Suspicious clifftop deaths
WERE THESE ACCIDENTS – OR SOMETHING MORE SINISTER?
‘I HEARD MY WIFE SCREAM BEHIND ME’
Sitting atop a beauty spot in Butterfly Valley, a popular Turkish holiday destination, Hakan Aysal and his wife Semra looked the picture of happiness. At seven months pregnant with the couple’s first child, Semra cradled her bump and smiled for a selfie with her husband. Moments later, Semra and her unborn child would fall more than 1,000ft from the cliff edge to their deaths.
However, what seemed like a tragic accident is now alleged to be the financially motivated murder plot of a husband consumed by greed.
Aysal is currently on trial for killing his pregnant wife in order to claim £40k life insurance. Investigators looking into the events of June 2018 uncovered that, in the weeks preceding Semra’s death, Aysal had taken out a policy on his wife that named him as the sole beneficiary – while a policy taken out in case of his own death would result in members of his family other than his wife receiving the funds. And it seems the insurance policy wasn’t all – Aysal was also found to have taken out three loans in his wife’s name. Her brother Naim Yolcu told police his sister was “always against taking out loans”, adding that when they went to collect his sister’s remains, Aysal was sitting in the car and “did not even appear sad”. Aysal, who continues to deny plotting to kill his wife, has said, “After taking a photo, my wife put the phone in her bag… Later, she asked me to give her the phone. I got up and heard my wife scream behind me when I walked a few steps away to get the phone from her bag. When I turned back, she was not there. I did not push my wife.” In the wake of the indictment, a tourist who unwittingly filmed the couple released a video of Semra’s final moments. The footage shows Aysal and his wife walking around the cliff and further down towards the sea. The tourist claimed he saw Aysal “acting strangely” and was fearful one of them would fall. Prosecutors claim Aysal and his wife were on the cliff for three hours, and this was part of his plan to ensure there were no witnesses. It’s alleged that when he was certain the couple were alone, he pushed his wife off.
Aysal returned to the location just months later, while on holiday. Posing in a photo, he wrote, “A place that was once my paradise no longer has sun”. The trial was ongoing at time of press.
BLACK WIDOWER
Harold Henthorn had a tragic past, but had been afforded a second chance at happiness. After his first wife was killed in a terrible accident, he met second wife Toni Bertolet in 1999. The couple’s courtship was swift, and they married less than a year after they met on a Christian matchmaker website. Toni was a prominent eye doctor and Henthorn described himself as an entrepreneur. But after 12 years of marriage and one daughter, his life was to fall apart for a second time.
The couple had decided to celebrate their anniversary by going on a hike in the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, USA. It was a warm Saturday afternoon and the couple, who knew the area well, ventured beyond the tourist track to visit a more secluded area of the park. Photos of the couple together corroborate the timeline Henthorn supplied. However, at around 6pm, emergency services received a call from a frantic Henthorn, who told them his wife had fallen 128ft from a cliff 45 minutes earlier. He explained the remote location meant there was no phone reception, so he’d hiked to where her body was located, then moved her in order to make the call. Shortly after he had spoken to the emergency services, he sent a text to Toni’s brother, notifying him of her condition and urging him to get to them. Sadly, when the ambulance arrived at 8pm, Toni had succumbed
to her injuries. Henthorn was now a widower twice over.
Suspicion fell on Henthorn almost immediately, not least because of the choice of hiking trail the pair had taken. Toni had endured several knee surgeries, which made it difficult for her to walk any extreme elevations. And despite Henthorn telling park rangers he was unfamiliar with the park, they discovered a map in his car with a pink X marking the exact spot that Toni’s body had fallen. And more damning evidence was about to surface. After giving conflicting reports about his wife’s condition to her brother and to the emergency services, Henthorn was coached through CPR, but the dispatcher believed he failed to perform it. He told them his battery was low, and he needed to hang up and turn his phone off. But he subsequently made 22 calls, and sent and received 98 texts. Investigators were further shocked to find Henthorn held three life insurance policies on his wife and the total payout was $4.5million. This, police believed, was motive enough for him to kill.
Soon after Henthorn was identified as a potential killer, the circumstances surrounding the death of his first wife were reexamined. Sandra Henthorn was 37 when she died from injuries sustained after the couple’s jeep fell on top of her. They had been on a drive when one of the tyres began to go flat. The couple were in an area without mobile phone coverage or nearby houses, but a local mechanic happened to pass by. However, Henthorn declined his help. Thirty minutes later, he flagged down another car and told them the jeep had fallen on
‘THE MOTIVE WAS MONEY – $4.5MILLION’
his wife. After failing to find reception to call the emergency services, two of the men lifted the jeep off the unconscious Sandra. After freeing her, and against Henthorn’s objections, the men performed CPR and she began to breathe. The temperature was close to freezing, and the good Samaritans removed their coats to keep Sandra warm. Henthorn kept his coat on. When a medical team arrived, Sandra was airlifted to hospital, but sadly died. Her injuries were found to be due to traumatic asphyxiation consistent with strangulation. In the aftermath of her death, Henthorn, who collected $300k in life insurance, gave multiple differing accounts documenting the evening’s events, yet he was never investigated until Toni’s death. The similarities between the two “accidental deaths” were too obvious to ignore, as a picture of a controlling husband came to light. Later, a guilty verdict meant that Henthorn was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole for Toni’s murder.
DANGEROUS DEBTS
When the Thai emergency services were attending to pregnant Chinese tourist Wang Na after a fall from a cliff at the Pha Taem National Park, her husband stood by, watching nervously. A tourist had discovered the severely injured Wang after she had plummeted 110ft. Her fall was broken by trees and her unborn baby was unharmed, but she still sustained multiple fractures and was later placed into an induced coma. She was taken to hospital, with her husband insisting he stay by her side. But far from playing the
supportive and loving father-to-be, Yu Xiaodong was allegedly heard threatening to kill her if she exposed the truth of her fall. And when a Chinese interpreter at the hospital overheard her asking her husband why he had pushed her, she alerted the police. Wang then told investigators that what had happened on 9 June 2019 was no accident –she claims her husband had attempted to kill her.
Yu Xiaodong was unemployed and from a poverty-stricken background, while his wife was from an affluent family. But after giving him half her money to clear his mounting gambling debts, she had refused to help him with the full amount. They’d married after only a few months of meeting, and she was unaware of her new husband’s criminal convictions and addiction to gambling.
‘SHE HAD COLD FEET ABOUT THEM’
Investigators have theorised he pushed her in order to inherit her $2.5million fortune. Wang alleges that on the day of the attack, her husband hugged her from behind, then turned her towards him and kissed her face before pushing her off the cliff. She has said, “If he can make everyone believe I had fallen and died in an accident, then he will be able to inherit a part of my fortune. I indeed have a reasonable amount of savings and real estate properties.” The verdict is yet to be decided.
HONEYMOON HOMICIDE
Just eight days after Jordan Linn Graham married her husband
Cody Lee Johnson, he was dead. Graham reported Cody missing on 8 July 2013, telling authorities he had sent her a text saying he was going for a drive with a friend. She said Cody had received a phone call that caused him distress, and that she had seen him leave their home in a dark vehicle. It was the last time she saw him – until 11 July.
Graham claimed she was hiking through Glacier Park, Montana, when she found her husband’s body in an area she said he’d “always wanted to see before he died”. But the fact she just happened to discover his remains was highly unusual, and evidence of her suspicious behaviour began to emerge. A friend of hers revealed she had gotten cold feet about the union and planned on confronting Cody the night he died. She sent the friend a text that read, “Dead serious, if u don’t hear from me at all again tonight, something happened.” She also told a church service Cody had fallen from a cliff and died on 10 July, one day before she “found” his body.
But it wasn’t long before Graham admitted she’d fabricated the whole story. After the newlyweds had gone for a hike at Glacier Park, they got into an argument about their relationship and Cody had grabbed Graham by the arm. In retaliation, she pushed him and he fell off the cliff. During a 90-minute police interview, Graham said, “I didn’t realise one push would mean you were over.” She was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 30 years behind bars.