On the morning of Sunday, January 5, 2014, Ali Kaya went to an open visit at Gaziantep H-type prison in southeastern Turkey. At about 10:30 he slipped in among the visiting families and left with them. Guards discovered he was gone only when they counted the inmates of his ward after visiting time, and the gendarmerie began a search across the province. He was 35. Turkish newspapers had for years called him "bebek yüzlü katil," the baby-faced killer, a name they said came from his good looks, his youth and his innocent face, and they had put him on their lists of the country's serial killers.
By the time of the escape the press linked him to as many as ten killings, going back to 1997. The record of what the courts decided is narrower. He was sentenced to five years for killing his uncle in Alanya in 1997. Milliyet reported that he was acquitted in a later set of stabbing cases in Alanya. For the other deaths attributed to him, among them the killing of a fellow patient in a psychiatric hospital in 2000 and of a man in Gaziantep in 2012, the newspapers did not report verdicts or sentences. Those killings are attributed to him, not proven against him in any reported judgment. What the reports do show is a pattern: he was released or discharged on psychiatric reports more than once, escaped twice, and each time was soon linked to new violence.
Ali Kaya was born in 1978, according to Posta, and came from Gaziantep. Milliyet reported in 2014 that he was involved in theft, assault and snatch theft as a boy and was jailed at 17. Posta, in a 2023 feature, said he had committed theft and assault as a child, was arrested at 17 and was sent to a reform institution for juveniles. Both papers say he was 19 when he came out in 1997.
Little else is known about his early life: nothing on his schooling, his work or his parents beyond the fact that his mother is mentioned in connection with one of the later killings. A Hürriyet Daily News report in January 2014 said he was 18 when he committed his first killing; Milliyet and Posta both put his age at 19.
His first known killing was of his uncle. Kaya stabbed him to death in Alanya, the resort town on Turkey's Mediterranean coast in Antalya province, in 1997, the same year he was released, according to Milliyet. Posta's 2023 account agrees on the year, the town and his age. No motive was ever reported.
He was sentenced to five years. Milliyet's 2009 and 2014 galleries both give the five-year term, and Posta wrote in 2023 that the sentence was "five years' heavy imprisonment," of which he served part. Milliyet reported that he was released from Silifke prison in 1999. It is the only sentence for a killing ever reported in full.
After his release, according to Milliyet's 2009 gallery, Posta's 2018 gallery and Posta's 2023 feature, Kaya killed a man named Zeynel Abidin Gümüş, whom he accused of having assaulted his mother while he was in prison. Milliyet's 2009 gallery places this killing in Adana. Milliyet's 2014 gallery places it in Alanya and adds that he left a note saying "Allah beni çağırıyor" ("God is calling me") and vowed to settle accounts with sinners and enemies. Nothing in the reports describes Zeynel Abidin Gümüş beyond his name and Kaya's accusation, and no trial outcome for his death was reported.
A series of psychiatric findings came next. Milliyet reported in 2014 that Kaya was arrested and held at Elazığ closed prison, then sent to a hospital, where a report concluded that he could not be kept in an enclosed place, and that he was released in 1999. The 2009 Milliyet gallery and the 2018 Posta gallery describe the same sequence in slightly different words: he was found to be mentally unwell and committed to a psychiatric hospital, and in 1999 a report stating that he "kapalı yerde duramaz" (could not stay in a closed place) led to his discharge.
Back in Alanya, Kaya stabbed a casino operator and then two more men, according to Milliyet's 2014 gallery. Because of the report on his mental state he was tried without being held in custody in the first case, and Milliyet reported that he was acquitted in those cases. The reports do not agree on how many of these men died. Milliyet's 2009 gallery and Posta's 2018 gallery say that after his discharge he stabbed five more people to death in Alanya and that all of his killings took place there. Posta's 2023 feature says only that he "allegedly" killed five people after his release and was never punished for them. None of the reports name the five dead.
His last attack in Alanya, by Milliyet's 2014 account, was on two prison officers, whom he stabbed in the town. The reports do not say whether the officers survived, and no charge or verdict for that attack was reported. After it, according to Milliyet's 2009 gallery and Posta's 2018 gallery, he was diagnosed with a personality disorder ("kişilik bozukluğu") and sent back to a psychiatric hospital.
The hospital was the Manisa Ruh ve Sinir Hastalıkları Hastanesi, the state psychiatric hospital at Manisa, in western Turkey. Milliyet reported in 2014 that Kaya was held there in a ward of 17 patients. One of them was Ayhan Kartal, a man from İzmir who, Milliyet wrote, had been held over the killings of two children there.
Milliyet reported that Kaya and other men from the ward killed Kartal. The 2009 Milliyet gallery and the 2018 Posta gallery say Kaya stabbed him to death. Posta dated the killing to 2000 and said Kaya hated Kartal because of his crime against a child in 1985. No reported court decision covers Kartal's death, and the reports do not say whether Kaya was ever tried for it.
The nickname followed this killing, in Posta's 2023 telling, which said the name "bebek yüzlü" stuck to him afterward. Milliyet's account of the nickname is simpler: it came from his young age and innocent face.
After the Manisa killing, according to Milliyet and Posta, Kaya was moved to the semi-open prison at Şanlıurfa. He escaped from it about a year later. Milliyet wrote in 2014 that he got away "one year later"; Posta wrote in 2023 that he was placed there in 2003 and escaped in 2004. Milliyet's 2009 gallery says he escaped after a year and was caught in Alanya in 2004.
The 2004 arrest came at Mahmutlar, a town in the Alanya district, where gendarmes stopped a vehicle they considered suspicious, according to Milliyet. Kaya was carrying a false identity card in the name of Erdal Yılmaz. In his pocket, Milliyet reported, was a long list of names that included well-known businessmen. People he said had mistreated or abused him as a child were at the top of it. Investigators treated it as a death list. Posta's 2023 account describes the same arrest at an identity check and says he was returned to prison.
In statements to investigators in 2004 and again in 2012, according to Milliyet, he said he would settle accounts with "günahkarlar" and "düşmanlar," sinners and enemies, and that he would "cleanse society of bad people" ("Toplumu kötü insanlardan temizleyeceğim"). Psychiatrists quoted by Milliyet in 2014 said he had a tendency to go on killing until he was stopped.
The next period is the least clear of all. Hürriyet Daily News wrote in January 2014 that Kaya had been briefly released in March 2012 after a report said he had a mental disorder, and that after his release he attacked people who had testified against him at his trial, killing three and injuring two. It did not name them or say which trial was meant. Posta's 2023 feature also says that after his 2012 release he allegedly killed three people who had informed on him.
The killing reported in most detail from this period is that of Mehmet Poyraz. Hürriyet, in a report by the Doğan News Agency (DHA) correspondent Mehmet Bulut, said Kaya's last killing was on March 31, 2012, in Gaziantep, and that the victim was Mehmet Poyraz. Hürriyet Daily News said he killed a person who had been staying with his parents before going on the run. Posta, in 2023, gave the date as April 6, 2012. Milliyet's 2014 gallery puts a killing of Mehmet Poyraz on a street in Gaziantep in 2004, after the Şanlıurfa escape; the other reports place it in 2012. Little is reported about Mehmet Poyraz himself.
Hürriyet Daily News reported that the gendarmerie captured Kaya in November, after an exchange of fire. Its report, published on January 6, 2014, said the capture had come "last November." By January 2014 he was held at Gaziantep H-type prison, where, according to Hürriyet, he was serving a sentence on a murder conviction. The reports do not identify which killing that conviction covered.
The escape on January 5 was his second. Hürriyet's DHA report said he left during the open visit at about 10:30, using the crowd as cover. Guards found him missing from his ward when the visit ended and alerted the prison administration and the gendarmerie, who set up controls around the prison and began going through the security camera footage. Posta's 2023 account adds that he climbed a five-meter wall topped with barbed wire.
The papers described him as dangerous. Hürriyet Daily News wrote that security forces considered him a very dangerous fugitive and that police and gendarmerie had launched an extensive search. Milliyet's gallery, published four days after the escape, ended by saying that he was still at large and asking the public to report any sighting. Hürriyet reported that criminal and administrative inquiries were opened into officers who might have been negligent in letting him go.
A special team was formed within the Gaziantep provincial gendarmerie command to find him. Investigators established that he had left Gaziantep for Adana and Mersin and had wanted to cross into Syria, according to Hürriyet and Timeturk. He then came back to Gaziantep and hid in the home of a friend in the Çıksorut neighborhood.
On March 3, 2014, security forces surrounded the house around midday. Kaya tried to get away over the roof and was caught by gendarmes after a short chase. He had a pistol. When he was searched at the gendarmerie station, Hürriyet reported, a list of ten names was found on him, people he was alleged to have planned to kill. He was given a medical check and taken to the courthouse.
At the prison entrance, on his way back in, he saw the waiting reporters and began shouting. The DHA correspondents Mehmet Bulut and İbrahim Kümbet, writing in Hürriyet, reported that he called out "tekbir" and shouted "Bugün olmazsa yarın olacak" ("If not today, it will be tomorrow") and "Bugünün yarını da var" ("Today has a tomorrow too"). Timeturk reported the same scene, with the words "Bugün olmazsa yarın olacak Allah'ın izniyle," adding "God willing." He was returned to the prison he had escaped from.
Only part of the legal record was ever reported, and the accounts do not always agree.
The one sentence reported in full is the five years he received for killing his uncle in 1997, followed by release from Silifke prison in 1999. Milliyet reported an acquittal in the Alanya stabbing cases that followed his 1999 discharge, cases in which he was tried without detention because of his psychiatric report. In January 2014 Hürriyet described him as held in Gaziantep on a murder conviction. Hürriyet Daily News, on January 6, 2014, reported both that he had been convicted of ten murders and that he had been charged with ten. The other reports from 2014 use the language of blame rather than conviction: Hürriyet wrote that ten killings were attributed to him, and Timeturk that he was linked to ten.
For the deaths of Zeynel Abidin Gümüş, Ayhan Kartal and Mehmet Poyraz, and for the other killings attributed to him in Alanya and Gaziantep, no charge, verdict or sentence was reported. Each of these killings is therefore attributed to him by the press, without a reported judgment.
The number of killings credited to Kaya grew in the press over the years. In April 2010 Posta wrote that he had killed eight people between 1997 and 2004. By January 2014 Hürriyet, Hürriyet Daily News and Timeturk all used the figure ten and Posta repeated ten in 2023.
The accounts also differ on details. Milliyet's 2009 gallery says all of his killings took place in Alanya, while placing the killing of Zeynel Abidin Gümüş in Adana; Hürriyet Daily News said most of them were in Antalya province. Hürriyet dates the killing of Mehmet Poyraz to March 31, 2012, Posta to April 6, 2012, and Milliyet's 2014 gallery to 2004. Accounts of the 2000 killing in Manisa differ on who else took part. For the escape from Şanlıurfa the reports give 2003 or 2004.
After his recapture in March 2014 Kaya was returned to Gaziantep H-type prison. Little has been reported about him since. In August 2023 Posta published a long feature on his case, with comments from the clinical psychologist Berk Karaoğlu on antisocial personality and how such people justify their acts, and reported that he was still in prison.
1978: Ali Kaya is born (Posta, 2023); he comes from Gaziantep.
Before 1997: Jailed at 17 for theft and assault (Milliyet; Posta).
1997: Released at 19; the same year he kills his uncle in Alanya, for which he is sentenced to five years.
1999: Released from Silifke prison. After his release, Zeynel Abidin Gümüş is killed; the press attributes the killing to Kaya. Kaya is held at Elazığ, sent to a hospital and discharged on a report that he cannot be kept in an enclosed place.
1999 to 2000: Stabbing cases in Alanya; tried without detention and, by Milliyet's report, acquitted. Reported to have stabbed two prison officers; diagnosed with a personality disorder and sent to the Manisa psychiatric hospital.
2000: Ayhan Kartal, a fellow patient, is killed at the Manisa hospital; the press attributes the killing to Kaya (Posta dates it to 2000).
2003 or 2004: Escapes from the semi-open prison at Şanlıurfa.
2004: Arrested at Mahmutlar, Alanya, with a false identity card in the name of Erdal Yılmaz and a list of names.
March 2012: Briefly released after a psychiatric report (Hürriyet Daily News).
March 31, 2012 (Hürriyet) or April 6, 2012 (Posta): Mehmet Poyraz is killed in Gaziantep; the killing is attributed to Kaya.
November 2013: Captured by the gendarmerie after an exchange of fire (Hürriyet Daily News).
January 5, 2014: Escapes from Gaziantep H-type prison during an open visit.
March 3, 2014: Recaptured in Gaziantep with a pistol and a list of ten names; returned to the same prison.
August 2023: Posta reports that he is still in prison.