New Witness Claims Raise Fresh Questions in Thai Teen De-a-th Case as Australian Expat Faces Murd3r Charge
The father of a teenage girl police allege was murdered by a Western Australian truck driver in Thailand has called for her killer’s execution.
Simon Peter Carman, 45, has been charged with the murder of Thanchanok Donhomla after the girl’s body was found stuffed in a suitcase.
Simon Peter Carman has been charged by Thai police with killing a teenage girl. Supplied
Thanchanok’s father and stepmother have broken their silence since the attack, saying the teen was a good girl who worked to support her family.
Her father said whoever killed her should be executed. The death penalty is a potential sentence for a murder conviction in Thailand.
Pattaya Police have released a timeline of events leading up to Carman’s arrest.
CCTV footage from 3.34am on June 25 showed a man and a female walking hand-in-hand in the lobby of a condo at Jomtien, which police allege was Carman and Thanchanok.
At about 9.25pm on the same day – some 18 hours later – police say CCTV showed Carman taking a black suitcase from his room and leaving the condo on a motorcyle with the suitcase on the back.
He returned to the condo at about 10pm, police say.
Thanchanok was reported missing by a friend, who said they had last seen her with a foreign man, at 11.36am on June 26.
Police say that at 2.26pm, Carman left the condo again.
On the same day, police were granted an arrest warrant by the courts and discovered Carman’s passport in his room.
At 1.15am on June 27, Carman was arrested at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport.
At 1.30am the same morning, police found a suitcase near railway tracks about a 10-minute drive from Carman’s condominium.
Police say it contained Thanchanok’s body.
Speaking to Nine newspapers, a woman who worked near the condo and often interacted with Carman said he was a person who wanted things “his own way”.
“He seemed a bit abnormal to me because he speaks slowly and looks at things for a long time,” she said.
“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.”
CCTV allegedly shows Carman walking hand-in-hand with the 17-year-old girl. Supplied
Thanchanok Donhomla. Supplied
Another local said she had not heard any stories of Carman being violent, but that he became annoyed with drunken behaviour in the area.
“When I heard the news, I couldn’t believe it,” she said.
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9News understands that before relocating to Thailand, Carman had spent most of his life in Western Australia, and had worked as a truck driver.
He had significant health issues.
Carman has denied murdering Thanchanok, and Thai police have said he claimed she tried to rob him.
“I had my wallet open to get my money out, next thing I know there’s a knife in my face,” Carman claimed in a video recorded by police.
Vision allegedly showed Carman leaving his condo with a black suitcase, before strapping it to a scooter and riding to a railway line about 10 minutes away. Supplied
Thai police say the girl’s body was stuffed into a suitcase. Pattaya Police
Police have claimed Carman admitted to placing the girl’s body in the suitcase.
“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,” Carman said in a video message to the teen’s family.
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“Please tell other girls … just to be careful.”
If convicted, Carman could face life in prison, or the death penalty.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed it was providing consular assistance.
