and said, ‘My daughter is running—I mean, she’s running…’ She looks back three times while running. Why is this girl looking back? I don’t know, sir. He said there’s something here, there’s something in this house, so this girl must have run here from there.”
In addition, Ali Rıza Güran, an elder of the Güran family, stated in remarks to the media that they believed a law enforcement officer had witnessed an inappropriate act involving Narin at her own home on the third day of the incident.
Apparently, as can be inferred from her mother’s statements, the hypothesis that Narin—who was naturally acting flustered because she was late for class—had “seen something she shouldn’t have,” based on the footage of her captured by the school’s security camera, had cast suspicion on both homes from the law enforcement’s perspective.
Although it is not a common cause of child murders, this assumption has never been abandoned. Once this assumption leaked into the media and sparked tabloid-style interest, people began to speculate about every possible relationship combination; possibilities ranging from incest and homosexual relationships to even animal abuse were raised. Speculation flared up even more after the relevant images were shared on social media.
Even the traces of PSA found during the forensic examination—in critical areas such as the vagina and underwear, as well as on the course attire in her bag—were interpreted as having been ‘contaminated by an inappropriate act she witnessed.’ Instead of examining the connection between this finding and the motive for the murder, we see that the initial, interpretation-based assumption is still being insisted upon, and the question ‘What did Narin see that she shouldn’t have seen?’ is still being asked.
Although an expert opinion indicating a strong likelihood of abuse was submitted to the case file, this serious, concrete evidence was overshadowed by an assumption that had become a matter of blind faith. Statements such as Nevzat Bahtiyar’s claim that he gave money to Narin were not even taken into consideration.
The assumption that Narin had witnessed an act that was supposed to remain secret gained traction in an investigation where nothing remained a secret—an environment where the scenarios concocted by law enforcement fueled the media, social media, and village gossip. Some family members heard this assumption directly from the police as early as the first few days. Even sharing this information with someone everyone trusted was enough for it to turn into village gossip…
Bahtiyar had also provided the names of the women living in the two houses that the police were focusing on. Based on the interrogations, it appears that Bahtiyar’s statement was shaped by the questioning, though we cannot say for certain whether he was influenced by a particular question. However, given the course of the investigation, it would not be surprising if he had heard such rumors even before the news reports appeared in the media.
Scenario Three
The local court based its decision on Bahtiyar’s final statement, which he gave two days before the indictment was filed.
According to this account, Salim Güran—who for some reason knew he would find him watering the garden—called out from above, summoned Bahtiyar up, and they entered Arif Güran’s house together. Here, Salim Güran had stated that he killed Narin because she had witnessed his relationship with her mother. However, the fact that someone who killed his own niece over such a witness would reveal this secret to an adult stranger was, in itself, contradictory. The court would interpret this contradiction as follows: Salim Güran was lying to conceal a far more serious motive!
In this statement, Bahtiyar had also expanded on the allegations of threats. Setting those details aside, they had wrapped the lifeless body in a blanket and carried it out of Arif Güran’s house. In Nevzat Bahtiyar’s second statement, the slippers on the child’s feet—which he had previously presented as “proof that the child was killed outside”—had this time been taken from in front of the house’s door. Furthermore, if we consider the scenario outlined in the reasoned decision—that the murder began in the barn and continued inside the house—the slippers, which we would have expected to have long since scattered, were right there at the door.
According to his account, Bahtiyar carried the lifeless body, wrapped in a blanket, down a 100-meter hill to his own barn, where he placed the body in a sack. During the court hearing, he stated that the idea to use the sack was his own. He added that Salim Güran had said nothing about following him. Nevertheless, somehow sensing that Salim Güran was coming, Bahtiyar went to his car with the sack in one hand and the blanket in the other; while placing the sack on the back seat of his car, he left the blanket outside. He claimed that at that moment, he saw Yüksel Güran crying on the hilltop. However, according to Yüksel Güran’s lawyer, it was physically impossible for him to have seen himself from the spot Bahtiyar described. Nevertheless, Bahtiyar’s statement was accepted as valid without conducting the on-site inspection (site survey) procedure requested by the defense.
No sooner had Nevzat gotten ready than Salim Güran arrived in his car (coming, of course, from the direction of the mosque); pointing to the stream with his hand, he said, “Take it there, and if necessary, tear it apart,” then took the blanket and drove away.
In addition to his constantly shifting, implausible statements that contradicted the evidence, there were other issues regarding Nevzat Bahtiyar that raised questions.
Nevzat Bahtiyar’s relationships with Salim Güran and Arif Güran
Although Bahtiyar and Salim Güran had been in frequent contact prior to this, it appeared that this communication had ceased over the past three months (with the exception of three calls from Bahtiyar, one each month). During the hearings, Salim Güran explained that this was due to a rift caused by a debt-related issue that had been resolved by the village elders intervening. This matter was between Arif Güran and Nevzat Bahtiyar. Salim Güran had offered Bahtiyar, who worked as a plasterer for convenience, a job in exchange for the debt, but they could not reach an agreement because Bahtiyar demanded a high price. Although the matter seemed to have been settled, upon closer examination, this unresolved dispute had caused a rift between both Salim Güran and Arif Güran and Nevzat Bahtiyar.
It is clear from this incident alone that the relationship between the Güran family and Nevzat Bahtiyar was not, as assumed, one based on domination and obedience. So why Salim Güran chose this neighbor—with whom he was no longer on good terms—at the cost of making him a witness is a mystery to everyone. In fact, judging by Bahtiyar’s statements, creating a witness doesn’t seem to be much of a problem for Salim Güran!
According to the prevailing public opinion, everyone already knows everything. Yet when we look at the entire process today, we see that this very belief is itself an assumption of the investigation. The large number of witnesses not taken into account in favor of the family members who are defendants necessitates the assumption of an organization with numerous accomplices. In such a scenario, was it possible for Bahtiyar, living right next to Arif Güran’s house, not to know what everyone knew—and that everyone knew it? He had failed to provide a convincing explanation of what happened to Narin, had participated in the search efforts merely for show, and had consoled the family members.
How did Nevzat Bahtiyar evade the police?
If the surveillance footage and Yüksel Güran’s statement had been taken into account, Bahtiyar—who could have emerged as a suspect from the very first day—might have been identified; instead, the authorities had sought information from 256 people who had lived in the village before him.
According to Arif Güran’s statements, when gendarmerie personnel asked him if he had any financial disputes with anyone, Arif Güran mentioned Bahtiyar and the name of another person. However, this information was not taken into account.
Nevzat Bahtiyar must have realized, based on the statement he gave on September 4, that he needed to provide a statement that did not contradict the call records. In his statements, he said that Salim Güran honked his horn and flashed his headlights; he also said that he called out from a hilltop. However, he never made the ‘mistake’ of mentioning a call. He could have said that he had retrieved Salim Güran’s lifeless body from inside a sack; this might have been more credible, but due to the well-known social media posts—even though the blanket was never found—he did not give himself away regarding the sack in his “blanket” scenarios either. Despite all his inconsistencies, he was able to provide statements that did not initially contradict the initial evidence.
Whether Bahtiyar gave his third statement of his own volition or at the prosecutors“ request is a matter of debate. Although it was portrayed differently to the public, Bahtiyar stated in court that he gave this statement at the prosecutors” request. This third account made it possible for Mother Yüksel Güran and Brother Enes Güran to be tried. However, with this statement, Bahtiyar seemed to have lost the trust of those he might have been able to convince outside of the courtroom. Yüksel Güran expressed this point in court as follows: “If Nevzat had said he picked up Narin from Salim in the car, I would have said they did it together; a mother’s heart… but Nevzat is lying.”
Nevzat Bahtiyar After the Incident
Nevzat Bahtiyar said he spent about 38 minutes at the riverbed where he buried Narin, and when he couldn’t find a suitable rope to tie the sack, he remembered the child’s backpack strap and used it to tie the sack. He then went to his sister-in-law’s house in another village, had some tea, bought some cheese, and returned to his home in Tavşantepe.
By the time Bahtiyar returned, Salim Güran was already in the field. Apparently, Bahtiyar—who had planned and carried out the ambush on his own, with Salim Güran contributing nothing beyond a hand signal or a single sentence—was in no hurry to inform Salim Güran that he had completed the task assigned to him. It was also Bahtiyar who stated that he had not communicated with Salim Güran either by phone or in person after the incident.
His sister-in-law and three daughters, however, said that Bahtiyar was acting as usual and that they had not noticed any signs of anxiety or unusual behavior. Bahtiyar appeared to have continued his daily life calmly and normally after the murder; he hadn’t even put off a routine task like buying cheese.
Nevzat Bahtiyar’s wife had stated during the early stages of the investigation that she was the one who had asked Nevzat to buy cheese that day. However, she made a different statement in court:
“I’d told my sister to make some cheese two or three days ago. When I called, Nevzat was with me. Was it five o’clock or something… Nevzat brought us some cheese. When he brought it, he left the cheese there, sat on the balcony for a few minutes. Then he left again. ‘F.. will be coming home from work; I’ll pick her up from Çarıklı and bring her home,’ he said.”.
If this statement is true, Bahtiyar had bought the cheese because of a conversation he had witnessed a few days earlier. In that case, there was no rush to buy the cheese. However, if he had encountered someone upon returning to the village who had noticed the child’s disappearance and his suspicious departure from the village, he would have been in a position to explain: He had gone to buy cheese!
Six days after Nevzat Bahtiyar was arrested, his son—who had been out of town and returned to the village two days after the incident—was questioned. A particularly striking excerpt from his statement regarding the day he returned to the village was as follows: “I asked my mother, ‘How did Narin go missing?’ She said, ‘I don’t know; we looked for her too, but we couldn’t find her.’ I asked if my father was home, and she said, ”He’d gone to buy cheese…’”
Of course, this could have been a statement influenced by information that came later. But one point had not been examined: Since the police hadn’t even been able to determine the time of the incident until Bahtiyar was apprehended, how did Bahtiyar’s wife know this just two days later?
Nevzat Bahtiyar, who was acquitted of the charge of intentional homicide of a child, was the only defendant known to have had direct contact with the body, and although his residence was at the center of the case, no biological samples were collected from his home. Family members were not effectively questioned. Furthermore, even the HTS records revealing phone traffic were only entered into the case file prior to the sentencing hearing at the request of the Güran family’s defense attorneys.