Police have found the body of a 20-year old university student two days after she was reported missing, news reports said on Friday.
The body of Özgecan Aslan, who was studying psychology, was found near the village of Çamalan, about 40 kilometers from the Tarsus district of Mersin province in southern Turkey, the Cihan news agency said.
The body was located after a passenger minibus was stopped near Çamalan for a security check as part of police efforts to search for Aslan. The police and gendarmerie personnel who stopped the car detained three people for questioning after finding traces of blood in the vehicle. Two suspects, identified as 50-year-old N.A. and 20-year-old F.G., confessed to killing Aslan and burning her body before hiding it in a stream in Çamlıca.
The motive for the gruesome murder was not immediately clear.
Gendarmerie units first stopped and searched the minibus late on Thursday after the driver asked them for directions for a highway, before then driving in a different direction. The people in the vehicle were detained and questioned about blood found in the minibus but were released after they said that the blood was from an earlier fight between two passengers.
The security forces began to search for the minibus again, this time in connection with the disappearance of Aslan. When N.A and F.G. were detained for a second time, they confessed to the murder.
The father and a friend of Aslan identified the body from what is left of her clothes and a hat that was found in the minibus that her father said belonged to Aslan. The authorities will conduct DNA tests to confirm that the body is that of Aslan.
Aslan's friend said that she last saw the student after they caught a minibus to go home, but that she disembarked before Aslan.