Kate Johnson was murdered by Deniz Aydiner, who had a key to her dorm room – The Wonderland Murders

Kate Johnson was sexually assaulted and murdered in her own dorm room by her acquaintance Deniz Aydiner, The Wonderland Murders examines this tragic and brutal case.

May 29, 2001, and Kate was found by friends dead in her dorm room, she’d been sexually assaulted and strangled. Kate had only just moved into the room to act as a hall monitor over the summer and had hoped to teach music at high school.

Detectives began gathering DNA from anyone who might have come into contact with Kate and one of those people was Turkish citizen Deniz Aydiner. However, but the time they matched his DNA to a sample from the murder scene, Aydiner had moved back to Turkey, his visa expired.

Aydiner made a plea deal in 2006, where he pled guilty to aggravated murder, attempted rape, first-degree sodomy and numerous count of burglary.

The 32-year-old was sentenced to life in prison with parole only possible after a minimum of 37 years. The sentence also stipulated that if he was ever paroled then Aydiner would be deported to Turkey on release.

In 2009 Aydiner tried to appeal his sentence, claiming that Portland police were in violation the extradition treaty between the U.S. and Turkey, as they’d used trickery to lure him to Portland.

He’d left for Turkey after the murder but wanted to return so that he could be with his wife. Various law enforcement agencies in the U.S. did everything they could to make sure he got the correct paperwork to return, arresting him as soon as he arrived.

The appeal was rejected and his sentence upheld.

The Wonderland Murders: Everybody’s Daughter, airs at 10:00 PM on Investigation Discovery.