Police have arrested the boyfriend of a woman who plunged 100 feet to her death during a cliffside marriage proposal in Turkey as authorities revealed that they found "signs of a serious argument" at the clifftop sunset spot where the couple was meant to be celebrating their proposal.
Nizamettin Gursu was arrested five months after the tragic incident in which his 39-year-old girlfriend, Yesim Demir, fell off a cliff in Canakkale, in northwestern Turkey, on July 6, according to reports from Newsflash on Wednesday. Demir and Gursu had gone to Polente Cape in Canakkale, Turkey for a picnic the day after he proposed to her where the tragic incident happened.
Mysterious Death
Demir plummeted 104 feet (32 meters) on the night of July 6 but reportedly survived the fall. However, despite efforts by medics, who were called by her fiancé, she succumbed to her injuries in the early hours of the following day. Medical professionals worked for 45 minutes in an attempt to revive her, but unfortunately, she did not survive.
Gursu told local media at the time: "We chose the cliffs to have a romantic memory after the proposal. We drank some alcohol. Everything happened at once. She lost her balance and fell down."
Gursu has now been arrested following a criminal complaint filed by her family, according to Turkish media reports. The family alleges that the couple had a confrontation after Demir rejected his proposal.
Gursu told the authorities that Demir had initially accepted his proposal. However, as he went to get celebratory food and drinks from his car, he heard a chilling scream. Upon his return to the romantic picnic site, he found that his bride-to-be had fallen over the ledge.
However, during the investigation, the police found discrepancies in Gursu's account. Despite his claim that he had given Demir the engagement ring after she accepted his proposal, authorities found that the ring was still in its box inside his pocket.
Zeroing in On Boyfriend
The suspicions of the authorities escalated further upon discovering shattered glasses and a broken music speaker at the couple's engagement spot, suggesting that there was a physical altercation between Gursu and Demir.
The slain woman's family told police that she had planned to end her relationship with Gursu and would not have accepted his marriage proposal. They further claimed that Demir suffered from panic attacks and would never willingly have been so close to the edge of a cliff.
At the time of her death, Gursu portrayed the role of the heartbroken fiancé. He told the police that they had chosen the engagement spot because they believed it would be a romantic location for the occasion.
"We chose it to have a romantic memory after the proposal. We drank some alcohol. Everything happened at once. She lost her balance and fell down," Gursu said at the time.
Gursu is currently held in custody, awaiting trial. The issue of femicide, defined as the gender-based killing of women, has been a growing problem in Turkey.
According to the Monument Counter, a digital memorial tracking women killed by violence, there have been at least 380 cases of women killed by men in Turkey this year, and 383 such cases were reported last year.
