The family of a 17-year-old Thai girl who was allegedly murdered by a 45-year-old Australian truck driver have broken their silence.
Simon Peter Carman has been charged with the murder of Thanchanok Donhomla, after the young girl’s body was found stuffed in a suitcase.
Carman later told her parents in a video message, where he apologised saying: “I feel bad for what happened to your daughter. It was out of my control.”
“I know you’ll be very sad, upset, same (as) me. Please tell other girls … just to be careful.”
Thanchanok, who is an only child, has been remembered by her parents as a good girl who worked to support her family.
“She sometimes helped her father and me by selling garlands or fruits at intersections on the road, during Songkran (water festival). We did not force her to work,” her stepmother Oradee Bussarakum told ABC.
“She was still young, so sometimes we let her go out and gave her 50 to 100 baht.”
The young girl went on holiday to Pattaya on June 16 with her friends for the first time, with her stepmum saying that “she said she wanted to see the sea.”
“We never expected this. When they found her, we still hoped she was alive,” Oradee said.
Her devastated father told Reuters that he was “deeply saddened” by his daughter’s death and also rejected his apology, calling for her killer to be executed, a potential sentence for a murder conviction in Thailand.
Pattaya Police have shared a timeline of events leading to Carman’s arrest at Bangkok’s main international airport at 1.15am on June 27, where he was allegedly “preparing to flee the country” on a flight back Perth.
CCTV footage from 3.34am on June 25 showed a man and girl believed to be Carman and Thanchanok walking hand-in-hand in the lobby of a condo at Jomtien.
At about 9.25pm on the same day, police allege Carmen took out a black suitcase from his room and left the condo with the suitcase before returning about half an hour later.
Thanchanok was reported missing by a friend at 11.36am on June 26, who told police she was last seen with a foreign man.
At 2.26pm, Carman left the condo again.
That day, police were granted an arrest warrant after they found Carman’s passport in his room.
The 45-year-old man also admitted to placing her body in the suitcase, which was found at at 1.30am, not long after they arrested him.
The suitcase was found near railway tracks about a 10-minute drive from Carman’s condo.
Carman has denied murdering Thanchanok and Thai police have said he claimed she tried to rob him.
According to Thai media, they initially agreed on a payment of 1,000 baht ($43), but they argued after he offered 500 baht instead.
Police told the ABC the pair had argued about money but declined to discuss further details.
Carman has been charged with four offences: murder, concealment of a body, moving or destroying a body, and taking a minor aged between 15 and 18 for sexual purposes.
A woman who worked near the condo and often interacted with Carman told Nine, “He seemed a bit abnormal to me because he speaks slowly and looks at things for a long time.
“But he lived like a normal expat here, going swimming, ordering food and eating out. I noticed that when he couldn’t sleep at night, he liked to go walking along the beach.”
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed it was providing consular assistance.
Images: Pattaya Police
