Thread: Two Tourists Brutally Murdered on Koh Tao, One Raped: Police Spark Thailand Manhunt

No point posting links to the DM. It's blocked here.

Originally Posted by thegent

No point posting links to the DM. It's blocked here.

We're not all in Thailand.

Originally Posted by Davis Knowlton

Originally Posted by thegent

No point posting links to the DM. It's blocked here.

We're not all in Thailand.

and mail on sunday aint blocked in thailand.....

Originally Posted by Necron99

Originally Posted by Davis Knowlton

Originally Posted by thegent

No point posting links to the DM. It's blocked here.

We're not all in Thailand.

and mail on sunday aint blocked in thailand.....

Yeah the Thais ain't been able to draw the connection between the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday yet, there's even a Scottish version called the Scottish Daily Mail not having read it but I'm sure when comes to world news, prints the same tripe as its English sister and not blocked in Thailand either.

Round up the usual suspects.

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

Actually most Thai I see roll their own, Khrung Thips are for keeneow farang.

Yeah sure, Earl, the Khrong Thip brand is built on its appeal to foreigners.

Columbo

Won't break the case but brand could give a clue. Marlboro more likely a foreigner. Krong Thip more likely a Thai.

Miss Marple

Falling Rain [brand] most likely in the case of Thai.

Inspector Clousseau

Actually most Thai I see roll their own, Khrung Thips are for keeneow farang.

Fact.

the butt of a LM cigarette

So to sum up progress so far.
Thai PM blames tourist for wearing swimming costumes.
Keystone cops haven't got a clue.
RIP two young lives taken.

Death by hoe, a terrible end for sure.

Speculation by media, police and fora will not give closure to families.

This kind of ill informed washer woman gossip best kept for the pub. What pub you say? They've all closed due to the anti social interwebs.

If UK.com ever got round to issuing realistic warnings about travel in Thailand, one caveat should be that in the event of death one should expect 0% dignity and 100% defamation from the Thais.

Originally Posted by Neo

"I'm sorry that it hurt people," Gen Prayuth said

That's it?...Carefully worded, na?...

Originally Posted by snakeeyes

Staff of the British embassy took Miller's friend, Mr Ware, from police custody and put him and his younger brother on a flight to England on Thursday, tourist police commander Apichai Thiamataya said Consular staff promised that if Thai police needed more information the British embassy would contact them.

That's good news under the circumstances....

Thai Military PMs have never been known for their choice of words...

The clue lies in the first statement, " No Thai is responsible for this "
Loss of Face is the first lie, that is perpetuated by the next lie, it goes all the way up the chain of command.
The Doughnuts know who dun it , but it is the big Family of Mafia that they are all part and parcel of.
Protect one of your own.
and then the GRAVEY train of money from Tourists.

From what ive gathered from various sources : The couple had some sort of altercation in the bar with local males. When couple left they were either followed or walked into
area where killers were waiting for them. Sound familiar. DO NOT VISIT OR STAY IN ANY BAR CONTAINING LOWLIFE LOCAL MALES.

Paradise island murder mystery
Last updated 6 hours ago

By Jonathan Head

BBC News, South East Asia Correspondent

BBC News - Thailand's paradise island murder mystery

It is as incongruous a scene as you are likely find for such a shockingly violent crime.
A small, sandy cove, hemmed all around by tall, rounded rocks, lapped by the turquoise seas that you get around Koh Tao.

Right behind it, climbing the hill, are the Ocean View Bungalows, typically unglamorous, functional accommodation that feature in abundance at the low end of resorts all over Thailand.

That is where Hannah Witheridge and David Miller were staying, and where they were presumably heading when they were murdered in the early hours of Monday morning.

Had this happened in one of Thailand's larger and more rowdy resorts, it would have been less shocking.

The number of British citizens murdered in Thailand since 2009 is now 13

It is no secret that well-established locations like Pattaya, Phuket, Koh Samui and Koh Phangan have an ugly underbelly of crime, racketeering, drugs and prostitution, even though many tourists may remain blissfully unaware of these aspects.

But Koh Tao? Named after its turtle-like shape - Tao is Thai for turtle - or perhaps it was in the past a major breeding ground for turtles, the island was uninhabited after a penal colony was shut down there in 1947.

Koh Tao came late to the tourist boom that swept other Thai islands in the 1980s and 90s, and has remained far less developed, with a resident population of just a few thousand, and visitors who come for the excellent diving and slower pace of life.

Talking to local people, who are clearly appalled and distressed by the murders, the one thing they say repeatedly is that nothing like this has ever happened on Koh Tao before.

Westerners, who have settled on the island, talk of the small, tight-knit community, where everyone knows each other. Who could possibly have committed such a ghastly crime, which has cast a shadow over this idyllic tropical paradise?

Watching the Thai police struggle to answer this mystery, with the eyes of the world on them, has felt like being part of a sometimes farcical performance, in which we, the media, are the audience.

On arriving the day after the murders, the senior police officer on the island assured us the culprit could not have been a Thai person. No Thai could possibly commit such a crime, he said, forgetting the equally ghastly murder of Welsh tourist Katherine Horton in 2006, by, it turned out, two Thai fishermen.

On that occasion they were caught in an efficient police operation that lasted just one week.

So having ruled out the Thais, the police focused their investigation in the large Burmese migrant worker population on Koh Tao.

They cited two CCTV images as crucial evidence.

One showed a couple they believed to be David Miller and Hannah Witheridge leaving a bar just before they were killed.

The other showed an Asian-looking man they thought might have been following the couple. But it turned out the CCTV image showed a completely different couple. And the seemingly random DNA samples taken from five Burmese men did not match any found on the victims' bodies.

Then another police chief said he believed the murders had been a crime of passion - hinting that jealousy might be the motive.

By then the police were directing their efforts to two of David Miller's friends who had been travelling with him in Thailand, Christopher and James Ware - but they too have now been cleared.

So the police are going back to the Burmese communities again, checking their documents, searching their homes.

And, four days on, a police officer has finally admitted that yes, perhaps the perpetrator might be Thai after all.

But as people were never stopped from leaving the island, despite claims to the contrary, the killer could by now be far away.

Evidence shows Ms Witheridge died from head wounds and Mr Miller died from severe blows to the head and drowning
And while publicly residents express disbelief over this crime, privately they are less surprised.

"They've had this coming," one man told me. "They've let things get out of control."

Another local told me that the bar the two British victims had been at before they died was notorious for its hard-drinking scene, with groups of aggressive, intoxicated men creating an intimidating atmosphere.

Could it have been from there that they were followed, down on to the beach?

People talk about some powerful families on Koh Tao who are pushing unsustainable development, building bars and hotels with little regard for the environment or the laid-back vibe that has attracted so many westerners.

If this is the case, it simply reflects the pattern of development in almost every other beach resort in Thailand - loose law-enforcement, plenty of minor crime, and a reckless pursuit of profit by landowners to the point where they are slowly destroying the very beaches, coasts and seas that tourists enjoy.

It is now very hard to find unspoiled natural beauty along its 1,600 miles of coastline.

The British Embassy travel warnings for Thailand are a sobering reminder of the seamier side of its resorts.

It states: "Western tourists have been victims of vicious, unprovoked attacks by gangs in Koh Phangan. These attacks are particularly common around the time of the Full Moon parties and generally occur late at night near bars in Haad Rin on Koh Phangan.

"There have been sexual assaults against foreign men and women."

The deaths of David Miller and Hannah Witheridge now bring the total number of British citizens murdered in Thailand since 2009 to 13.

So is Thailand a safe place to visit? For the most part, yes.

But do not be fooled by the smiles and the glossy posters put out by the tourism authority. The reality behind them is an unequal, profit-driven economy, much of it illegal - and a police force which has shown time and again its incapacity for controlling crime.

If one were to consider the number of attacks upon tourists and expat residents, whether they be provoked or otherwise, throughout Thailand which do not result in serious injury but nevertheless represent the Thai propensity for violence or just plain criminality then Thailand is not a safe place if compared to, say, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and I suspect even Cambodia and Vietnam.

Certainly, I tell anyone visiting to exercise caution and be alert to thefts, scams and never, never personally make a Thai look stupid or piss them off because their loss of temper is childlike and tantrums can be lethal.

But mostly I tell folk who have never been to S. E. Asia to visit Malaysia, Vietnam or Cambodia first before considering this shithole. Unless it's a chap looking for cheap whores in which case Thailand is on top of the list for brothels.

Originally Posted by Neo

"I'm sorry that it hurt people," Gen Prayuth said at a press conference on Thursday.

As apologies go, this sounds like a DaffyDuck-style apology.

Not

'i'm sorry I said it, I was wrong'

But

'I'm sorry you didn't like it.'

Moog, are you seriously suggesting, in the remotest of possibilities, that a Thai is likely to publicly admit to being wrong?

If that were to happen then this wretched country may stand a chance of improving but, as it is, it will always be no more than a snake pit of exploitation, corruption, injustice and a profound stupidity.

Indeed, we folk, not yet embalmed in the nonsense spouted by gormless Thaiphiles, vapid Lonely Planeteers and fluff piece hacks looking for their next freebie from TAT, knew this scenario was the most likely right from the outset.

Of all the folk on the planet likely to perpetrate such barbarity the Thai male has to be up there at the top of the pile.