John Minchillo / AP

Betzaida Jimenez, mother of 33-year-old Sarai Sierra who was found dead on Saturday in Turkey, pauses before a news conference at a friend's home in Staten Island, on Monday.

The FBI is playing a significant role in the investigation into the death of a New York City woman in Istanbul while on a solo vacation, a U.S. congressman said Monday.

Rep. Michael Grimm, a former FBI agent, said U.S. investigators were invited by Turkish authorities to assist as they try to find out what happened to Sarai Sierra, a 33-year-old mother of two who disappeared Jan. 21. Her body was found 12 days later, near the remnants of the city's ancient walls. Police said she had suffered a fatal blow to the head.

Prosecutors in Istanbul got a court order Monday for authorities to take blood and DNA samples from 21 people already questioned in the death, according to Turkish state media.

Meanwhile, her family was working out how to return her body to the U.S.

Sierra's husband, Steven, is in Istanbul, where he traveled last week to help in the search. He intends to accompany her body back to New York, but the family is still determining how to fund the transport. Their church and friends are working to raise money to help defray the costs.

Turkish authorities finished an autopsy Monday on Sierra and gave DNA samples from it to a crime lab, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. After that, Istanbul prosecutors got the court order but did not identify the possible suspects, the agency reported.

On Monday, police with sniffer dogs were scouring the area where the body was found for clues, it said. The Milliyet newspaper said the forensic lab will examine samples from Sierra's fingernails as well as hair and other samples from a blanket found near her body. It said some nail scrapings suggest she may have tried to fight off at least one attacker.

Sarai Sierra made her first trip overseas alone after her childhood friend, Magdalena Rodriguez, backed out. At Monday's news conference in New York, Rodriguez fought back tears as she said she wished she had not changed her plans.

"I wasn't working at the time and I didn't have the money to go," she explained.

Family and friends described Sierra as a devoted mother to her 9- and 11-year-old sons who volunteered at their school and worked part time so she would be available for them after school. "Every time I saw her, she was always with her family," said another longtime friend, Dulce Arroyo.

Arroyo ran across Sierra on a shopping trip two days before she left the U.S. and said traveling alone didn't appear to be a frightening prospect. Her friend was looking forward to an exciting adventure and spent most of their conversation talking about the murals and architecture she planned to photograph.

"She was perfectly OK with taking this trip on her own," Arroyo added. "She was thrilled."

Dennis Jimenez said Sierra tried to calm any fears by emphasizing that she'd be in regular contact via video calls and text messages.

"I didn't want her to go, but she wanted to go," he said. "Turkey was a land rich in architecture and ancient history, and she was very fascinated by that."

He added that she shared her photos online and checked in frequently. "You could tell that she was happy," he said.

Grimm said Turkish police still have hours of video footage to review as they piece together Sierra's last movements. A special unit of Turkish police set up to find Sierra have an image of her at Galata Bridge, which spans Istanbul's Golden Horn waterway and where she went on her last day to take photos.

The trip also included preplanned excursions to Amsterdam and Munich.

Betzaida Jimenez said her two grandsons do not know what had happened to their mother. They only know their father went to get her after her vacation.

"We're going to talk about that when he gets back," she said.

She recalled hugging her daughter before she departed and praying together for a safe journey.

"Just the thought that I'll never be able to hug her again," she said, pausing to compose herself. "We just didn't think a tragedy like this was going to happen."

Related: Mom of woman slain in Turkey: Her sons don't know

AP

Turkish men pin up a photo of Sarai Sierra, a New York City woman who disappeared while on vacation in Istanbul.

The cellphone of a New York City mom missing in Istanbul has been used twice since she vanished, a Turkish newspaper reported Friday.

Sarai Sierra, 33, hasn’t been seen heard from since Jan. 21, the day before she was supposed to catch a flight home from a two-week vacation.

But police believe the amateur photographer is alive because her phone was used for a Skype call on Wednesday and turned on again Thursday, the Sabah newspaper reported, according to the Turkish daily Hurriyet.

Cops briefly detained a man who exchanged online messages with Sierra after meeting her online four months ago, contacted her while she was in Istanbul and made plans to rendezvous with her on a bridge she wanted to photograph, Hurriyet said.

The man reportedly told police the two never connected, and investigators are now hoping to question three other people she corresponded with on Facebook and Twitter.

Sierra left for her first trip abroad on Jan. 7 — flying solo after a close friend dropped out of the prepaid trip, her family has said.

Her husband, Steven Sierra, said his wife stayed in close contact, talking to him and their children, ages 9 and 11, by phone and Skype.

The last communication from her came Jan. 21, when she sent her sister a brief message saying she would be home the next day.

When she didn't show up at the airport, her husband called her hostel, which said her passport and other personal items were still there.

Police uncovered surveillance-camera footage of Sierra walking around Istanbul during her visit; she appeared to be alone and well.

Steven Sierra and Sarai's brother, David Jimenez, flew to Turkey earlier this week and turned over her online communications to police.

"I don't want to come home without my sister," Jimenez told NBC New York before the trip.

AP Photo/Office of the Mayor of New York

Artist's rendering of a proposed 625-foot Ferris wheel, billed as the world's largest, planned as part of a retail and hotel complex along the Staten Island waterfront in New York.

The man who wants to build the world’s biggest Ferris wheel in a flood zone of Staten Island says he wasn’t scared off by the damage and death caused by superstorm Sandy.

But Richard Marin, the developer of the plan to erect the 625-foot structure, said he's been forced to confront the fears of residents of the ravaged New York City borough.

Marin said he can “thank Hollywood” for doomsday scenarios in which people envision his wheel snapping off its posts and “rolling across Staten Island” the next time a hurricane blows up the East Coast.

Even though the $500 million project – which includes mall and hotel -- would be built on land that took on four feet of water during Sandy, Marin told NBC News that he doesn’t share those worries.

For one thing, he expects to build at least one or two feet above the level that the federal government deems the flood zone, with all the vital mechanical and electrical equipment safely out of reach of a storm surge.

At meeting after meeting, he’s told residents that even if high winds somehow loosened the wheel, it wouldn’t crash down; it would be left dangling by cables much like a Midtown Manhattan crane that came loose during Sandy.

With an independent power “microgrid” that relies on alternative energy, a kitchen and a first-aid facility, the complex could even be used as a public shelter if Staten Island gets walloped by Mother Nature again.

“All of those things have helped a lot with the natural knee-jerk reaction of: ‘What happens when the next big storm comes and this thing falls on our head?’” said Marin, a former Wall Street banker.

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The wheel plan has the backing of City Hall and Staten Island’s top elected official, but some people are still uneasy about such a massive waterfront project post-Sandy.

"Before the storm, I don't think that anyone had really given much consideration to the fact that these projects are being built in a flood plain," Beryl Thurman, an environmental activist, told The Associated Press.

The tourist attraction, she said, "should be put on a back burner until the city of New York can come up with real answers."

Nancy Rooney, a nurse, said the developer’s full-speed-ahead approach struck the wrong note at the wrong time.

“It was in poor taste to be discussing a Ferris wheel and all this glamor -- it was very hard to embrace this when you knew that your colleagues and their family members were devastated, and there were people who don't have heat or electricity or homes," she told the AP after attending a public meeting.

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Marin admits he “bruised some sensibilities” but said it was for the greater good.

“We’re convinced of the viability of this project,” he said. “People say: Should you be talking about something as frivolous as an amusement? … Now, more than ever, Staten Island needs the kind of economic development this project has to offer.”

The goal is to have it up and running by the end of 2015. Long before then, though, Marin hopes to secure a corporate sponsor that will put its name on the wheel at the cost of many millions a year.

He said that company executives have not been as skittish as some Staten Islanders.

“I don’t think there have been undue concerns because of the storm,” he said.

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John Makely / NBC News

Staten Island resident John Dellorusso looks over his backyard, which now contains debris from a nearby restaurant. His Yetman Avenue home, at right, was severely damaged. The homeowner next door and his 13-year-old daughter were killed when their house was flattened.

Staten Island officials had some choice words Thursday to describe what they said was a feeble disaster-relief response to people left dying, homeless and hungry in the New York City borough hit particularly hard by Sandy.

Staten Island’s top elected official blasted the American Red Cross response as “an absolute disgrace” and went so far as to urge its residents not to donate to the largely volunteer agency.

“All these people making these big salaries should be out there on the front line, and I am disappointed,” a frustrated Borough President James Molinaro said Thursday morning at a press conference with other local officials to talk about the needs of the hard-hit borough. “And my advice to the people of Staten Island is, ‘Do not donate to the American Red Cross. Let them get their money elsewhere.’"

A top Red Cross official said he understood Molinaro’s frustration.

“He’s advocating for his community in a time of extreme distress and incredible need,” said Josh Lockwood, CEO of the American Red Cross Greater New York region.

And a disaster-relief expert said angry outbursts aren’t surprising in the immediate aftermath of a disaster.

“I think obviously in any sort of disaster context there’s always going to be a fair amount of frustration about how quickly things happen,” said Keith Tidball, Cornell Cooperative Extension disaster education program director.

Staten Island, the least populated of the five New York City boroughs with about 468,000 people, has been sometimes called "the forgotten borough" or "the neglected borough" by inhabitants who feel they're routinely ignored or shortchanged by city government.  At least 19 Sandy-related deaths have been reported on Staten Island as of Thursday -- more than any other borough – and hundreds of homes have been destroyed or damaged. The deaths include two boys who were swept away from their mother during the storm surge and whose bodies were found Thursday morning.

“We have the worst tragedy that’s ever happened to Staten Island, and I would say New York City, since 9/11 – and we need help,” Molinaro told reporters before singling out the Red Cross for scathing criticism.

“I have not seen the American Red Cross at a shelter. I have not seen them down at the South Shore where people are buried in their own homes, have nothing to eat and nothing to drink,” Molinaro fumed. “Yesterday I toured the South Shore with the mayor. The neighbors down there that didn’t have electricity managed to put together pots of soup and they were distributed to the people down there whose homes were just destroyed --  and the American Red Cross was nowhere to be found.”

Slideshow: Sandy slams into East Coast

David Friedman / NBC News

Superstorm Sandy made landfall Monday evening on a destructive and deadly path across the Northeast.

Launch slideshow

He added: "This is America. This is not a Third World nation. We need food. We need clothing. We need everything you can possibly think of."

Other local officials also criticized the relief response, though not singling out the Red Cross by name.

State Sen. Andrew Lanza lashed out at the city for giving the go-ahead to the New York City Marathon this weekend and for putting a priority on pumping water out of flooded East River tunnels

“We’re talking about getting water of the tunnel. Let’s get the water out of the tunnel tomorrow, let’s get the people out of the water today. There’ve been thousands of people who have been displaced. There are people who are cold, who are hungry, who are without a place to go, and looking for warmth.,” Lanza said, according to Politicker.

“There are people still trapped. Yet we’re talking about marathons and tunnels.”

Lockwood, the regional Red Cross CEO, was visiting Staten Island Thursday afternoon. Lockwood said he spoke to Molinaro after hearing of his remarks. He said Molinaro was “doing the right thing” by advocating for his community.

John Makely / NBC News

Jane Caravello pauses with her son Vincent Caravello after wading a couple hundred yards from her house on Kissam Avenue on Staten Island. "Half of it is down there and the other half is on Beach Ave."

“We’re certainly stretched by this event and we're trying to respond. We’re all working 24/7,” Lockwood told NBC News. “For the people of Staten Island, I wish we could respond more quickly but we are here now and we’re here for the long haul.”

Red Cross spokeswoman Anne Marie Borrego in Washington said Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern also called the borough president to let him know that “help was on the way.”

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The Red Cross has  five emergency response stations set up at  New Dorp Lane on Staten Island, she told NBC News.

“We’re not going to put our people and supplies in the path of the storm. We have to pre-position our supplies in safe places,” Borrego said. “We’re in the same boat as all other New Yorkers in getting around with trains and bridges shut down and roads clogged. We’re there, we’re moving and we’re on it.”

Tidball, the disaster-relief expert, said it’s common for elected officials and others to express frustration at the level of outside help after a large-scale disaster.

“Wherever people feel need to point fingers I would encourage them to reach out their hands and help instead,” he said.

Beware of charity scams in wake of Superstorm Sandy

Tidball, who works with the disaster-aid relief group National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, said that, from his vantage point, local and state officials have been coordinating quite effectively with other state and federal officials. He said lessons from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Irene in 2011, coupled with the emergence of Twitter and other social-media as essential communication tools, have paid off and likely saved lives this time around.

“There are a lot of places around the country and around the world that have experienced large-scale disasters but perhaps weren’t able to get things going as quickly or do as good a job in preventing loss of life and key structural functions,” Tidball said. “When you think of a city or metropolitan region that’s experienced what they’ve (New York) experienced, it’s pretty impressive.”

He said the best way outsiders can help victims of Sandy is by donating cash that would go directly to meet specific needs in flooded areas.

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Staten Island, just a ferry ride from Manhattan but often seen as the neglected stepchild of the New York metropolis, apparently was the city's deadliest zone in Superstorm Sandy – accounting for half the human toll.

On Thursday the bodies of two young boys who were swept away from their mother’s grasp during  the storm surge were recovered, NBC News reported. A missing husband and wife were also found dead Thursday, NBCNewYork.com reported.

That brought the toll on the island to 19, NBCNewYork.com reported. On Thursday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Superstorm Sandy is responsible for the deaths of at least 37 New Yorkers.

Seth Wenig / AP

Glenda Moore, and her husband, Damian Moore, react as they approach the scene where at least one of their childrens' bodies were discovered in Staten Island, New York, on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012. Brandon Moore, 2, and Connor Moore, 4, were swiped into swirling waters as their mother tried to escape her SUV on Monday.

At a news briefing Thursday morning, elected officials pleaded for help for Staten Island.

Borough President James Molinaro blasted the Red Cross as an “absolute disgrace” and urged the public to stop giving to the venerable institution.

Asked by NBC News to explain his comment, Molinari said, “because the devastation in Staten Island, the lack of a response.” 

Island of tears: Hurricane Sandy devastates Staten Island families

“You know, I went to a shelter Monday night after the storm. People were coming in with no socks, with no shoes,” Molinaro said. “They were in desperate need. Their housing was destroyed. They were crying. Where was the Red Cross? Isn’t that their function?”

Indeed, Staten Island, which took a direct blow from Sandy, is a scene of immeasurable misery and utter devastation, with homes obliterated, others off their foundations in addition to widespread flooding.

"The city of New York right now is talking about getting water out of the Battery Tunnel and preparing for a marathon," U.S. Rep. Rep. Michael Grimm said. "We're pulling bodies out of the water. You see the disconnect here?"

NYPD officials have denied to NBC News that Staten Island’s working class neighborhoods have come after wealthier areas.

“We are heading into the area where there is major destruction now,” Red Cross spokeswoman Anne Marie Borrego told NBC News late Thursday.

John Makely / NBC News

Little remains of a home on Yetman Avenue in Staten Island where homeowner George Dresch and daughter Angela, 13, perished in Hurricane Sandy. Patricia Dresch is reported to be in critical condition.

The Red Cross, Borrego said, has five emergency response stations set up at New Dorp Lane in the borough and the organization’s New York CEO, Josh Lockwood, is on the scene. 

While looking over the wreckage of his cousin's house on Thursday, Tom Monigan talked about his cousin George Dresch, who died  in the surge of water with his daughter Angela, 13, on Staten Island. George Dresch's wife Patricia was reported to be in critical condition at the hospital.

"Not in a million years, did I expect to see this," Monigan told NBC News. "This is unbelievable, I mean for George to lose his life and his daughter and his wife to be in the condition she's in it's a sin, it's unreal, I can't believe I'm looking at this. Terrible." 

"You can replace this stuff, but it's what happens to people," Monigan said, "it changes their life forever and it's terrible. People are worried because they don't have electricity, Jesus, this is the real deal right here."

Rescue workers who are part of a task force of searchers gathered on Staten Island on Thursday have fanned out with maps to search the hardest hit areas in the city. Large trucks and other equipment with Homeland Security decals began arriving late in the day on Sunday.

Phyllis Puglia didn't lose any family members, but she did lose lose virtually everything else. "I want to go home," Puglia told NBC News' Ann Curry. "But there's no home. I can't go home and that's killing me. That's breaking my heart.”

The boys whose bodies were found Thursday were identified by the New York Police Department as Brandon Moore, 2, and Connor Moore, 4, NBCNewYork.com reported.

A police description of the incident said that after their home became flooded and lost power, their mother, Glenda Moore, was attempting to drive them to relatives' home in Brooklyn when her Ford Explorer stalled in rising water on Father Capodanno Boulevard. 

Glenda Moore managed to free the boys from their car seats and tried to hold onto them, but the force of the water ripped them from her grasp.

Read more on this story at NBCNewYork.com

“She was holding onto them, and the waves just kept coming and crashing and they were under,” the boys' aunt, who was not named, told the New York Daily News. “It went over their heads … she had them in her arms, and a wave came and swept them out of her arms.”

According to the Moore's sister, Moore had pounded on doors for help during the height of the storm, but no one was willing to help her.

About two dozen NYPD officers had been searching for the boys. Their bodies were discovered in a marsh early Thursday, NBCNewYork.com reported, about 15 yards from each other up against debris and a tree near where the SUV was overturned from the storm surge.

Some 470,000 people live in the Staten Island borough of New York, according to census figures, and many areas of the borough, were spared.

The Staten Island museum and zoo were both operating on Thursday, and ferry services was expected to resume in a day or two, according to the island's tourism website. 

NBC News producer Craig Melvin, WNBC investigative producer Shimon Prokupecz, WNBC investigative correspondent Jonathan Dienst and NBCNews.com multimedia producer John Makely contributed to this report.

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A heroic Staten Island woman pushed her 8-year-old grandson out of the way before being struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver as the two walked home from church Thursday night.

Clara Almazo, 57, and her grandson, Brian Herrera-Ramirez, were crossing Cary Avenue in West Brighton just before 10 p.m. when a black Ford Escape came barreling toward them, police say.

Read the original story at NBCNewYork.com

Witnesses said Almazo was thrown 10 to 20 feet by the impact. She was later pronounced dead at Richmond University Hospital. Her grandson suffered scratches and bruises.

They were returning home from Thursday services at Our Lady of Mount Carmel-St. Benedicta Church.

The alleged driver, Brian McGurk, turned himself in several hours after the accident and was charged Friday with leaving the scene of an accident. It wasn't clear if he had a lawyer.

It wasn't known how fast McGurk was driving. He remains in jail and his vehicle is under police surveillance.

Police say additional charges could be issued against the 40-year-old suspect.

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Family photo

Amanda Cummings family photo

A 15-year-old who a witness says jumped in front of a Staten Island bus was carrying a suicide note when she was struck, distraught because she was the target of bullying at her school, according to a relative.

Amanda Diane Cummings, a sophomore at Staten Island's New Dorp High School, was hit by a city bus on Dec. 27 and died Monday from her injuries. A police spokesman told The Staten Island Advance that Amanda had a suicide note with her when a witness saw her jump in front of the bus at about 7:30 p.m., but authorities did not disclose the contents of the note.

Keith Cummings, Amanda's uncle, said his niece had been taunted by bullies, who stole her phone and other belongings. 

“She had to be picked up from school because she was worried about being beat up,” Cummings told 1010 WINS radio. The day before the accident, she got an email from her boyfriend saying that he was dumping her, he added, CBSNewYork.com reported. Cummings said he thought it pushed Amanda over the edge.

• Story: Bullied girl's suicide has ongoing impact

Cecil Weber, Amanda's mother, told The Staten Island Advance on Tuesday that police were investigating cirucumstances surrounding Amanda's death, and she called it "an accident."

"She was fun-loving and was always kind to everyone around her," Weber said.

Keith Cummings told The Advance he will seek criminal redress against Amanda's tormenters, some of whom he said even posted cruel comments on her Facebook page while she lay injured in the hospital.

“I’m not going to tolerate this. I’m gonna go full force,” he told The Advance. “Kids can’t do this to each other.”

New Dorp High School has about 2,600 students, according to New York City's government website.

The city medical examiner will determine the cause of Amanda's death.

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