Koh Tao murders: Night crime simulation at Sairee beach to look for clues

[chainarong]

One wonders with respect that any professional approach from a crime scene that now has been tainted , any evidence or the likelihood of evidence destroyed by every man and his dog, all has but disappeared , but here's just a suggestion, how about a DNA on all employees and guests at that resort and if any guest have left , you have all their immigration info go find them, a simple saliva swab will suffice, if nothing else you have eliminated that lot.

[Tywais]

But the clothes the police seized from his room was soaked with blood which could not be caused by fireworks wound.

And recent reports state it turned out not to be blood. Nobody in lockstep in the investigation?

As for the pair of stained pants found in Miller's luggage, the general admitted that the substance found on the clothing was not blood and that they belonged to Miller and the pair had been put in the victim's luggage by the first group of police officers. - See more at: http://news.asiaone.com/news/asia/thai-police-admit-investigations-britons-murders-back-square-one#sthash.OC7b0bDP.dpuf

[jacky54]

can you have sex under the influence of yabba?

[bangkokjoe]

Were they able to bring in any local talent, or was it necessary to bring in illegal Burmese workers to stage this pathetic dog and pony show ?

[ClutchClark]

can you have sex under the influence of yabba?

The degenerate that worked on the train and killed the little girl was flying high on the stuff.

That drug is pure evil.

[orosee]

I really wonder about the hoe and where it was placed after the crime. Of all the available options:

- leave it at the crime scene

- throw it into the ocean (not sure how the tides are there)

- wash off the blood and place it back where found

- carry it around for 30-something meters and place it very visibly against a fence, increasing the risk of being seen by a witness

the last one (what appears to have happened) seems to be to most risky and least rational. I feel there has to be some meaning to this.

Perhaps the police have already identified the owner or user of the hoe, and are finally smart enough not to pollute their investigation with their stream-of-consciousness press releases. At least there would be a vector from where the hoe was taken to the crime scene to the place where it was found.

[ClutchClark]

One wonders with respect that any professional approach from a crime scene that now has been tainted , any evidence or the likelihood of evidence destroyed by every man and his dog, all has but disappeared , but here's just a suggestion, how about a DNA on all employees and guests at that resort and if any guest have left , you have all their immigration info go find them, a simple saliva swab will suffice, if nothing else you have eliminated that lot.

I wouldn't give them my DNA.

But then privacy rights are pretty important to us Americans.

[metisdead]

A conspiracy theory post has been removed.

[pinkpanther99]

So they're looking for clues in the dark?

They've had 36hrs of day light to look for frickin clues.

The more I read about this tragic story, the more flabbergasted I am at the seeming ineptitude and lack of even the smallest amount of competence by the investigating officers.

[halloween]

Police believe that not throwing the hoe into the ocean to destroy evidence was the work of a 'cold-blooded person'. Is this a polite expression for moron?

BTW any reports of divers used to look for anything that MIGHT have been thrown in the water?

Edited September 19, 2014 by halloween

[halloween]

One wonders with respect that any professional approach from a crime scene that now has been tainted , any evidence or the likelihood of evidence destroyed by every man and his dog, all has but disappeared , but here's just a suggestion, how about a DNA on all employees and guests at that resort and if any guest have left , you have all their immigration info go find them, a simple saliva swab will suffice, if nothing else you have eliminated that lot.

I wouldn't give them my DNA.

But then privacy rights are pretty important to us Americans.

apparently much more important than solving brutal murders.

[Lukecan]

Police believe that not throwing the hoe into the ocean to destroy evidence was the work of a 'cold-blooded person'. Is this a polite expression for moron?

BTW any reports of divers used to look for anything that MIGHT have been thrown in the water?

IMHO this probably rules out that the crime was commited by a connected wealthy thai. Some uneducated villager probably did this, not getting rid of the murder weapon? Doesnt seem like what a rich educated thai would do.

Edited September 19, 2014 by Lukecan

[ClutchClark]

I really wonder about the hoe and where it was placed after the crime. Of all the available options:

- leave it at the crime scene

- throw it into the ocean (not sure how the tides are there)

- wash off the blood and place it back where found

- carry it around for 30-something meters and place it very visibly against a fence, increasing the risk of being seen by a witness

the last one (what appears to have happened) seems to be to most risky and least rational. I feel there has to be some meaning to this.

Perhaps the police have already identified the owner or user of the hoe, and are finally smart enough not to pollute their investigation with their stream-of-consciousness press releases. At least there would be a vector from where the hoe was taken to the crime scene to the place where it was found.

Very easy explanation. First off the assailant is pumping with adrenalin and not thinking clearly--most likely having spent the night drinking and getting high on meth. He decides to carry the hoe away since it might have his prints or maybe he thinks he has been seen and will need to fend off anyone trying to apprehend him but as he is walking away, a couple or small group of people is approaching and he doesn't want to be seen with the hoe in his possession so he tosses it. Maybe he thought he could come back later and retrieve it.

The killer is not some mastermind. He acted on impulse.

Every hotel on the islands has a couple of hoes to bury seaweed that washes up overnight. There is nothing special about the hoe except for the prints and the DNA it might hold.

[Treborz]

I read in the BP that the cigarettes are LM brand. Rather unlikely, yet not impossible, to be smoked by poor people.

Well that brand doesn't exist in the UK. So unlikely to have been bought by British tourist.

Chang, and Sang Som are don't exist in the Uk yet they are drunk here in huge amounts. As someone that works with tourists I can tell you they are a popular brand here. Most Burmese or working Thai's smoke the very cheap rolling tobacco

People smoke what they know, and most foreigners unless longer stayers don't care between 90 baht and 50. If they are American blend smokers they smoke Marlboro, unless there is nothing else available.

Most Brits are not american blend smokers.

Whenever I'm in Thailand i smoke L&M and i know several of my friends do/did also. Ive seen loads of travellers and tourists smoking L&M before.

Silk Cut isn't available in Thailand and neither are several other brands available in the UK.

That being said, I don't for one second think it was another tourist that did this.

Edited September 19, 2014 by Treborz

[lildragon]

If the mafia on the island are that powerful that they can orchestrate such a deliberately pathetic search for the murderer(s) and so conceal their families' murdering and twisted sons then it is time for an independent force with muscle to move in to solve this case. Anywhere else in the world this would have been sorted long ago. Grow a pair Thailand !

It still amazes me that we are still hearing Burmese migrants, the British friends as suspects. Why are the local mafias seemingly immune from suspicion? There has been many social media postings of the night saying that the girl was constantly harassed by a local and the lad stepped in to shield her from it. They then left together and I believe stalked and murdered by the angry rebuffed local and his iced up/drunk friends.

does the AC bar not have CCTV? Grainy footage of the wrong couple is all we're going to get?

This is either sheer incompetence at best or a complete cover up at worst.

Edited September 19, 2014 by lildragon

[SirBser]

If the mafia on the island are that powerful that they can orchestrate such a deliberately pathetic search for the murderer(s) and so conceal their families' murdering and twisted sons then it is time for an independent force with muscle to move in to solve this case. Anywhere else in the world this would have been sorted long ago. Grow a pair Thailand !

It still amazes me that we are still hearing Burmese migrants, the British friends as suspects. Why are the local mafias seemingly immune from suspicion? There has been many social media postings of the night saying that the girl was constantly harassed by a local and the lad stepped in to shield her from it. They then left together and I believe stalked and murdered by the angry rebuffed locals and his iced up/drunk friends.

does the AC bar not have CCTV? Grainy footage of the wrong couple is all we're going to get?

This is either sheer incompetence at best or a complete cover up at worst.

The video of the Asian looking guy was taken from AC bar CCTV.

The guy walked towards the beach from AC bar and returned 50 minutes later.

Read that on BKK post.

Somebody at AC bar must know something, but than again everyone was probably smashed/drunk and woke up the next morning with not a good memory including bartenders and workers.

Edited September 19, 2014 by SirBser

[jaltsc]

"The murderer struck the victims with the hoe and then put it back to hide at the place, which was very unusual, an officer said.

Typical police investigation. When too incompetent to find any clues, blame it on the hoe.

Edited September 19, 2014 by jaltsc

[halloween]

Police believe that not throwing the hoe into the ocean to destroy evidence was the work of a 'cold-blooded person'. Is this a polite expression for moron?

BTW any reports of divers used to look for anything that MIGHT have been thrown in the water?

IMHO this probably rules out that the crime was commited by a connected wealthy thai. Some uneducated villager probably did this, not getting rid of the murder weapon? Doesnt seem like what a rich educated thai would do.

You may well be over-rating the intelligence and education of wealthy Thais. I would have a serious look at whoever owns the hoe as he knew where to locate it in the dark, and just maybe didn't want to lose it by disposing of it.

[locorigodan]

I read in the BP that the cigarettes are LM brand. Rather unlikely, yet not impossible, to be smoked by poor people.

Well that brand doesn't exist in the UK. So unlikely to have been bought by British tourist.

actually that's exactly what they and a lot of other tourist smoke as it's closer to generic smokes in the "UK"

Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[Lannig]

About the bloody (literally) hoe: have I missed something or nothing has been said yet about DNA match of the said blood with the victims' ?

[dBrown]

I read in the BP that the cigarettes are LM brand. Rather unlikely, yet not impossible, to be smoked by poor people.

Well that brand doesn't exist in the UK. So unlikely to have been bought by British tourist.

Chang, and Sang Som are don't exist in the Uk yet they are drunk here in huge amounts. As someone that works with tourists I can tell you they are a popular brand here. Most Burmese or working Thai's smoke the very cheap rolling tobacco

People smoke what they know, and most foreigners unless longer stayers don't care between 90 baht and 50. If they are American blend smokers they smoke Marlboro, unless there is nothing else available.

Most Brits are not american blend smokers.

Maybe their British brand was not available and they resorted to smoke what was for sale.

In another post in this thread you insunuated that it were Krongthep cigarettes, while it was made clear already that it was L&M.

When you gonna stop making up things to float your boat ?

[webfact]

Police continue search for murderers of British tourists
By Digital Content



SURAT THANI, Sept 19 -- Police on Friday continue hunting for the murderers of two British tourists on a southern Thai island resort after DNA tests on the female victim identified as Hannah Victoria Witheridge did not match any of the suspects police interrogated earlier.

Despite the failure in arresting murderers of Ms Witheridge, 23, and another victim identified as David William Miller, 24, Pol Gen Jaramporn Suramanee, adviser to the Royal Thai Police, led police on Thursday night in an attempt to find any clue which could shed light to the brutal murders.

Their bodies were found early Monday on a beach of Koh Tao, a small island in the Gulf of Thailand off the southern province of Surat Thani.

Pol Gen Jaramporn and police walked in the opposite direction of the crime scene and during low tides.

He said several pieces of evidence were found.

Meanwhile, a group of police investigators searched for more suspicious places and persons in an attempt to gather more evidence, especially finding an Asian man whose image appeared on CCTV footage at the time when the murder took place.

Police have allowed Christopher Alan Ware, believed to be a friend of Mr Miller, earlier suspected to have been involved in the incident to return to Britain. (MCOT online news)


-- TNA 2014-09-19

[claffey]

The police also were sceptical about the blood stained hoe used in battering the two tourists to death.

A police officer said normally a criminal would throw away any weapon used in the murder to destroy evidence. But in this case, they were astonished when the hoe was not thrown away, just lied near the log and covered with a sack.

The murderer struck the victims with the hoe and then put it back to hide at the place, which was very unusual, an officer said.

This indicated that the murderer was a cold blooded person, he said.

Keep making public statements like this guys. It just shows your total lack of experience, and that you are unqualified to investigate a crime of this nature.

Sometimes we need to remember that a lot of these articles are misquoted due to translation issues. We would also sound stupid sometimes if what we were saying was translated directly into Thai...Perhaps' cold blooded person' was not translated properly. They do have a point about the murder weapon usually being hidden or discarded away from the crime scene...

[sweatalot]

1. they were found naked, but they did not leave the party naked

Where are their clothes?

2. Thbe murder island is a small island with a not to numerous population

The next step should be getting the DNA of everybody tested (making sure not to rule out the Thai population and the mighty families) And get information who disappeared after the murder

[NongKhaiKid]

too much time has now passed , any potential evidence will have been contaminated or destroyed by now, this really has not shown the BiB at their best too much incompetence with the standard lazy attitude

Nonsense. A re-enactment can help to identify possible scenarios.

This can be a very useful practice to reconstruct the crime scene and is practiced by professional law enforcement agencies the world over.

A re-enactment involves an arrested person(s) showing what they did to clear up ambiguities in their statements.

Note - Arrested Person(s)

[pasak]

Most of the posts on this story are from naive Farangs, mincing about with minutiae.

You are falling right into their hands. The hands of the mafia and the mafia controlled police.

You are giving them the time they need to foul everything up and let their bosses get what they want.

They've got two bosses: The Thai govt's agenda of untarnished tourism and the local thugs, nothing to do with Law and Order.

Grovelling about with cigarette butts is not going to achieve anything.

Thailand should be sanctioned or taken to The International Criminal Court if it is found that their police have been protecting local Thai murderers.

[Triplebank999]

Regarding the cigarettes (mentioned in all the threads) ...is it not possible, that they have nothing to do with the killer(s)?

There seems to be an assumption that the killer was a smoker and these were his cigs ...on a public beach where it seems tons of people may hang out and smoke and leave butts behind.

If they found a beer bottle on the beach, would they assume it was the killer's also?

The DNA found on the cigarette matched that found on the girl so the 2 men who smoked that cigarette had sex with her.

[Globeman]

Night crime simulation at Sairee beach to look for clues

KOH TAO: -- Thai police conducted a two-hour crime simulation at the scene before dawn Friday where the two British tourists were killed to look into the exact time of the crime and wrap up evidence to support their earlier investigations for analysing who is or are real murderers.

The simulation started 1.00 a.m. Friday, almost the same time when the police suspected Ms Hannah Witheridge was raped and killed.

The crime simulation was supervised by Pol Gen Charumporn Suramanee, advisor to the Royal Thai Police commissioner.

The police believed the victim was raped because DNA examination revealed semen found inside the victims vagina were mixed, indicating more than one person was involved.

The DNA of the semen matched the cigarette butts the police found and collected from a log on the beach, about 50 metres from where her body lying dead.

Police said they have a witness telling them that three men, who were believed to be Myanmar workers, played guitars on the beach near the scene.

The police simulated the victim walking out of a beach restaurant and she might be followed by murderer to the log where cigarettes were found.

The police calculated the time spent and distances in order to compare with the Asian looking man captured on the CCTV video footage passing the camera back and forth. The man did not wear shirt.

The police also were sceptical about the blood stained hoe used in battering the two tourists to death.

A police officer said normally a criminal would throw away any weapon used in the murder to destroy evidence. But in this case, they were astonished when the hoe was not thrown away, just lied near the log and covered with a sack.

The murderer struck the victims with the hoe and then put it back to hide at the place, which was very unusual, an officer said.

This indicated that the murderer was a cold blooded person, he said.

The officer said now several hundreds of local and central police are combing the entire island looking for the Asian man on CCTV as he is now the most suspected person.

However another source said the police still did not rule out friends of one of the victims.

He cited the blood-soaked clothes found inside the luggage of Christopher Ware. Although he had been cleared that the blood was from cut while lighting firework but this was unusual.

Forensic police said wound from fireworks could not have produced so much blood on the clothes.

But the clothes the police seized from his room was soaked with blood which could not be caused by fireworks wound.

Both Christopher and his brother James have been released into the custody of the British embassy and returned home on a flight last night.

The police will meet this afternoon in Koh Tao to wrap up all findings and set the same direction in the probe.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/night-crime-simulation-sairee-beach-look-clues/

-- Thai PBS 2014-09-19

So the cigarettes match the sperm.

Didn't someone admit that the trousers were an attempted plant, but the.friends are still suspects? Do either of the foreign friends smoke?

Which brand was it? This will give away a huge amount about the profile of the killer/s. Most farangs don't buy Kronthep....

As far as I know the brand of the cigarette was LM not many Thais smoke them I guess

Then why are they sold in every shop in the country? On the off-chance that some farang my happen along?

[pasak]

can you have sex under the influence of yabba?

The degenerate that worked on the train and killed the little girl was flying high on the stuff.

That drug is pure evil.

The drug is inanimate so it cannot be evil. Train rapist and murderer Wanchai is just animate so he can justifiably be called evil.

Unfortunately he has been separated at Prachuapkirikhan jail so he is not suffering the wrath of other inmates.

[webfact]

KOH TAO'S MURDERS
More evidence found : Jaramporn

BANGKOK: -- Police on Friday claimed that several pieces of evidence have now been found at the scene where two British backpackers were brutally beaten.

Pol Gen Jaramporn Suramanee, adviser to Royal Thai Police office, visited the scene on Thursday night to investigate the murders after DNA samples collected from the body of one of the victims did not match those of the 12 suspects.

The bodies of Hannah Witheridge and David Miller were found early Monday morning on a beach in the Koh Tao, an island off Surat Thani province.

Jaramporn and police searched the area near the crime scene towards the sea during the low tide on Thursday night.

"Several pieces of evidence were found," he said.

Another police chief investigator; Pol Gen Panya Mamen, earlier said that the investigation would extend to nearby islands.

Meanwhile, a group of police investigators continued the search in an attempt to gather more evidence. They are particularly interested in identifying an Asian man whose image appeared on CCTV footage around the time of the murder.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/More-evidence-found-Jaramporn-30243660.html


-- The Nation 2014-09-19