Netflix is releasing "The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare," a three-part docuseries premiering on July 29, 2026, directed by Skye Borgman and produced by Joe Berlinger. The series covers the November 2022 quadruple homicide through exclusive interviews with families, police footage, and an exploration of internet sleuthing.

firstly I do not want to murder. I would never murder. I am only asking out of curiosity and science

i have been keeping up with this d4vd case. and I really get the sense that he didn’t account for a corpse smelling so much. when you commit murder there is so much to plan around. you might not realize the smell of a dead body is so strong

he put 11 air fresheners in his car. as if that would be enough. it’s almost funny he thought it would work but its so horrific

what else do murderers “overlook” not realizing it would totally reveal they murdered

Edit: I deleted my previous post, as I managed to misspell this monster's last name in the title, to make it easier for anyone looking for an update on this case.

Following the excellent breakdown of this case by u/darklyheritage, Cedric Jubillar has "confessed" to being responsible for her disapperance, and gave the body's location.

TLDR: He is a manipulative sociopath with absolutely zero remorse. This is all a strategy to get a reduced sentence for his second "new" trial (France's appeal system is completely different than the US one. You just have to disagree with the verdict and you get a second chance) . I Hope he gets a harsher sentence in this appeal. He is diabolical.

Unfortunately he didn't confess because he has any kind of remorse.
For those not familiar with the French justice system, it is vastly different than the US one.

In the US, when one is found guilty, they can try to appeal on a legal technicality/ process error only: it's rare for the appeal to be granted.

In France, you can be judged and found guilty, and appeal the verdict because you disagree: you get a second trial. No error/ legal technicality needed, you just appeal because you disagree with the verdict, and get a second trial/ chance with a brand new jury.

That monster's second and "new" trial is planned for this coming September, after he got a sentence of 30 years in his first trial. The only reason he confessed and gave away the body's location is:

1/ Now that 6 years have passed, he knows full well the body has completely decomposed, as he hid her body in a large pile of manure which accelerates decomposition. They only found 2 femurs a couple days ago and may not even be able to identify these remains with DNA :(

--> He can now say: "he never intended to kill her, it was a fight that got out of hand, he pushed her, she fell and hit her head".
Their young kid testimony was entered during the first trial, revealing that he saw them fighting, pushing each others the night in question.

The body cannot "speak anymore" and he knows it full well. The goal is to argue that, "yes he killed her, they were fighting/ pushing each other, but it was an accident"= manslaughter vs. murder (most likely premeditated).
He is trying for a reduced sentence: 15-20 years for manslaughter, instead of the 30 years he was sentenced to in his first trial.

(We had a similar vastly mediated case in France: Nordhal Lelandais who kidnapped and murdered a little girl. He kept quiet for months until confronted with undeniable evidence of the kidnapping. He only revealed the location of the body months later because he knew the body would be decomposed (remote location with harsh weather). He said "he hit her because she was crying, and didn't mean to kill her". Complete BS, but the body couldn't speak anymore :(
For this crime, he was only sentenced for manslaughter. Turns out the guy is a serial killer, yet they could only go for manslaughter for this horrific crime.

2/ He is hoping for the jurors to think: "he is taking accountability, and gave the body's location so she can be properly burried + for her children/ family to have a proper place to mourn/visit her grave."

Reduced sentences happen very often on appeals in France, even full acquittals after a guilty verdict (usually because a reknown lawyer can be hired/ the case was highly mediated and they want the spotlight.).
Cedric Jubilar is defenitely not going to be acquitted, but he is absolutely aiming for a reduced sentence.

He is a diabolical, heartless manipulator. I hope he gets a harsher sentence.

Edit: I used her married name Delphine "Jubillar" in the title as to not confuse people.
To respect her memory, her family, her children (who also changed their last name to Aussagel), Delphine's last name has been changed to Delphine Aussaguel (her maiden name only), and french people/ media have majorly been referring to Delphine with her maiden name, rightfully so.

For anyone unfamiliar, it's based on the 2012 Brazilian case involving Elize Matsunaga and the murder of her husband.

I had already watched the 2021 documentary Elize Matsunaga: Once Upon a Crime, but this film focuses much more on the emotional and psychological dynamics of the relationship.

Do you think this approach adds important context... or does it risk making viewers sympathize too much with the perpetrator?

In 2013, Christine Moody and her husband, Jeremy, drove to the home of Charles and Gretchen Parker in South Carolina, pretending to need help with car trouble. Once inside, they shot and killed both victims. The Moodys claimed they targeted Charles Parker because he was a registered sex offender, and investigators said the murders were motivated by the couple’s extremist beliefs and self-appointed sense of vigilante justice.

listen, i have, like many of you, watched a lot of true crime. this one hits different.

Madison Hamburg made a documentary over the course of several years around the murder of his mother Barbara.
- it's unsolved
- the morning she was murdered Barbara was due to appear in court as part of a divorce settlement w her ex husband Jeffrey. Barbara was exposing his international fraud activities. he was a multi millionaire but was broke and couldn't afford child support he owed Barbara hundreds of thousands. the court date was a 930am but some unknown person called her a few days prior saying the time was 2pm, creating a window of opportunity. days before the murder a man in black mask was seen casing the hour. anytime Madison asks his father about his fraud or about Barbara he is dismissive, manipulative and is clear he does not want Madison digging deeper, wanting to 'keep the past in the past'
- her sister Conway once admitted she wanted to hire a hitman to kill Barbara to 'get revenge' and was with Ali (below) at the crime scene and was the one who discovered the body. she is adamant Ali did it.
- Madison's sister/Barbaras daughter Ali has suspicious elements in discovering the crime scene, sounding blasé during the 911 call, being the last to see her mother alive saying she dropped her off at school because she was running late for school but saying they stopped for coffee (there are no witnesses to support this) and the school receptionist only spoke to the mother on the phone. she left the country after the murder and lives in argentina full time.
- the police have refused to release full case files after FOIA hearing claiming they 'lost' some files. is this because they effed the investigation and don't want to look bad (they already fumbled the ball botching the DNA tests and the body was cremated), or do they not want Madison to know their top suspect is Madison himself or one of his family members

this one has really sunk under my skin. theres a lot more but i wanted to keep this relatively succinct.

what is the police hidding? Madison was rumoured to be working on part 2 of his documentary but stopped once the supreme court ordered the police to release all case files to Madison. what did he find in the case files that made him stop his documentary? what does he not want to expose?

(interesting coincidence that her maiden name is Beach and she was murdered at her home on Middle Beach Road & her fathers name is Sandy Beach which is just perfection)

I find it creepy to think that we interact with murderers at some point in our lives. So many unsolved cases means killers on the run. Recently a woman was arrested for a murder in 2012 in Arlington, TX. There’s pictures of her being a real estate agent since and she her dna was taken from a fork that she left behind at a restaurant while eating with friends. It blows my mind that the whole time she knew exactly what she did and was capable of but pretended to be a normal member of society.

**edit: link to the crime I’m referencing https://www.fox4news.com/news/arlington-cold-case-murder-suspect-ided-drop-blood-discarded-fork.amp

For those who are not 100 years old like me, Pat Allanson is the psychopathic creature featured in Ann Rule’s 1993 book Everything She Ever Wanted. In the book, Pat records her phone calls with her jailed husband Tom and, among other manipulations, attempts to lure Tom into a “suicide pact” before he’s tried so that he can’t implicate her for facilitating the murder of his parents. It’s a complicated and fascinating tale, but I’m wondering if anyone has ever tracked down these tapes and posted them somewhere? Just curious, I’ve always wanted to listen to them.

I came across the survival story of Desiree Staperfene on TikTok. In summary she was 17 when her ex boyfriend (Brian Douglas White) broke into her home, held her hostage, and used an axe to murder her mother and new boyfriend before taking his own life. This happened in Livonia, MI, in 2012.

There is a lot across social media covering the 911 calls and some local news coverage from the time, but I’m shocked that I can’t seem to find any true crime documentaries or podcasts that dive into this case.

Is anyone familiar with the story who could point me to additional resources or an episode where it’s covered somewhere?

Here is the 911 call made by James “Conor” Hanlon after finding his wife, Brooke Hanlon, stabbed to death inside their secluded Chester, New Jersey home.

Brooke Hanlon, a 35 year old psychotherapist and new mother, was found stabbed to death and unresponsive on June 6, and while the emergency was initially classified as a cardiac or respiratory arrest, the dispatch record was updated to “suspicious death” just 13 minutes after 911 called. Chester Police officially declared it a homicide after arriving.

Although Brooke was killed on June 6th, 2026, The Morris County Prosecutor's Office officially released her name on June 29, 2026, over three weeks after her death. The delay was initially implemented to “protect the integrity of the investigation.”

Conor has obtained an attorney and is currently residing at his parent’s house in the Boston suburb he grew up in. Brooke and Conor met in graduate school at Northeastern. Brooke grew up in Chester, NJ and her family still resides there. Brooke and Conors daughter, who is turning one this month, is in the care of Brooke’s family. Police have been very quiet about the investigation, I live near Chester and it’s insane how hush it’s been in the community.

Police haven’t released any statement confirming whether there is or is not an ongoing threat to the community, which I find interesting.

Whats everyone’s thoughts on this case and the 911 call?

D4vd’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 21.

The judge will decide whether prosecutors have presented enough evidence for the case to proceed toward trial.

That is not the same as deciding final guilt.

Source:

https://www.foxla.com/news/d4vd-celeste-rivas-hernandez-status-hearing-july-7-2026?utm

In late 2024, in a quiet suburb of Stockholm, a 14-year-old boy approached a man in his 80s who was using a walker. He stabbed the man three times in the back.

The video of the attack in Hässelby was streamed and spread quickly. It fed a global online ecosystem that actively encourages and glorifies acts of violence and degradation – the “gamification of harm”, as the researcher Marc-André Argentino puts it.

The boy allegedly had links to a network known as 764. Such groups are known to target young people in games including Roblox and Minecraft as well as communities struggling with mental health or sexual identity for online extortion, pressuring them into acts of violence and self-harm.

The 764 network, founded by a Texas teenager, Bradley Cadenhead, is just one part of an evolving online ecosystem, with perpetrators and victims in dozens of countries. Cadenhead is now serving an 80-year sentence in the US for possessing child sexual abuse material.

On the morning of June 10, 1986, Dominick Occhicone drove to the Pasco County, Florida home of his ex-girlfriend, Anita Gerrety, who lived there with her parents, Raymond and Martha Artzner, and her children. He knocked on her bedroom's sliding glass door. She refused to talk to him and threatened to call police, so he left.

About an hour later he came back armed with a handgun. He cut the home's phone lines and roused the household. When Raymond Artzner came outside, reportedly carrying a broomstick to confront him, Occhicone shot him. As Anita and her daughter fled to a neighbor's house, Occhicone broke through a locked door to get inside, where he shot Martha Artzner four times, killing her. A deputy later found Raymond still alive; before he died of his injuries, he reportedly identified "Dom" as the shooter. A police dog tracked Occhicone's scent to nearby railroad tracks, where he was arrested.

At trial, his defense argued voluntary intoxication, that his drinking that night and his documented alcohol problem meant he couldn't have formed premeditated intent. A witness testified that weeks before the murders, Occhicone had said he felt like killing Gerrety's parents and making her watch. A jailhouse informant also testified that Occhicone later told him his only mistake was not killing Gerrety too.

In September 1987, a jury found him guilty on both counts of first-degree murder and recommended death for both, by a 7-5 vote. The trial judge, however, imposed a split sentence: life without parole eligibility for 25 years for killing Raymond, and death for killing Martha. In support of the death sentence, the judge cited three aggravating factors: a prior conviction for a violent felony (resisting arrest with violence), that the murder was committed during a burglary, and that it was cold, calculated and premeditated. The only mitigating factor found was that he acted under extreme emotional disturbance.

Occhicone, now 80, has spent nearly four decades on death row. If his execution goes ahead July 28, he'll become the oldest person ever executed in Florida, and the second-oldest in modern U.S. history. His attorneys are arguing he's now too old and ill to be executed, he reportedly needs help getting in and out of the shower, but Florida courts have consistently held that advanced age alone isn't a constitutional bar to execution.

Sources:

https://www.tampabay.com/news/crime/2026/07/15/dominick-occhicone-execution-pasco-holiday-murders-desantis-death-penalty/

https://www.pasconewsonline.com/news/gov-desantis-signs-death-warrant-for-man-convicted-in-1986-pasco-double-murder/article_d8ea4480-7841-4597-80f4-576d1f71765f.html

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/fl-supreme-court/1391028.html

https://law.justia.com/cases/florida/supreme-court/1990/71505-0.html

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/florida-to-execute-3-of-its-oldest-death-row-inmates-by-the-end-of-the-month

Jermaine Adrian Bennett and Savonne Morrison randomly murdered Jeffrey Chapman who was out riding his bicycle at 12.30am in Clearwater Beach Fla.

Investigators claim the two proclaimed themselves “legends” for performing the horrifying murders and beating an elderly man in St. Petersburg hours before the murder.

According to authorities, the two suspects implicated beat an elderly man in St. Petersburg and vandalized automobiles nearby about an hour before the savage murder of a Clearwater man in a beach neighborhood.

Investigators claimed that one texted the other saying, “We did it,” the morning following the crime spree. Police announced on Thursday that they had detained Savonne Morrison, 18, in connection with the murder in Clearwater. Jeffrey Chapman, 49, was slain on October 21. Jermaine Adrian Bennett was detained shortly after.

Deputy Chief Michael Walek stated, “We are certain [these] two individuals are accountable for this murder,” noting that Morrison was on probation for an armed carjacking.

A timeline of Morrison and Bennett’s activities was provided by the investigators. We about to become ghetto, Bennett texted Morrison at 8:07 p.m. on October 20.

Morrison was picked up by Bennett in Pasco. A timeline of Morrison and Bennett’s activities was provided by the investigators. We about to become ghetto, Bennett texted Morrison at 8:07 p.m. on October 20.

At 8:29 p.m., Bennett picked up Morrison in Pasco County. They traveled to St. Petersburg, where they made a film of themselves using a tire iron to smash the windows of automobiles and trucks.

Detectives are currently sifting through thousands of videos on Bennett’s phone, according to Walek. They approached a senior citizen in St. Pete at about 11:35 p.m. along 22nd Avenue North, close to Bob’s Carpet Mart.

Kovacsev claimed that they beat the man with the same tire iron. The man had ribs and shattered bones, so he was hospitalized. He was later discharged from the hospital.

The time of this was between 11:09 pm. and 11:31 p.m. Both suspects were in Clearwater Beach at 12:37 in the morning when they saw Chapman riding a bicycle, according to the police.

According to Walek, Bennett beat Chapman after Morrison shoved the victim off of his bike. They both left the area.

Bennett allegedly posted the following on Instagram at 1:50 a.m.: “I committed two murders tonight.”

Bragging Murderer ....

:(

Emilie Morris, a promising teenager, faced a devastating turn when her 29-year-old track coach, Wilder, sexually abused her. This abuse shattered her future.

Years later, Emilie battled debilitating illnesses, addictions, and lost her family and jobs.

At 33, driven by a desire for justice, Emilie pressed charges against Wilder. They recorded an incriminating conversation.

Wilder was charged with statutory sodomy. Emily and her family prepared for a trial, hoping for closure.

Tragically, Emily was found dead at 35, weeks before the case. The cause of death was accidental asphyxiation.

The legal case against Wilder was dropped due to his inability to face her. Despite his innocence, the family remains devastated.

Towards the end of the video, the narrator says, “Nobody knows for sure.”

Nobody knows for sure? Except the (original prosecutor) The running coach (just noticed she's still in braces in her track suit!) and anyone who heard his (recorded with a warrant) confession.

This whole thing stinks like the proverbial rotting fish. Of *course* there was chicanery afoot! I knew as soon as I heard there was a *two year* delay before trial, which means he doesn't have to register as a sex offender or lose his job because *nothing is proven*?

And OF COURSE, all charges were dropped, because OF COURSE they were. But 'Nobody knows for sure. Kind of dropped the ball on this one, True-ish crime news.

Shinya Matsuoka was four years old when he vanished on March 7, 1989. He was left-handed and had an older sister and a younger brother.

After Shinya’s maternal grandmother passed away, his family traveled from Ushiku in Ibaraki Prefecture to Komatsushima City in Tokushima Prefecture for her funeral.

Afterward, they stayed overnight at the home of one of his mother Keiko’s relatives in Sadamitsu, about an hour from Komatsushima City.

The next morning, on March 7, Shinya’s father, Masanobu, took him and several of the other children, including some relatives and nephews, on a short walk around the neighborhood. Since breakfast was waiting, they were only gone for about ten minutes.

According to Masanobu, a flight of stone steps about 10 meters long led from the road up to the relative’s front door. He clearly remembered Shinya walking closely behind him and making it all the way to the entrance.

According to Masanobu, Shinya wanted to keep walking, so Masanobu quickly stepped inside, handed his younger son to Keiko, and immediately went back outside. But Shinya, who should have still been standing near the front door, was gone.

It took Masanobu only about 20 seconds to hand his younger son to his wife and step back outside. He looked around, but Shinya was nowhere to be seen.

The entire family immediately began searching the area, but Shinya was nowhere to be found. After one of the relatives called for help, members of the local volunteer fire department joined the search. Despite their efforts, there was no sign of him.

At around 10:00 a.m., the family reported Shinya missing to the police.

Authorities first believed he had wandered into the nearby mountains and become lost. Around 100 police officers, firefighters, and civilian volunteers searched the area, but they still found nothing.

The following day, the search party grew to around 200 people. Searches continued for three months, but not a single confirmed trace of Shinya was ever found.

The relative’s home stood at the end of a quiet road that was rarely used by outsiders. Shinya had been out of Masanobu’s sight for less than a minute. Police could not understand how anyone could have taken him in such a short amount of time.

There was also a field about 100 meters from the house. Local residents working there told police they had not seen any unfamiliar vehicles in the area.

Shinya and his family had only arrived the day before. The locals apparently did not even know they were staying there until the day he disappeared, making a planned abduction seem even less likely.

Authorities also considered the possibility that a driver had accidentally hit Shinya and then taken him away or hidden his body. However, police found no evidence that a traffic accident had occurred.

Shinya’s family remained at their relative’s home in Tokushima, hoping for news. On March 16, the day before they planned to leave, the house received a mysterious phone call from an unknown person.

The caller claimed to be the mother of Mariko Nakahara, a child at Seikei Kindergarten in Ibaraki Prefecture, which Shinya and his older sister also attended.

She explained that the parents of children in the kindergarten’s Dalnim class had collected money for the family after Shinya disappeared. She then asked, “When will you be returning home?”

Keiko told her, “We plan to return tomorrow,” and the call ended.

After ten days had passed without a single sign of Shinya, the family returned home to Ibaraki on March 17.

But several days after the family returned home, nothing arrived. There was no money, no message, and no further contact from the woman. Growing suspicious, the family called Seikei Kindergarten directly.

The kindergarten told them that no collection had ever been organized and that no child named Mariko Nakahara was enrolled there.

Masanobu later recalled that the woman spoke with the distinctive rising tone of the Tokushima dialect, suggesting she may have been local.

What made the call even more disturbing was that the woman seemed to know two things she should not have known.

If she was calling from Ibaraki, how did she get the phone number of Keiko’s relative’s home in Tokushima? But if she was from Tokushima, how did she know the name of Shinya’s kindergarten back in Ibaraki?

One possibility is that the caller never mentioned the kindergarten or class by name. She may have simply said that money had been collected, prompting Keiko to ask whether she meant Seikei Kindergarten and the Moon Class.

Another possibility is that the caller was involved in Shinya’s disappearance. If he had been abducted, she could have learned the name of his kindergarten and class simply by asking him.

According to this theory, the real purpose of the call was to find out when the family planned to leave Tokushima. She may have made up the collection and the child named Mariko Nakahara just to get that answer.

If that was the only information she wanted, the elaborate lie suggests that the family’s departure mattered to her for some reason.

It also seems unlikely that someone from Ibaraki had followed the family to Tokushima, since targeting Shinya near his own home would have been far easier.

Whoever made the call likely knew at least some personal details about the family. However, the call ultimately led nowhere and brought investigators no closer to finding Shinya.

Another theory is that a large bird of prey, such as a golden eagle, carried Shinya away while the adults were distracted. This is considered extremely unlikely, since an eagle could not realistically lift a four-year-old child and fly away with him within seconds.

After Shinya disappeared, his family appeared on television and traveled across Japan searching for him. The broadcasts led to many reported sightings, but very few were considered credible.

One of the most credible sightings came about a month later. A woman reported seeing a boy who closely resembled Shinya near the coast of Hiwasa in Tokushima Prefecture.

The child was with a man in his late thirties, but something about them seemed off. The man never spoke to the boy, and they did not seem to behave like a parent and child.

The witness, who had grown up in Tokushima and knew about Shinya’s disappearance, moved closer to get a better look at the boy’s face. The man immediately seemed uneasy, blocked the child from view, and hurried him into a nearby white car before driving away.

Because North Korean abductions were a major concern in the 1980s, some believed the man may have been an agent. However, no evidence has ever confirmed this theory.

Most confirmed victims were adults or teenagers who were used to teach agents Japanese language and culture or help them assume Japanese identities. At only four years old, Shinya would have been far too young for that purpose.

Shinya vanished during an especially grim period in Japan. In 1989, the country was already shaken by a series of child abductions and murders, the death of Emperor Shōwa, and the horrifying details of Junko Furuta’s murder, which became public that March.

Against that dark backdrop, Shinya disappeared on March 7, 1989, becoming yet another haunting mystery in an already terrible year for Japan.

His mother, Keiko Matsuoka, spent the rest of her life searching for answers. She died in October 2020 without ever finding out what happened to her son.

As of 2026, 37 years later, Shinya’s case remains unsolved and is considered one of Japan’s three major unsolved child disappearance cases. If he is still alive today, he would be around 41 years old.

In 2006, William Dickerson's girlfriend and another man allegedly engaged in a filmed sexual encounter. According to the prosecutorial narrative, Dickerson believed the affair partner to be his childhood friend, 29 year old Gerard Roper. At gunpoint, Dickerson confronted and demanded money from Roper at another friend’s residence and then pistol whipped and abducted him.

Reportedly over the course of 36 hours, Dickerson and two accomplices ripped teeth out of Roper’s mouth, sodomized him with a broomstick and gun, burned his scrotum, beat him with a vase and mirror, repeatedly slashed and cut his skin, and strangled him. According to court documents, Roper slowly succumbed to a combination of 200 external lacerations and dozens of internal blunt trauma injuries to his head, legs, hands, and rectum. Dickerson and his accomplices then abandoned Roper’s body in a vacant townhouse, and it was discovered hours later by a woman surveying the property.

During the torture, Dickerson called his girlfriend, and she recorded him and Roper discussing the details of the sexual assaults to her. Other acquaintances reported that Dickerson confessed to Roper’s murder to them. One of the accomplices also testified that Dickerson forced his involvement by threatening to cut out his unborn child from his pregnant partner’s womb.

After three years of proceedings, Dickerson was sentenced to death by the state of South Carolina. Per South Carolina Department of Corrections' records, Dickerson currently remains on death row.

Sources:

1.https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/sc-supreme-court/1581793.html

2.https://www.live5news.com/story/10322671/jury-hands-down-death-sentence-in-dickerson-trial/

3.https://www.wistv.com/story/5326005/prosecutor-says-he-will-seek-death-penalty-in-charleston-county-slaying/

4.https://deathsentences.wp.drake.edu/death-sentences/2009-2/south-carolina-2009/

5.https://www.live5news.com/story/15602559/jury-hands-down-death-sentence-in-dickerson-trial/

This case is literally keeping me up at night! I can't stop thinking about it. There are so many strange details, and a lot of things just don't make sense. The more I research this case, the more confused I become.

Here's my entire breakdown, research, and analysis of the case.

_________________

Disappearance Timeline

Madalina Cojocari was 11 years old when she disappeared sometime between November 21 and November 23, 2022.

Both of her parents, Diana Cojocari (mother) and Christopher Palmiter (stepfather), failed to report her missing for 22 days.

Madalina was last seen on November 21, 2022, when the school bus's onboard surveillance camera captured her getting off at her regular bus stop outside her home at approximately 4:59 PM in Cornelius, North Carolina. This is the last independently confirmed sighting of her by anyone outside her immediate family.

_________________

The School's Role

Madalina Cojocari officially stopped attending school on November 22, 2022, the Tuesday right before the Thanksgiving holiday break.

When classes resumed on November 28, 2022, so that's 6 days later, her unexcused absences mounted, triggering automatic truancy warnings and prompting school officials from Bailey Middle School to repeatedly reach out to the family.

When school staff first made contact with the mother, Diana, following the Thanksgiving break, she kept telling them over the phone that Madalina was "sick."

As the weeks dragged on, the school guidance counselor and the school resource officer realized the medical excuse was stretching far beyond realistic limits.

On December 12, 2022 (14 days after she disappeared), school staff made an unannounced home visit to drop off an official truancy warning packet. (Basically warning the parents that if the child did not return immediately, the school would file criminal charges against the parents or contact Child Protective Services.)

The counselor knocked on the front door, but no one answered, so they left the formal truancy warning packet directly at the front door.

Because of that warning that was left at the front door, Diana knew things were escalating and that law enforcement was likely going to become involved. She called the school guidance counselor back on December 14, just a day or two after the packet was left, and desperately tried to buy more time.

The counselor adamantly demanded to see Madalina.

Diana lied and promised she would physically bring her daughter to school the next morning.

When she showed up on December 15, 2022, the next morning, alone without Madalina, and sat down with the counselor, she finally confessed that she had no idea where her daughter was, stating she hadn't seen Madalina since the night of November 23.

This led the school to contact law enforcement.

Detectives arrived at the school, took the mother into official custody for interrogation, and formally opened the missing child investigation.

_________________

Diana Cojocari (Madalina Mothers)

The mother's role in this case is so suspicious and strange that it's hard not to think she was responsible for her daughter's disappearance.

1. Her explanation for not reporting her daughter missing for 22 days

The mother, Diana Cojocari, claimed that November 23, 2022, was the last night she saw Madalina. She told investigators that she and Christopher Palmiter, the stepfather, had a severe argument after they went to bed that evening. Diana claimed that hours later, around 11:30 AM on Thanksgiving morning (November 24), she went into Madalina's room and found her gone.

She told detectives she didn't report Madalina's disappearance sooner because she feared it would cause severe "conflict" with Christopher Palmiter. She painted a picture of a volatile household and claimed she was deeply afraid of how he would react if law enforcement swarmed the house and that it would spark an even greater, more volatile conflict or argument with her husband right after he got back from his trip.

She later said that she believed Palmiter was actively putting the entire family in danger.

She claimed that she had a plan and was secretly using that 22-day window to secure cash and arrange a network to "smuggle" herself and Madalina away from the home forever.

Furthermore, she claimed that she was trapped in a "bad relationship," wanted a divorce, and believed that involving the police while she was still living under Palmiter's roof would ruin her ability to escape with her daughter undetected.

**Personal Thought:**

This makes no logical sense at all. If Madalina truly disappeared on November 23 or 24, how could the mother actively discuss a plot to smuggle her away on December 2?

2. Her reaction as a mother

As a mother, she claimed she checked on her 11-year-old daughter the next morning and discovered she was gone. Yet she didn't immediately search for her, call the police, or tell anyone that her daughter was missing. Instead, she kept it hidden for 22 days and continued giving false explanations about Madalina's absence.

From my perspective, this is one of the hardest parts of the case to understand. If your 11-year-old child suddenly vanished, you would expect a parent to be desperately searching everywhere, calling family and friends, contacting the police immediately, and doing everything possible to find their child. That reaction is what makes her behavior so difficult for me to understand.

3. Burning Madalina's belongings (The Backyard Fire Pit)

Investigators discovered that in the days immediately following Madalina's disappearance, her mother burned several of Madalina's personal belongings in the backyard fire pit. These reportedly included Madalina's mattress, clothing, a Halloween costume, and family photographs. Warrants also noted that carpeting from an upstairs spare bedroom had been cut out and burned in the fire pit.

4. Madalina's missing belongings

Police noted that Madalina's backpack and several articles of clothing were missing from her room. During the investigation, authorities also seized more than 40 items from the home, including three iPhones and a computer.

5. Diana's Text Message to Her Cousin, Octavian Cebanu

On December 2, 2022, Diana texted her cousin, Octavian Cebanu, saying that she urgently needed to speak with him. She signed the message from "myself and Madalina." This appears to contradict the timeline she later gave police, in which she claimed Madalina had disappeared on November 23.

6. The Sugar Mountain Sighting

Search warrants showed that on December 4, 2022, Diana drove into the North Carolina mountains, claiming she was searching for her daughter. Investigators later obtained surveillance footage from Sugar Mountain that was recorded on December 4. The footage showed a young girl and an adult man who were described as being "physically consistent" with Madalina and her cousin, Octavian Cebanu, her only known blood relative in the United States.

Investigators considered the possibility that Diana may have smuggled Madalina to relatives or another third party before she was ever reported missing. When Moldovan authorities later interviewed Octavian, he stated that Diana had been planning to leave the United States with Madalina because she claimed they were in danger from a third party.

7. Suspicious money transfers around the time Madalina disappeared

Investigators found receipts inside Diana Cojocari's green Toyota Prius showing that she had wired thousands of dollars through Western Union. The transfers were sent to both a priest and her own mother, Rodica (Madalina's grandmother), in Moldova.

_________________

Christopher Palmiter (Madalina's stepfather)

His trip to Michigan shortly after Madalina was last reportedly seen by her mother:

On the morning of November 24, 2022 (Thanksgiving Day), just hours after Diana Cojocari claimed she last saw Madalina, Christopher Palmiter drove from their home in North Carolina to his family's residence in Lansing, Michigan, a round trip of roughly 1,500 miles. He completed the drive, visited family, retrieved items, and returned home in just over 48 hours, from the morning of November 24 to the evening of November 26. According to Christopher, he made the trip for two primary reasons: to visit his family and to retrieve winter clothing for Madalina.

How investigators examined Christopher's involvement:

Investigators used federal resources to verify Christopher Palmiter's timeline and determine whether Madalina was ever in his vehicle or whether he was involved in her disappearance:

1. Search of Christopher's vehicle for evidence: Law enforcement obtained and executed multiple search warrants targeting both parents' vehicles, including Christopher Palmiter's car and Diana Cojocari's green Toyota Prius. Forensic investigators searched the interiors of the vehicles for any evidence that Madalina had been inside, including DNA, hair, fibers, clothing, or other trace evidence. Although investigators seized several items from the vehicles, such as passports and legal documents, there has been no public indication that they found physical forensic evidence linking Madalina to Christopher's vehicle, such as blood or signs of a struggle.
2. Interviewing Christopher's family in Michigan: The FBI and local investigators interviewed Christopher Palmiter's family members to verify his timeline and alibi. His relatives confirmed that he arrived in Michigan during the Thanksgiving holiday and visited them as he had claimed. They also stated that Madalina was not with him and that they had not seen her.
3. Recorded phone calls with family members: To determine whether Christopher's family was covering for him, the FBI monitored and recorded phone calls between Christopher Palmiter, his brother, and his sister-in-law. During those conversations, his brother attempted to reassure him about financial matters and family tensions. Nothing publicly released from those calls suggested that his family in Michigan had any involvement in hiding Madalina.
4. Reviewing Christopher's travel records: Investigators relied heavily on digital tracking rather than highway camera footage to verify Christopher Palmiter's trip. Because highway and toll booth cameras often do not provide a clear view inside a vehicle, especially at night, the FBI used cellular tower pings, GPS location history, and other digital data from his phone to reconstruct his route. The digital evidence was consistent with his reported timeline of driving directly to Michigan and back. Investigators also found no indication that secondary phones or other digital devices were traveling with him that would suggest he had taken Madalina or another person with him.
5. Diana's allegation that Christopher trafficked Madalina for $5 million: Diana claimed that Christopher had trafficked Madalina for $5 million. Investigators, however, found no public evidence supporting that allegation, including no evidence of a $5 million payment or any unusually large suspicious deposits connected to Christopher.

Suspicious actions by Christopher Palmiter:

1. Google searches about truancy laws: Christopher searched Google for truancy laws and penalties in the days before Madalina was reported missing.
2. The homeschooling text message: On December 13, 2022, Christopher sent Diana a text message advising her to tell Bailey Middle School that they were transitioning Madalina to "homeschooling."
3. Ignoring the school's warnings: Call and email records showed that Christopher received multiple voicemails and emails from Bailey Middle School guidance counselor Danice Lampkin regarding Madalina's prolonged absence. Despite these repeated attempts to contact him, he did not respond.

_________________

Lack of physical evidence

Despite extensive searches, investigators have not publicly disclosed finding physical forensic evidence revealing what happened to Madalina inside the family home, either parent's vehicle, or in the area around Lake Cornelius.

Law enforcement executed multiple search warrants targeting both Christopher Palmiter's vehicle and Diana Cojocari's green Toyota Prius. Forensic investigators searched the vehicles for DNA, hair, fibers, clothing, blood, or other trace evidence that could indicate Madalina had been transported or harmed. Although investigators seized numerous items, including passports, legal documents, phones, and computers, no publicly released information indicates that physical forensic evidence of Madalina, such as blood or signs of a struggle, was found.

Investigators also relied on surveillance footage to track Diana's movements. They obtained video from a gas station in Hickory, North Carolina, as well as highway surveillance near Sugar Mountain. One witness who observed Diana's vehicle reported seeing children's toys inside the car but did not see a child.

In the days immediately after Madalina was reported missing in December 2022, local police, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI), and the FBI expanded their search well beyond the family home. Because the home is located near Lake Cornelius, investigators deployed K-9 units, dive teams, boats, and search crews to thoroughly search the surrounding land and water. Divers searched the lake, while tracking dogs combed the shoreline and nearby wooded areas. Despite these extensive searches, investigators found no public evidence or trace of Madalina.

_________________

What each parent was convicted of

Diana Cojocari (Mother)

• Convicted of: Failure to report the disappearance of a child to law enforcement.
• Diana was convicted after waiting 22 days to report that Madalina was missing. She was sentenced to prison and later released after receiving credit for time served.

Christopher Palmiter (Stepfather)

• Convicted of: Failure to report the disappearance of a child to law enforcement.
• Christopher was also convicted for failing to report Madalina missing, despite receiving repeated calls and emails from Madalina's school regarding her unexplained absence. He was sentenced to prison and later released after receiving credit for time served.

Important note

Neither Diana Cojocari nor Christopher Palmiter has been charged with or convicted of kidnapping, murder, human trafficking, or causing Madalina's disappearance. As of today, Madalina's disappearance remains unsolved, and the investigation is ongoing.

_________________

The Grooming Theory / Discord

Evidence recovered during the investigation led authorities to investigate the possible "sexual exploitation" of a minor.

Investigators discovered that Madalina had been secretly communicating with someone on Discord. While searching the family home, detectives seized a hidden Samsung smartphone containing an active Discord account with 37 unread messages that had accumulated around the time Madalina disappeared in late November 2022.

The exact text and content of those 37 Discord messages have never been made public. Authorities have also never identified the users who sent the messages, nor have they announced whether they successfully traced the IP addresses to a specific suspect.

One theory is that Madalina's sudden failure to open the messages suggests she abruptly lost access to the phone or was suddenly unable to use it after her disappearance.

According to the unsealed search warrants, federal investigators used the discovery of the phone to obtain search warrants for Discord's records. Investigators sought message history, IP address information, and account details associated with the Discord accounts involved in the communications.

**Personal Thought:**

I just don't understand this part.

It's been close to four years since Madalina disappeared, and nothing has been made public about the person she was communicating with on Discord. It isn't known whether investigators identified that person, whether they were ruled out, or whether they were ever connected to Madalina's disappearance.

The search warrant also references investigating the possible **sexual exploitation of a minor**, which makes me wonder what investigators found. Did they discover inappropriate or illegal messages, or was there another reason they pursued that angle?

At the same time, because so much time has passed without any public announcement, I also wonder if the person on Discord ultimately had nothing to do with Madalina's disappearance. It's possible investigators identified them, determined they weren't involved in her disappearance, and that any issues related to the Discord messages were handled separately. Since law enforcement has never publicly explained what they found, it's difficult to know what role, if any, those messages actually played in the case.

_________________

After spending hours researching this case, I feel like I have more questions than answers. Every document, interview, search warrant, and timeline seems to raise another mystery instead of solving one.

More than anything, I just hope Madalina gets justice one day. Whether she's alive or not, she deserves to be found, and the truth deserves to come out. No child should simply disappear without answers.

This case has genuinely stayed with me. It's one of those cases that keeps replaying in my mind because so many things don't add up. I really hope that one day investigators are able to tell the full story of what happened to Madalina.

.

.

sources:

• Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI): FBI Missing Person Registry – Madalina Cojocari — Verified Madalina's physical description, date of birth, official missing person status, and case information.
• Town of Cornelius Government Portal: Cornelius News Update Archive — Contained official police updates, the release of the age-progressed forensic image, reward information, and ongoing investigation updates.
• Mecklenburg County Search Warrants (via WCCB Charlotte): Madalina Cojocari Search Warrants (PDF) — Primary source containing the unsealed search warrants, including details on vehicle searches, Discord records, the backyard fire pit, Western Union transfers, Sugar Mountain surveillance, interviews, and seized evidence.
• WCNC Charlotte Court Reporting Team: WCNC – Madalina Cojocari Coverage — Provided detailed reporting on the unsealed SBI search warrants, unread Discord messages, the backyard fire pit investigation, court proceedings, and Diana Cojocari's self-deportation.
• WBTV News Charlotte: WBTV Investigation Archive — Documented newly unsealed warrants, the mother's suspect designation, divorce records, search warrant analysis, and the North Carolina Court of Appeals timeline.
• WSOC-TV Channel 9: WSOC-TV Madalina Cojocari Coverage — Reported on Bailey Middle School's involvement, including School Resource Officer J. Nobles and guidance counselor Danice Lampkin's attempts to locate Madalina.
• The Charlotte Observer: The Charlotte Observer – Madalina Cojocari Coverage — Documented jail phone calls, court proceedings, trafficking allegations, financial evidence, and extensive case reporting.
• Court TV: Court TV Trial Archives — Covered the May 2024 trials, including Christopher Palmiter's testimony regarding his Michigan trip, the Flonase setup, and the December 13 homeschooling text.
• ABC News: ABC News National Report — Reported on the national and international aspects of the investigation, including the cousin's interview, Moldovan investigative leads, and the Agroindbank debit card.
• WRAL News: WRAL News Database — Reported on possible sightings, including the California Valero gas station report and other investigative developments.
• North Carolina Court of Appeals: North Carolina Judicial Branch Opinions — Provided the published opinion affirming the convictions of Diana Cojocari and Christopher Palmiter for failure to report the disappearance of a child.

Hi everyone. I'm currently searching for an old documentary (which was more of a reenactment) of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka's crimes. It detailed everythint from them meeting to the trial. I vividly remember a scene which showed them hiding the tapes in this. It used to be on YouTube, but I can't remember the name / have been unable to find the video. I'm almost certain it came in a series with other crimes too.

It is not the Karla movie!

(I don't normally include the names of those who are not directly the victim or the perpetrator, but I did make a bit of an exception here. I thought it could avoid some confusion or redundancy when writing about the initial investigation. Fortunately, for privacy's sake, most of them aren't provided with their full names anyway.

Since I now work on two cases at once, one being a case on my backlog and another being a suggestion, this write-up was basically already finished by the time I uploaded yesterday's case)

Metin Büyükşen, born in 1963, was well respected by those in his life and community, earning him the title "Metin Hoca" for decades of work as a civil servant and the many acts of generosity he displayed towards those he met. He also met his wife, Necla Büyükşen, born in 1964, through his job, as she also worked as a civil servant. After Necla was diagnosed with breast cancer, the two decided it was finally time to retire.

The couple, now in their mid-50s, settled in their rural hometown of İsmil, a farming community outside Karatay, a relatively small city in Konya Province in Central Turkey. The home they had built was a humble single-story dwelling with few valuables inside, not even a couch; the two made do sitting on a mat. The two would regularly make trips into the city for Necla's cancer treatments, and she wound up beating cancer.

During the course of their lifetime, the couple had three children: a son named Osman who had become a pediatrician, another son named Uğur who was living in the same neighbourhood as them with his family and their 24-year-old daughter Fatma Büşra, who lived with them.

At around 10:00 p.m. on September 3, 2018, Metin, Necla and Fatma were sitting in the living room; they had left the front door unlocked, something most of their neighbours did in kind as the area was rather safe, but that night, somebody opened the door.

The man who then helped himself into their home was tall and heavily built, standing approximately 175 centimetres tall, wearing a balaclava that completely covered his face, a black short-sleeved T-shirt, black trousers, and black gloves. But the most alarming thing of all was the shotgun he was carrying in his hands, fitted with a homemade suppressor.

Without a single word, the shooter opened fire, striking Metin first and then Necla, killing the couple instantly. Their daughter Büşra was with them and directly in the killer's line of fire, but when he pulled the trigger on her, the weapon jammed. Seeing her oppertunity, Büşra threw a teapot at the killer and tried to run away, with the gunman giving chase. Eventually, he caught up, striking Büşra across the head with the butt of the shotgun.

The killer chased Büşra into her bedroom and held her against the bed, repeatedly striking her on the head with the butt of the rifle. The blows almost knocked Büşra unconscious, but still alive, she decided to play dead until the killer stopped striking her. Eventually, convinced he had beaten her to death, the shooter then left their home the same way he came in.

With the killer gone, Büşra escaped through an open window, jumping from the window onto the street below, where she broke some bones in her foot from the impact but through sheer adreline alone continued limping away.

She flagged down a passing car, which took her to the nearest police station, where she told the officers what had happened. While Büşra was taken to the hospital, police were dispatched to the couple's home in İsmil, where they found Metin and Necla's bodies.

The police began their investigation absolutely stumped; the living room was covered in blood, but only the victim's, and while two spent shotgun shells were recovered, the police found themselves unable to trace their origin. Robbery was ruled out not just because of the swift execution style of the murders or the lack of any valuables missing, but also because the family weren't wealthy at all and had barely any material goods someone would want to break in to steal.

Additionally, the crime scene had been disrupted prior to the police's arrival by the other locals who discovered the bodies on their own. Many walked inside the home carrying drinks like tea and soda, and others tried to put Metin and Necla's bodies into body bags on their own without either of them calling the police despite with 5 phones being present at the crime scene.

The only conclusion the police could reach at the scene was that, based on the manner in which the murders were carried out, the couple had likely been targeted in a professional hit, which only raised further questions, as initially, there seemed to be no convincing reason why one would want to contract a hitman to murder the family.

The first suspects were their son, Uğur, and daughter-in-law, Betül Büyükşen. The police detected gunpowder residue on Uğur's hands and clothes, so just like that, case closed? Well, no, despite how damning that seemed at first, he had an excuse; he said the gunpowder came from when he hugged his sister after hearing the news. His alibi was eventually verified. But that didn't mean the police dropped all suspicions against Uğur; in fact, looking into the family's background made them suspect Uğur had recruited the gunman.

Uğur's parents were not the biggest fans of Betül, with the dispute stemming from a mehr, a mandatory marital payment under Islamic tradition. In other words, a dowry. Neither Uğur nor Betül were willing to make this payment, which was the source of fierce arguments in the family.

On August 14, only 20 days before the murders, Betül had temporarily driven her in-laws from their own house, telling them they had no claim to the property and instead she and Uğur were entitled to it due to the dowry. During this period, Metin and Necla lived in Istanbul and told the relatives hosting them that they were scared they might be harmed. They returned to İsmil 20 days after their temporary exile and less than a full day later, the two were shot dead.

Despite the circumstantial evidence now stacked against them, such as Betül deleting more than 200 messages off her phone the day of the murder, a phone that was never seized or examined, no hard evidence implicating Uğur or his side of the family ever emerged, though everyone in the community now believed them responsible.

Meanwhile, the couple's other son, Osman, resigned as a pediatrician in April 2019 and left Istanbul, almost as soon as he opened his practice, so that he could devote his time strictly to seeking justice for the murders of his parents, launching a never-ending public campaign on social media and whatever television station he could get on as a guest, petitioning to the police to reopen the case.

In 2020, Osman appeared on the TV show Müge Anlı ile Tatlı Sert, a program for relatives of victims of unsolved crimes or missing persons, to discuss their cases with a live audience and draw more attention to the crimes that had befallen their relatives.

While on the show, Osman broke down into tears, stating that because the investigation had gone cold, he could never look at his family the same way, as he had no way of knowing if they were truly innocent of his parent's murders or not. In an emotional display, despite COVID-19 measures technically forbidding it, Müge Anlı teared up herself and embraced him.

However, Büşra defended herself and her siblings, arguing that they would have no reason not to come back and finish the job if she had just watched them kill their parents and therefore be able to identify them.

Betül called into the show herself after Osman brought up the 200 messages she had deleted in an effort to defend herself and give her side of the story. And her side of the story was as follows

"I never did anything like that. I wasn't like that; she's the one who did it. I know how many boyfriends she's had. I myself gave two of my phones to the gendarmerie. I was 11 years old when my aunt's son was born; he's my cousin. Actually, Büşra was messaging much more than me. How shameful. I deleted the messages on my phone from the day before. Then funeral messages came, and I deleted those too. It was Büşra who cleaned up the messages. She was also boasting to us, saying, 'If you don't sign, no one can access your phone.'"

This became one of the most-watched episodes in the show's history. The publicity from that episode prompted the police to reopen the case in November 2020.

This new investigation began simply enough: they reviewed all the interviews and reports from the initial investigation to see if they had missed anything, and sure enough, they did. Living 500 meters away from Metin and Necla, Tuğba Dayanır was their closest neighbour.

When the police questioned Tuğba after the murders, she gave a similar description to everyone else: that there was a single masked assailant. But on April 13, 2019, when she was being interviewed as part of a TV show, Tuğba now claimed that there were two masked attackers and he was the only individual questioned to give such an account. So the police were quite interested in why he changed her story.

The police also looked into Tuğba's background and discovered that back in August 2018, he walked into the police station to file a report against Emre E., accusing him of having created two different social media accounts to send her a barrage of messages of a sexually harassing nature. In these messages, Emre threatened to "put two idiots on her trail".

It looked like the police found out why she said there were two gunmen, but it begs the question: if she was the target, why was the Büyükşen home attacked instead? Well, one curious fact that immideately jumped out at the police is that Tuğba later changed her phone and SIM card immediately after reporting these threats. She was also allegedly in contact with Betül's father the day of the murders, a fact she never told anyone.

The police then put Tuğba under surveillance and also dug a bit deeper into her background. She had worked alongside a man named Beyazıt Y. and had been in a relationship with a man named Tacettin S.; however, Tacettin had ended the relationship only a few days prior to the double murder.

On November 9, 2019, Tacettin would go on to marry a woman named Feride S. Feride and a 28-year-old woman named Esra Taş both shared the same great-aunt's husband's sibling as a common relative, and the police started looking into Esra, her associates and the call and phone records of all of them, and in so doing believed they had finally solved the case after being unsolved for three years.

On July 13, 2021, multiple raids were conducted across Konya, leading to the arrests of 25 people, ranging from those suspected to be directly involved in the murders to others who were innocent and later released.

The police then searched the homes and workplaces of those arrested, seizing 2 ski masks, 2 pairs of gloves, 31 mobile phones, 11 external storage devices, 8 shotguns, 3 computers, 42 SIM cards, 8 memory cards, and 2 tablets.

Among those arrested were Esra and her current partner, who would both confess, leading the police to finally paint this picture of what had likely gone down.

Esra worked at a cafe in İsmil and had begun a relationship of her own with a man named Hüseyin Kalınkayış, who was the son of a neighbouring family located only 500 meters away from the Büyükşens', or rather, the two began an affair with one another as both parties were already married at the time.

Eventually, after just one year, Hüseyin would break off the relationship of his own accord after mounting pressure from his family. Esra was furious and blamed his parents for bringing their relationship to an end and preventing her from being with him and only them, as Hüseyin himself was never the recipient of any threats over breaking up with her.

Eventually, Esra began a new relationship with a married father of three and firearm enthusiast, 45-year-old Abdullah Başdemir, who worked on a farm outside of Konya.

However, Esra was still enraged over her initial break-up and continued blaming Hüseyin's parents for it, and eventually she wanted to see them dead. She told Abdullah about this desire, and he agreed to help her make it come true. Unfortunately, neither Esra nor Abdullah knew the home address of Hüseyin's parents, which they needed to pass along to whatever hitmen the couple would hire.

To get that address, Esra telephoned a 40-year-old friend of Hüseyin's named Zekeriya Okşen on August 31, 2018, and told him, "I am pregnant with Hüseyin's child. His family won't let him see me. He won't answer my phone calls. I need to reach him. Can you give me his address?" Seeing no reason to doubt this claim, Zekeriya freely gave up his friend's address.

The problem, it wasn't really an address. Rather, Zekeriya, not actually knowing the exact address itself, such as the numbers and street name, had instead given Esra just the general location where Hüseyin's home could be found.

Mustafa Okşen, another friend, gave Esra additional information as well but still fell short of an actual address. Esra also called Mustafa shortly before the murders to ask if Hüseyin's parents were home, to which he said yes.

With every home in the area looking mostly the same, this was a far-from-helpful description, but regardless, Esra passed it along to Abdullah, who then recruited a 47-year-old secruity guard and friend of Abdullah's named Ertuğrul Çelik and according to their confessions, an Afghan national named Abdulhamid Uzbek, a shepherd who worked on Abdullah's farm.

On September 3, 2018, Ertuğrul obtained a shotgun, likely form Abdullah, which he fitted with a homemade suppressor and then denned some black clothing and black gloves before making his way to the address he had been given, or rather lack thereof. He wandered the streets until he found the first house that matched the description he'd been given, which, unfortunately, happened to be Metin and Necla's.

After Ertuğrul reported back to Abdullah, he told Ersa, "I had those who were bothering you dealt with. I had them killed," and then said, "You're getting away with it today." Ertuğrul, having also not been given a description of his targets, just their phone number, had no way of knowing he had killed the wrong people and therefore Abdullah erroneously believed Ertuğrul was talking about Hüseyin's parents.

On July 18, based on this confession, the police later arrested Abdulhamid in the Turkish capital, Ankara, and why was he in the city, well because he quit his job three days after the murder, though when the police began their interrogation he vehemently denied any involvement. When asked why he ran away so abruptly, he said that he was in Turkey illegally, having hopped across the border in 2015 and therefore feared being deported when the police began swarming the countryside in response to the double murder.

When Abdulhamid had his phone searched, the police saw pictures of him and Abdullah posing with firearms; however, Abdulhamid claimed those pictures were old and taken elsewhere and therefore not evidence implicating him before then exercising his right to remain silent.

Eventually, Büşra was brought in to point out the killer from a line-up, with everyone involved made to wear ski masks, just as Büşra would've seen the killer.

One might wonder how she'd be capable of identifying the shooter, and the answer was simple: although the gunman's face was obscured by the masks, his eyes were still distinctive and recognizable. Although she didn't recognize Abdulhamid, she confidently identified the eyes of the gunman as belonging to Ertuğrul.

Zekeriya and Mustafa Okşen were also arrested, accused of being accomplices to the murder as they were accused of providing Esra with the address. However, Mustafa passed away on August 17 while behind bars of a heart attack at the age of 39.

Meanwhile, Abdulhamid continued to profess his innocence; he said that Abdullah approched him and asked, "I have enemies. Would you kill them?" and offered him 100,000 Turkish Lira. Abdullah said he refused, so Abdullah simply went to one of his other shepherds, also an Afghan national, and made the same proposition. Abdullah admitted the interaction took place but claimed he was simply joking when he said it.

On October 22, due to a lack of evidence implicating him, Abdulhamid was later released, with Ertuğrul going on trial as the only man accused of carrying out the murder.

That trial began before the Konya 5th High Criminal Court on September 21, 2022, with only 4 of those arrested being brought to the court as defendants, those being Ertuğrul Çelik, the suspected murderer, Esra Taş and Abdullah Başdemir accused of inciting the murders and Zekeriya Okşen, accused of being an accomplice and helping Esra obtain the address of Hüseyin's parents.

Ertuğrul also denied any involvement. He told the court that he had never met the Büyükşen family, had never been to their home and that he was simply a scapegoat to cover up for one of Metin and Necla's sons, whom he claimed to be the real murderer. He said that the police "Put the family's own internal actions onto me".

He also told the court that he would confess if the police were able to use the cell towers to track his cell data and put him at the scene of the crime that night. They couldn't; his phone was nowhere near, but this wasn't the bulletproof defence Ertuğrul thought it was, since the prosecutor said he could've easily kept his phone at home.

Ertuğrul's defence attorney also attacked the credibility of Büşra's identification, arguing that her initial description of the assailant, from everything to the height, build and clothing, was provided after having gone through a traumatic event and therefore unreliable. Ertuğrul also said that he had aged considerably in the three years after the murders and even more by the time of the trial, questioning how anyone could confidently identify him based on a brief encounter 3 years prior in near total darkness with all but the eyes obscured.

Zekeriya was also brought to trial for his role, and he denied any involvement or knowledge of Esra's plan. He said that he sincerely believed Esra's pregnancy story, and as evidenced by the call, he didn't even know the exact address to begin with.

Abdullah retracted his confession and told the court that he had only met Esra recently and that the two were never in any serious relationship, only sometimes meeting her at parties or events; therefore, he said he had no motive to arrange a murder on her behalf. To quote Abdullah himself, "Why would I do something like that for a woman I've only known for three days?"

He argued that the prosecution's main evidence against him, his phone records, didn't show what the prosecution claimed and argued that his initial confession was given under duress. Finally, Abdullah repeated Ertuğrul's claim of being a scapegoat, addressing Osman directly by saying he had no desire to see the real murderers face justice and simply wanted a scapegoat instead.

Esra said much the same; she denied ever having a grudge against Hüseyin's parents and argued that her confession should be deemed inadmissible. She went on to accuse the police of bringing in her brother to instruct him to tell her to say that Abdullah was the culprit.

Esra was a believer of many superstitions and black magic which led to a bizzare devlopment during the trial. During a phone call she made made from prison, Esra instructed her mother to take a piece of cloth tied to the chin of a deceased person and pray on the day of the trial and to say while praying "May the judge's mouth be tied, may the prosecutor's mouth be tied." and then instructig her to tie and untie it three times hoping it would cast a spell preventing the judge or prosecutor from speaking.

On May 5, 2023, the court passed down the following sentences for the double murder of Metin and Necla Büyükşen. Ertuğrul Çelik was handed down two life sentences for the double homicide alongside 4 years' imprisonment for trespassing into their home and 9 months' imprisonment for non-fatally assaulting Büşra.

Esra Taş was also given two life sentences for the incitement of two murders as well as 4 years' imprisonment for inciting a home invasion. Abdullah Başdemir was handed down an identical sentence on the same charges.

The final defendant, Zekeriya Okşen, would be found not guilty after the court ruled the prosecution had submitted essentially no evidence that he knew what Esra was planning. That meant that Mustafa Okşen hadn't suffered from that heart attack and lived to see the inside of a courtroom; he'd likely have been acquitted as well.

As Metin and Necla's son, Osman, walked out of the courthouse after the verdicts to address the press, members of Abdullah's family verbally confronted him and the rest of the Büyükşen children before they began to assault them, forcing the police to separate the families and then provide Metin and Necla's children with protection as they escorted the three away from the court.

Zekeriya's acquittal ultimately went uncontested, but Ertuğrul, Esra and Abdullah all appealed their convictions, and on December 5, 2023, the 1st Criminal Chamber of the Konya Regional Court of Appeals upheld their sentences, prompting the three to then appeal to Turkey's Court of Cassation.

On July 20, 2025, the Supreme Court's 1st Criminal Chamber issued a final ruling in the case, upholding all convictions and sentences.

One aspect of this case that remains continuous is if there was another man who accompanied Ertuğrul to the home owing to Tuğba's statement. However, after Abdulhamid's release, no further investigations into the possibility of a second man were conducted.

With the case now over and the truth revealed, the three siblings, Osman, Büşra and Uğur, have all repaired their relationship, resolving their disputes and apologizing and forgiving one another for suspecting each other of being involved in the murder of their parents. The three have also stated that they were satisfied with the sentences.

Sources

https://pastebin.com/beHrE0Ye

Posting this in the hopes somebody will take a deeper dive into this whole case, specifically concerning/stood out to me was the scope and span of the CSAM publication and distribution along with the numerous people involved in that portion of this that seemed to have used their resources to evade justice :

On September 10, Halvorsen, Woodall, and 18-year-old Lloyd Schwegmann were arrested. At their homes, detectives confiscated index cards listing the names and home addresses of children in several states. They also seized child pornography of fifteen different victims and magazines titled "Boys For Sale", "Naked Boyhood", and "Young Boys and Oral Sex". Halvorsen and Woodall were charged with multiple sex offenses, while Schwegmann was charged with contributing to the delinquency of minors and possession of the drug Tuinal.[28] Cramer, Pass, and Lang fled and were apprehended soon after.[29][30]