New evidence found in tourists’ murder case

[H1w4yR1da]

Does the negativity towards anything Thai and anything done by Thais never stop on Thaivisa??

In this case it's warranted.

The Thai 'police' did exactly the same thing in the Kirsty Jones case up in Chiang Mai.

Looking only at migrant workers and westerners instead of Thais.

They thoroughly deserve the criticism coming their way.

[Mackie]

There are also multiple reports about three men - two tall, one short - who were seen on Sairee beach near the place the bodies were found.

Allegedly the group had been on the beach smoking, playing guitar and singing English songs in the early hours of Monday morning. However no one has been able to trace those three men yet.

Three 'attackers' involved in Thai island murders, police say Thai police believe at least three "attackers" were involved in the vicious murders of British backpackers David Miller and Hannah Witheridge on a tourist island

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/thailand/11108188/Three-attackers-involved-in-Thai-island-murders-police-say.html

[Thai at Heart]

The police use the press to their advantage by giving certain information. You people seem to think that they are giving all of their clues and information to the press and thats all they have.Get a grip If they are saying they are going after Burmese migrants maybe they are trying to lull someone else into a false sense of security to not leave the island. Why dont you guys cut all the negativity and stop bashing everything any Thai does. No wonder the Thai's are starting to hate us so much.I am starting to hate us!

Yes. I believe the messages we hear via media are not a realistic indicator of what the police know or who they suspect in most cases. There may be threads of truth to some reports, but it is impossible to know. The press in Thailand are not free, the powers that be know that the press are to be manipulated, and you can forget about anything like investigative journalism. There is so much censorship - self censorship and otherwise it is stupid to think one can learn much from the press in Thailand (and often most other places around the world).

"A man who does not read the papers is uninformed. A man who reads the papers is misinformed." Mark Twain

Or maybe the BIB are just incompetent?

[SantiSuk]

Skynews has a news story on CCTV footage taken in front of an ATM at 0127 showing David walking along in short pants and shaking hands with an Asian man wearing a shirt with 9 on the back and dark long pants. There is further CCTV footage at 0156 taken in front of a roti cart. They say they've handed the footage over to Thai police.

http://news.sky.com/story/1338593/thailand-cctv-of-british-man-killed-on-beach

How come a news team from the UK managed to get hold of this footage and the police didn't?

I've seen Sky get evidence in court cases several times in the UK and worldwide - they provided several items to the Oscar Pistorious case for instance including videos that esrtablished he was being untruthful about his familiarity with the phrase "zombie stopper".

So we should not be jumping too far to get onto the Thai incompetence bandwagon, though you would think that collecting all possible CCTV images would be a basic.

[starkey_rich]

Meanwhile forensic police from Bangkok joined local forensic police in Surat Thani to collect DNA samples from more than 20 Myanmar workers both male and female rounded up from the vicinity of the crime scene and also their finger prints.

Why would anyone waste time and money taking DNA samples from any women in a murder rape case ?

As for the trousers being on the killer running off..... well................

And why are they not collecting Thai samples if he was Asian.

Still looking for that scapegoat.

What a sad Country

The police on the island know who the bad boys are

[media]

5 days later the Royal Thai police chief is only just heading over to oversee it..

5 days later they only just check cctv

why tell the world about the lead on the shorts, if the perp was still around this could make him cover his tracks, best to keep evidence quiet at this stage or throw a red heron

[SteveFong]

wearing the pants of the victim?\

running past cameras?

he will be identified, this is certain

[Bleacher Bum East]

I would actually be surprised if the FBI provided DNA testing assistance in this case.

Not because they aren't willing to help in a criminal investigation in another country ...

But because there is a very important concept in criminal investigations and prosecutions called "Chain of Custody" or "Chain of Evidence".

This means that if the police cannot verify exactly what has happened to the evidence from the time it was discovered to the time it was tested, and later to the time it is presented at trial, it is considered unreliable and cannot be used as evidence in court.

It goes without saying that in this case, the chain of custody of any and all evidence would be highly suspect by U.S. standards.

So I don't think the FBI will put themselves in a position of verifying or lending credibility to any evidence that they cannot confirm 100% meets these standards ... i.e. none of the evidence collected from a trampled crime scene and collected and handled by who knows how many semi-qualified or unqualified investigators.

As with all of this, we'll have to wait and see what happens.

http://ovc.ncjrs.gov/sartkit/develop/issues-coc.html

[SPB65]

100,000 Bt reward is decent bait for a drug taker. That might bring a local forward to drop someone in it. I expect these kind of people value that amount of money more than "friendship".

[mojorison]

5 days later the Royal Thai police chief is only just heading over to oversee it..

5 days later they only just check cctv

why tell the world about the lead on the shorts, if the perp was still around this could make him cover his tracks, best to keep evidence quiet at this stage or throw a red heron

It's quite possible that the CCTV was released directly to the British media by someone who did not want to be involved, (ie a farang worker?) or did not want the evidence to "vanish". It is not possible for someone to not know the guys in the footage... it is simply impossible, so we get back to the start about it being the son of "someone", or an illegal Burmese who has themselves vanished... which is always the risk when employing illegal staff... they can simply vanish. If they are legal, then there is probably some extradition stuff... I don't know. Another thing, looking at the CCTV, which admittedly I only did quickly, the guys look very young, even by Thai standards, I'm guessing 16-20 thereabouts, and I can't discern any tattoos, which I dare say would be a rarity for a bar worker on Koh Tao to not have tatts. I'm not drawing any conclusions,just looking at what I see. (And what I see may not bode well for some local people...)

[emilymat]

In my home country I can get hauled off to jail for driving with an expired license, whereas here we can take care of it for 200b. Do you expect to live in a militant nanny state and still enjoy the freedoms of Thailand?

Hauled off to jail. Where do you live North Korea?.

Also, the 200 baht is tea money, not a fine so you are supporting corruption.

[Bleacher Bum East]

I would actually be surprised if the FBI provided DNA testing assistance in this case.

Not because they aren't willing to help in a criminal investigation in another country ...

But because there is a very important concept in criminal investigations and prosecutions called "Chain of Custody" or "Chain of Evidence".

This means that if the police cannot verify exactly what has happened to the evidence from the time it was discovered to the time it was tested, and later to the time it is presented at trial, it is considered unreliable and cannot be used as evidence in court.

It goes without saying that in this case, the chain of custody of any and all evidence would be highly suspect by U.S. standards.

So I don't think the FBI will put themselves in a position of verifying or lending credibility to any evidence that they cannot confirm 100% meets these standards ... i.e. none of the evidence collected from a trampled crime scene and collected and handled by who knows how many semi-qualified or unqualified investigators.

As with all of this, we'll have to wait and see what happens.

http://ovc.ncjrs.gov/sartkit/develop/issues-coc.html

[Thai at Heart]

5 days later the Royal Thai police chief is only just heading over to oversee it..

5 days later they only just check cctv

why tell the world about the lead on the shorts, if the perp was still around this could make him cover his tracks, best to keep evidence quiet at this stage or throw a red heron

It's quite possible that the CCTV was released directly to the British media by someone who did not want to be involved, (ie a farang worker?) or did not want the evidence to "vanish". It is not possible for someone to not know the guys in the footage... it is simply impossible, so we get back to the start about it being the son of "someone", or an illegal Burmese who has themselves vanished... which is always the risk when employing illegal staff... they can simply vanish. If they are legal, then there is probably some extradition stuff... I don't know. Another thing, looking at the CCTV, which admittedly I only did quickly, the guys look very young, even by Thai standards, I'm guessing 16-20 thereabouts, and I can't discern any tattoos, which I dare say would be a rarity for a bar worker on Koh Tao to not have tatts. I'm not drawing any conclusions,just looking at what I see. (And what I see may not bode well for some local people...)

Or is it possible that sky news paid some jobber to go around to get hold of every CCTV film they could just on the off(slim as it might be, sarcasm) chance that the BIB hadn't thought to get hold of it ?

Sky news know their job infinitely better than the BIB. Of that I am sure.

[metisdead]

A flame post has been removed as well as a reply.

[sprq]

What do they mean by "Asian-looking"? Asians are anything from Arabs to Mongolians and Japanese by basic meaning, or Pakistanis and Afghanis to Mongolians and Japanese if you separate out Middle Easterners, as many writers/speakers do. The British have great confusion with the word "Asian" as applied to people, but Thais ought to be much better at it, being from that continent. It looks like what they should be saying is "of East Asian appearance", or even, if they can tell the skin colour, of Southeast Asian appearance".

[seajae]

what will the thai police do when the fbi tell them it is thai sperm, probably say it has been contaminated. The fact that the thai police are refusing to actually take samples from the thai populace on the island says heaps, they identify the running man as a thai but refuse to try to get dna samples from thais. We really have to wonder at what lengths they will go to, to avoid finding out it was thais that did this, at least they could take samples of all the males on the island to eliminate them but I suppose this would be work and we all know how thai police try to avoid that.

[bannork]

5 days later the Royal Thai police chief is only just heading over to oversee it..

5 days later they only just check cctv

why tell the world about the lead on the shorts, if the perp was still around this could make him cover his tracks, best to keep evidence quiet at this stage or throw a red heron

Throwing a red heron will be difficult as they are usually white, and anyway once thrown they will simply fly away.

[Boss]

Why would anyone waste time and money taking DNA samples from any women in a murder rape case ?

Ladyboy maybe ??

[SteveFong]

Thats the end of my contributions to the thread

I expect the killers to be caught soon,

The business people will ensure this is solved,

[Fred Flinstone]

what will the thai police do when the fbi tell them it is thai sperm, probably say it has been contaminated. The fact that the thai police are refusing to actually take samples from the thai populace on the island says heaps, they identify the running man as a thai but refuse to try to get dna samples from thais. We really have to wonder at what lengths they will go to, to avoid finding out it was thais that did this, at least they could take samples of all the males on the island to eliminate them but I suppose this would be work and we all know how thai police try to avoid that.

Your post is interesting -

If Thais are behind it.

It will ignite massive rage.

for the very reasons you have stated .

Denial .

Avoidance .

And the primary reason .

Its a hate crime

[Kolsie]

It seems as though they already have the killer(s), since it can't be the tourists, then it must be the foreign migrant workers.

The DNA evidence that they have will provide the proof that they have captured the killer(s). All that is needed now is for the right DNA samples to be sent to the American agencies for a irrefutable match to be found.

The American agency find the killer(s) using the DNA samples supplied by the Thai police, win-win.

[Bleacher Bum East]

5 days later the Royal Thai police chief is only just heading over to oversee it..

5 days later they only just check cctv

why tell the world about the lead on the shorts, if the perp was still around this could make him cover his tracks, best to keep evidence quiet at this stage or throw a red heron

Throwing a red heron will be difficult as they are usually white, and anyway once thrown they will simply fly away.

No disrespect intended because I do the same thing when I speak Thai, and would do if I attempted to speak Spanish, French, etc...

But I'm really enjoying the "creative" use of English idioms on these threads:

"Red Heron" is now my favorite (the correct idiom is Red Herring, the fish)...especially combined with "they will simply fly away".

This is closely followed by "Escape Goat" ...the correct idiom of course is Scapegoat, although in this situation Escape Goat is ironically more appropriate---maybe we have a brand new idiom!

Or maybe we could combine the two idioms to form even another:

A "Red Escape Goat": Shifting blame and attention away from the real culprit by focusing blame and attention on someone of ambiguous description and nationality who will never be caught.

I'm not being the Thai Visa language police ... just enjoying a smile in the midst of a tragic situation.

[cup-O-coffee]

Does the negativity towards anything Thai and anything done by Thais never stop on Thaivisa??

Why is it a loss of face, to ask a better equiped policeforce for help?

Thousands of Thais are murdered every year, but because the victims this time are Brits, we expect the world to stop.

Don't misunderstand me, a very horrible crime, but why are white victims considered more valuable, and all stops need to be pulled to solve this particular case?

I'll leave the rest of your quote alone and focus on your last sentence/question . . . that's a simple one to answer . . . it's a high profile murder case involving tourists (that so far they have handled terribly and insensitively as per usual) and (from the looks of things) perpetrators of Asian descent . . . so their concern is the tourist numbers/dollars disappearing . . . simple as that.

And when should all stops not be pulled to solve a murder case? JOC, the angle from which you question comes from is skewed and obtuse? Rethink it and try again.

[mcfester]

I would actually be surprised if the FBI provided DNA testing assistance in this case.

Not because they aren't willing to help in a criminal investigation in another country ...

But because there is a very important concept in criminal investigations and prosecutions called "Chain of Custody" or "Chain of Evidence".

This means that if the police cannot verify exactly what has happened to the evidence from the time it was discovered to the time it was tested, and later to the time it is presented at trial, it is considered unreliable and cannot be used as evidence in court.

It goes without saying that in this case, the chain of custody of any and all evidence would be highly suspect by U.S. standards.

So I don't think the FBI will put themselves in a position of verifying or lending credibility to any evidence that they cannot confirm 100% meets these standards ... i.e. none of the evidence collected from a trampled crime scene and collected and handled by who knows how many semi-qualified or unqualified investigators.

As with all of this, we'll have to wait and see what happens.

http://ovc.ncjrs.gov/sartkit/develop/issues-coc.html

So how many semi-qualified or unqualified investigators do you think handled the semen DNA?

[Neeranam]

This whole case is a farce. The world is beginning to see what all long-term Thailand expats already know - Thai police are corrupt, racist and incompetent.

[media]

Send a Team of 500 police / police volunteers to scan every single CCTV on the

island looking for the guy wearing shorts until they capture a CLEAR pic of him

I believe the lead they are looking for now resides on the CCTV

MOST CCTV ONLY RECORD FOR 7 DAYS BEFORE IT IT LOOPS AND WILL BE RECORDED OVER!

[cup-O-coffee]

There is absolutely no loss of face for requesting assistance on DNA evidence. Latest generation Illumina sequencing equipment can sequence an entire human genome and extract a lot more information about a suspect than a match/no match testing which is quite common. The US has the most advanced sequencing equipment which takes about 24h to sequence a full human genome and it takes a lot of specialised computing power and knowledge to process that information which the US FBI has more than any other law enforcement agency.

Although I am also guilty of Thai bashing as I drive through the roads in this country I think many on TV take this a bit too far.

Lest you all forget that Thaialnd is a developing country and for any of us that have spent time in Malaysia, Vietnam, Myanmar, etc. Thailand is miles ahead of these countries on innumerable fronts. Every country has its pluses and minuses but the reason most of us are still here is that there are a lot more pluses than minuses.

In my home country I can get hauled off to jail for driving with an expired license, whereas here we can take care of it for 200b. Do you expect to live in a militant nanny state and still enjoy the freedoms of Thailand?

It was a horrible crime and given the environment of Koh Tao, I believe the police are doing as good a job as we can reasonably expect. Do you think some back water US hick town of comparable development and population density would do any better??

Serving up shit and telling me it's steak isn't exactly "doing as good a job as we can reasonably expect". Mitigating the stupidity and outrage of the person serving you shit, as well as eating the shit and saying, "Mmm, this is good!". only makes you out to appear ridiculous.

The only job they are doing is everything possible to NOT catch the murderer, hence facilitating his passage to safety. If anyone cannot see that, then black has finally become white and white black.

This is not an investigation from the outset.

Thais use the terms customer service, entrance exams, driving, family, education, etc. etc. ad nausea.

Plagiarizing those terms, including the term "investigation" is one thing; but to take those terms and utterly and completely destroy their meaning and intent is also an inherent Thai character defect. Combine that with their stiff-necked culture and narcissistic defiance to admission of wrong or "I don't know" and you have completed the formula for creating an utter lunatic society.

Would a standard US trained law officer do better?

Your naive question disgusts me.

[wdr]

Yes, the Thai police is corruption, racist and incompetent but not only the police! The whole government circus.

[BangkokHank]

...but the trouser evidence doesn't prove rape or murder, only petty theft...

And how do you think this petty theft happened? Are you suggesting that the thief was walking by a murder scene, saw the trouser lying on the ground, took off his trousers, and then put on the trousers that he intended to steal - before running away? He was, after all, WEARING the stolen trousers, not carrying them. On the other hand, I suppose the trouser thief might have gone to the beach naked and grabbed the trousers when he noticed that their owner was preoccupied.

To me, a more likely scenario was that he took off his trousers to rape somebody and when he was finished, in a panic, he just grabbed the first pair of trousers that he found, thinking they were his.

[Bleacher Bum East]

I would actually be surprised if the FBI provided DNA testing assistance in this case.

Not because they aren't willing to help in a criminal investigation in another country ...

But because there is a very important concept in criminal investigations and prosecutions called "Chain of Custody" or "Chain of Evidence".

This means that if the police cannot verify exactly what has happened to the evidence from the time it was discovered to the time it was tested, and later to the time it is presented at trial, it is considered unreliable and cannot be used as evidence in court.

It goes without saying that in this case, the chain of custody of any and all evidence would be highly suspect by U.S. standards.

So I don't think the FBI will put themselves in a position of verifying or lending credibility to any evidence that they cannot confirm 100% meets these standards ... i.e. none of the evidence collected from a trampled crime scene and collected and handled by who knows how many semi-qualified or unqualified investigators.

As with all of this, we'll have to wait and see what happens.

http://ovc.ncjrs.gov/sartkit/develop/issues-coc.html

So how many semi-qualified or unqualified investigators do you think handled the semen DNA?

I have no idea, and neither will the FBI which is why I don't think they will get involved.

Any uncertainty automatically disqualifies the evidence ... you don't have to disprove a negative.

Not to be too cynical ... but how would the FBI know for sure that the specimen they are given is the specimen taken from the victim?

I don't think any outside police investigation unit will want to be in a position where it can be claimed: "See, the FBI (or Scotland Yard) were part of the investigation and we still couldn't find the killer, so don't blame us (the Thai police)."

Or worse, be in a position of being used to verify DNA that did not actually come from the victim's body.

I actually don't believe Thailand doesn't have DNA technology that could identify race at a broad level (pure speculation of course, and I am sure the FBI's technology is light years better)...

I think the Thai police are just looking for some outside credibility without having to answer to any real set of qualified eyes looking over their shoulder on the investigation itself.

EDIT--THIS JUST IN: Thai police confirm by themselves that the DNA came from an Asian person. Hmmm I thought they didn't have the technology...sounds more likely, as I said, they wanted FBI credibility and when the FBI said "no", they released their own results.

http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/asian-suspects-rape-english-tourist/