Man casually confesses to murdering his past lovers on a Turkish dating show

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If you’ve murdered a lot of women, women will want to date you less. It's pretty airtight logic.

But a recent contestant on a Turkish marriage show apparently disagrees. On an episode of Flash TV’s “Ne Çıkarsa Bahtına” (Luck of the Draw), Sefer Çalınak, 62, casually admitted that he murdered his former wife and then his former girlfriend.

Not surprisingly, his confession shocked the program's host, the other participants, the studio audience, the viewers at home and pretty much the rest of Turkey. And now you. 

Murder Victim 1? His cousin Fadime, with whom he eloped when they were both 17. Five months into the marriage he became “irritated” with her and decided the solution was to murder her. As reported by Hurriyet Daily News:

“Her behavior changed. The nephew of the man who wanted to marry her started to come to our village. I was jealous and I killed her, in a way,” Çalınak said.

Murder Victim 2? Yosma Evcil'le, the married woman he dated after separating from his second wife. She refused to leave her husband and, according to Çalınak, was after his money. She died too:

“I killed her after she attempted to kill me. She was accidently killed when I swung the axe,” he said.

If those explanations strike you as terrible and also bizarre, you’re not the only one. Çalınak was twice sentenced to prison for the murders but incredibly, released early both times under a government amnesty program.

All that’s in the past though. “I’m an honest person looking for a new wife,” Çalınak (in maybe the most optimistic moment in television history) informed the horrified audience, who clapped enthusiastically when the host asked him to leave.

Çalınak insists he's simply a victim of destiny: “Bad luck always found me. In spite of everything I still want to get married. This time I'll leave it to God.”

You may be wondering why no one vetted this 62-year-old axe murderer before letting him on a marriage match-making show.

Oh they did! They knew about the first murder, just not the second one. So if you’re keeping track, you can still be on a TV dating show in Turkey if you’ve killed one wife, but definitely not two.

Not coincidentally, violence against women — including domestic violence — has undergone a dramatic rise in Turkey. The problem has gotten so bad that the Turkish government no longer releases figures. Al Jazeera reports that the murder rate of Turkish women skyrocketed 1,400 percent between 2002 and 2009.

Watch the segment (in Turkish) here. 

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