Inset: Serkan Akcilad (Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office). Background: The apartment complex where Akcilad allegedly killed his girlfriend (WITI).
A 24-year-old man in Wisconsin allegedly killed his girlfriend inside of the apartment they shared and police he’d been sleeping next to the victim’s body for about a month before he went to the police station and reported her dead.
Serkan Akcilad was taken into custody last month and charged with one count of first-degree reckless homicide and a modifier for use of a dangerous weapon in the slaying of Silan Tut, court records show. According to a probable cause affidavit obtained by Law&Crime, Akcilad on Feb. 27 walked into the Milwaukee Police Administration Building and told the officer at the front desk that his girlfriend was dead inside their apartment in the 1300 block of North 10th Street. Akcilad is a Turkish national and used the Google Translate app on his phone to report the death.
“Akcilad advised that about 20 days prior he ran an errand leaving his girlfriend at their apartment. When he returned he found her dead on the floor,” the affidavit states. “Akcilad stated he had been gone about an hour and when he returned she was ‘lying on the floor covered in blood.’ Initially he thought [his girlfriend] was ‘joking’ and he tried to lift her up. Akcilad said [his girlfriend] was ‘cold as ice’ and he ‘fainted from shock.’”
Again, Akcilad told police that he discovered Tut’s body “about 20 days prior,” but claimed he didn’t report her death because he was “unfamiliar with the laws of this country.”
“The defendant said that he slept by the dead body of [Tut] on the floor where he initially found her,” the affidavit states.
Officers were dispatched to the apartment where they found Tut’s body lying supine with a pillow behind her head. The medical examiner determined that Tut suffered multiple stab wounds to the torso and neck and noted that the state of decomposition indicated she’d been dead about a month.
“The body appeared to have been staged,” police wrote. “During the search of the apartment no knives were located other than ‘extremely dull’ butter knives and the boxcutters.”
Due to the “apparent staging” of the crime scene, a “Blue Star” blood developer device was utilized, which allows investigators to detect invisible traces of blood. The results indicated that Akcilad had stabbed Tut in a different area of the home and dragged her to where she was located by police.
In the trash, police said they found food receipts from Feb. 14 through Feb. 21, indicating Akcilad had been in the apartment regularly since Tut’s death. Multiple items in the home were found to have blood spatter on them and were collected into evidence along with an eviction notice. An additional notice dated Jan. 8, 2025, ordered Akcilad to pay $1,257 in past-due rent or vacate the premises.
A neighbor told police that she heard Akcilad and Tut arguing on Jan. 24, which consisted of screaming that lasted about five to 10 minutes.
Police obtained surveillance footage from a local Pick ‘n Save grocery store that allegedly showed Akcilad on the night of Jan. 24, 2025, purchasing a bottle of bleach.
On Jan. 25, Akcilad reportedly said, he purchased a nail gun and tried to take his own life by shooting himself in the head with it. Akcilad “was found to have a nail in his head extending into his brain,” the affidavit states. He was taken to the hospital and underwent surgery to have the nail removed.
After the nail was removed from his head, Akcilad told detectives he went out on Jan. 24 for about an hour, and when he returned home he found Tut dead.
“He initially thought she was playing a joke on him, but she was cold to the touch and found she was dead,” the affidavit said. “He then ‘passed out’ from shock. When he awoken, he saw she was still dead and may have passed out again.”
He also allegedly admitted to moving Tut’s body from the area where the pool of blood was detected to its current location one day prior to reporting Tut’s death. He also allegedly said that the only reason he reported Tut’s death was because the property manager was scheduled to check on the apartment the following day.
Akcilad repeatedly denied being involved in Tut’s death of subsequent cover up, but allegedly confessed to using her phone to communicate with her family and “convince them that she was alive and in good health.”
The defendant is currently being held on bond of $1 million and is scheduled to appear in court on March 19 for a preliminary hearing.
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