Koh Tao headman offers Bt1m cash if evidence proves his family implicated in the tourist murder

[boomerangutang]

Bangkok post says the army is coming to deal w the mafia, and the general has ordered the mafias across the country to be rooted out, oh boy, this may be the tipping point

The tribal controls which exist throughout Thailand can't be cleaned up. It's endemic and embedded in the Thai psyche. A Thai town without a tough guy and/or mafia-like family controlling it is like shoes without soles.

Seeing photos of the crime scene directly after the crime, with at least one suspect walking around, is very troubling. Let's hope, if nothing else, Thai investigators learn at least one thing from this badly handled case: keep the crime scene completely off limits to everyone except a few trained experts (are there any in Thailand, except Ms Porntip?). It would be easy for a suspect to contaminate a crime scene and/or nonchalantly put things in his pocket or cover them up with a sandy brush of his shoe.

[Wilsonandson]

And still no pressure from the uk government/embassy.

Shame on them.

I just hope the press don't get fed up soon.

jb1

Ambassador Mark Kent why aren't you pressing the Thai authorities about this case? British tourists and expats in Thailand are afraid for their own security. Has the travel warnings for Thailand changed?

[MJP]

Bangkok post says the army is coming to deal w the mafia, and the general has ordered the mafias across the country to be rooted out, oh boy, this may be the tipping point

The tribal controls which exist throughout Thailand can't be cleaned up. It's endemic and embedded in the Thai psyche. A Thai town without a tough guy and/or mafia-like family controlling it is like shoes without soles.

Seeing photos of the crime scene directly after the crime, with at least one suspect walking around, is very troubling. Let's hope, if nothing else, Thai investigators learn at least one thing from this badly handled case: keep the crime scene completely off limits to everyone except a few trained experts (are there any in Thailand, except Ms Porntip?). It would be easy for a suspect to contaminate a crime scene and/or nonchalantly put things in his pocket or cover them up with a sandy brush of his shoe.

There is no investigation. There are no police (in terms of what you or others consider police to be) investigating the case.

[deepcell]

I believe in what an "international investigaton" can prove (but now it is too late huh?), otherwise everything is bla bla bla.. nonsense! include what this Mr. Headman said.

[Iumentum]

Sorry to ask a little off topic, but is there any news about Sean's whereabouts? I tried to search a bit, but i cannot find anything from after he was leaving the rock.

Apparently in Italy with his girlfriend?

Yes i know that when he left the rock, that we wanted to go and see his girlfriend there. Just wondering where he might be for several reasons. If he ever made it out of the country and also because i still think he knows more than at least the public does.

[slygeeza]

my guess is the guy in Bangkok was waiting for his wounds to heal and the yaba to get out of his system while he was paying off witnesses, why else did he hide out so long?

[boomerangutang]

Whether or not the man has 1 million baht handy, he's not going to spend one satang of it in regard to this case - no matter what comes down the tubes. He's more likely to get elected Pope.

It's like Chaleum saying he would cut his head off if Thaksin didn't return to Thailand last December. It's the Thai way of making a point. Offer something real big - but everyone knows it will never be paid.

[Iumentum]

my guess is the guy in Bangkok was waiting for his wounds to heal and the yaba to get out of his system while he was paying off witnesses, why else did he hide out so long?

To be fair, then the interest of him started a few days ago. However, i would be surprised if he didn't know anything about him being a suspect and wanted for questions long before they got in touch with him. Also, didn't the father say that he didn't know where his son was to begin with?

[transam]

my guess is the guy in Bangkok was waiting for his wounds to heal and the yaba to get out of his system while he was paying off witnesses, why else did he hide out so long?

To be fair, then the interest of him started a few days ago. However, i would be surprised if he didn't know anything about him being a suspect and wanted for questions long before they got in touch with him. Also, didn't the father say that he didn't know where his son was to begin with?

Rich or poor folk with NO phone....Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah............

[ozyjon]

I'm thinking about the families of the deceased who now must live with this loss forever,,

but as usual, MONEY shows it's ugly head.

Unbelievable in the LOS

[KhunBoy]

I am very sure this godfather has already given more than 1 million baht to the police in the past. This is not surprising in a country where even judges are paid millions every day to overlook and/or delay verdicts on cases. There will just be too many worms in the can for this case to be solved ever.

[kkup]

I guess the case is closed... such a massive shame for the families.. It would be good if someone in the media had the balls to expose everyone involved in these lies and corruption.. Including the governments participation.

[KhunBoy]

I am very sure this godfather has already given more than 1 million baht to the police in the past. This is not surprising in a country where even judges are paid millions every day to overlook and/or delay verdicts on cases. There will just be too many worms in the can for this case to be solved ever.

[KhunBoy]

Speedboats are an easy way to quickly get off an island.

[joecoolfrog]

Im not cofident of seeing much justice , hope I am proved wrong.

[falang1969]

I guess the case is closed... such a massive shame for the families.. It would be good if someone in the media had the balls to expose everyone involved in these lies and corruption.. Including the governments participation.

Yep, as usual, seems like we are nearing the end of this investigation with no suspects, no arrests and no convictions.

International media interest is subsiding, job done.

[Baerboxer]

webfact, on 16 Sept 2014 - 08:55, said:

CRIME

Koh Tao 'sealed off' after two tourists brutally killed

THE NATION, AFP

Gruesome murders of British pair on island paradise shock locals and visitors

BANGKOK: -- POLICE have sealed off the resort island of Koh Tao off Surat Thani province to hunt down killers who brutally murdered a British couple and possibly raped the woman on Sunday night. The 24-year-old victims have been identified as Hannah Witheridge and David Miller.

Full story: http://www.thaivisa....itish-tourists/

this person in the black t shirt looks the same person put on the facebook pages and another newspaper we cant quote . this is dated 16 sept 14

Is this villiage headman with the gloves on at the crime also ?

Would it really surprise you if it was ? Does appear to look like him but who could say with certainty ? Seems anyone can traipse over this cordoned off crime scene. Great work indeed and cleverly orchestrated making any DNA evidence other than semen, inadmissible. But then they knew that already

There are two RTP in this photograph. Have they been asked to identify the two non uniformed individuals and explain why they happened to be there and why one appears to be wearing rubber gloves?

Assuming that the non police in the photo are the AC Bar owner / headman and his brother. Why were they there? To give their valuable guidance to the police? In some official capacity? Or to make sure there DNA presence could be explained if found around the scene? (There samples from the semen could be deal with later).

They may well be innocent, and knowing the legendary efficiency and competence of the BiB, have been trying to conduct their own investigation to protect their business interests. Or covering up.

Senior non island police need to start finding the answers to some of these basic questions.

And they might like to check on the movements and whereabouts of all the family members as well as sonny boy in BKK; just before and after the murder.

Too many people here are prepared to tell lies if the price is right. So sonny boy's alibi needs checking carefully.

The more this goes on the more it looks like someone is orchestrating things, giving out red herrings whilst making sure real leads are not followed up.

I can't believe any police force can all be simply totally incompetent.

The story regarding a blood covered Sean McAnna seems convenient to suddenly come to light, with the main witness to all the blood being one of this gentleman's employees. But, nevertheless, a competent police force would be following that up.

[Heisenberg01]

Its not that unbelievable the headman being there, they represent the local people, are the locals mouthpiece etc and will often be a liason beteween the law and the people.

Piss poor from a forensic point of view i know, but not that unbelievable.

[transam]

webfact, on 16 Sept 2014 - 08:55, said:

CRIME

Koh Tao 'sealed off' after two tourists brutally killed

THE NATION, AFP

Gruesome murders of British pair on island paradise shock locals and visitors

BANGKOK: -- POLICE have sealed off the resort island of Koh Tao off Surat Thani province to hunt down killers who brutally murdered a British couple and possibly raped the woman on Sunday night. The 24-year-old victims have been identified as Hannah Witheridge and David Miller.

Full story: http://www.thaivisa....itish-tourists/

this person in the black t shirt looks the same person put on the facebook pages and another newspaper we cant quote . this is dated 16 sept 14

Is this villiage headman with the gloves on at the crime also ?

Would it really surprise you if it was ? Does appear to look like him but who could say with certainty ? Seems anyone can traipse over this cordoned off crime scene. Great work indeed and cleverly orchestrated making any DNA evidence other than semen, inadmissible. But then they knew that already

There are two RTP in this photograph. Have they been asked to identify the two non uniformed individuals and explain why they happened to be there and why one appears to be wearing rubber gloves?

Assuming that the non police in the photo are the AC Bar owner / headman and his brother. Why were they there? To give their valuable guidance to the police? In some official capacity? Or to make sure there DNA presence could be explained if found around the scene? (There samples from the semen could be deal with later).

They may well be innocent, and knowing the legendary efficiency and competence of the BiB, have been trying to conduct their own investigation to protect their business interests. Or covering up.

Senior non island police need to start finding the answers to some of these basic questions.

And they might like to check on the movements and whereabouts of all the family members as well as sonny boy in BKK; just before and after the murder.

Too many people here are prepared to tell lies if the price is right. So sonny boy's alibi needs checking carefully.

The more this goes on the more it looks like someone is orchestrating things, giving out red herrings whilst making sure real leads are not followed up.

I can't believe any police force can all be simply totally incompetent.

The story regarding a blood covered Sean McAnna seems convenient to suddenly come to light, with the main witness to all the blood being one of this gentleman's employees. But, nevertheless, a competent police force would be following that up.

You must remember that in LOS nobody cares about anything, thats the way it is. In normal daily life, nobody cares, kids on m/bikes, nobody cares, and for sure nobody cares about farangs, farangs from any way you look at it are just a money source, nothing else, aliens with cash to be relieved of............

The new government should have gone in with all guns blazing with this case, send a message to ALL lo-life that they will be taken out. I pray that they will not turn their back on this.

[green job]

Sorry to ask a little off topic, but is there any news about Sean's whereabouts? I tried to search a bit, but i cannot find anything from after he was leaving the rock.

Apparently in Italy with his girlfriend?

Yes i know that when he left the rock, that we wanted to go and see his girlfriend there. Just wondering where he might be for several reasons. If he ever made it out of the country and also because i still think he knows more than at least the public does.

Hi I am back,and not out of shape:) Yes this would be the key to the case, there is more to this than most think. How much money do you need to travel to Europe plus plus plus trying to sell a motor bike?? or being paid off to <deleted> off. The mind bogels. We shall see.

Sean If you are reading this ( I am sure you are) Help to sort this out one way or another, If you dont,you will never be a happy man as this will follow you for the rest of your life. And thats coming from a 80 year old x GJ

[jmccarty]

Small price to pay if that is his intention!

[MJP]

webfact, on 16 Sept 2014 - 08:55, said:

CRIME

Koh Tao 'sealed off' after two tourists brutally killed

THE NATION, AFP

Gruesome murders of British pair on island paradise shock locals and visitors

BANGKOK: -- POLICE have sealed off the resort island of Koh Tao off Surat Thani province to hunt down killers who brutally murdered a British couple and possibly raped the woman on Sunday night. The 24-year-old victims have been identified as Hannah Witheridge and David Miller.

Full story: http://www.thaivisa....itish-tourists/

this person in the black t shirt looks the same person put on the facebook pages and another newspaper we cant quote . this is dated 16 sept 14

Is this villiage headman with the gloves on at the crime also ?

Would it really surprise you if it was ? Does appear to look like him but who could say with certainty ? Seems anyone can traipse over this cordoned off crime scene. Great work indeed and cleverly orchestrated making any DNA evidence other than semen, inadmissible. But then they knew that already

There are two RTP in this photograph. Have they been asked to identify the two non uniformed individuals and explain why they happened to be there and why one appears to be wearing rubber gloves?

Assuming that the non police in the photo are the AC Bar owner / headman and his brother. Why were they there? To give their valuable guidance to the police? In some official capacity? Or to make sure there DNA presence could be explained if found around the scene? (There samples from the semen could be deal with later).

They may well be innocent, and knowing the legendary efficiency and competence of the BiB, have been trying to conduct their own investigation to protect their business interests. Or covering up.

Senior non island police need to start finding the answers to some of these basic questions.

And they might like to check on the movements and whereabouts of all the family members as well as sonny boy in BKK; just before and after the murder.

Too many people here are prepared to tell lies if the price is right. So sonny boy's alibi needs checking carefully.

The more this goes on the more it looks like someone is orchestrating things, giving out red herrings whilst making sure real leads are not followed up.

I can't believe any police force can all be simply totally incompetent.

The story regarding a blood covered Sean McAnna seems convenient to suddenly come to light, with the main witness to all the blood being one of this gentleman's employees. But, nevertheless, a competent police force would be following that up.

You must remember that in LOS nobody cares about anything, thats the way it is. In normal daily life, nobody cares, kids on m/bikes, nobody cares, and for sure nobody cares about farangs, farangs from any way you look at it are just a money source, nothing else, aliens with cash to be relieved of............

The new government should have gone in with all guns blazing with this case, send a message to ALL lo-life that they will be taken out. I pray that they will not turn their back on this.

. . . and instead they first tried to apportion blame to the victims.

[allan michaud]

Transam,

Have always enjoyed your posts and point of view.

Particularly in your epic battle against the stormtrooper.

Volunteering a DNA sample is quite a different thing than being ordered to provide a sample.

In an era of rampant identity theft and the sale of personal information through data mining, I certainly don't want my entire genetic history to be available to anyone with malicious intent.

Furthermore, I live in a country where healthcare is not free and we pay through the nose if we fit certain demographics. Sure, right now we have Obamacare, but its going to face real challenges when Obama is done with this term. Until just two years ago, before the ACA became effective in the US, health insurers would drop coverage on people who had too much illness--and these for-profit healthcare organizations in the US would be very happy to get some type of data that gives them insight into a persons predisposition for disease.

And then there is the whole concern of Thailand crime labs being poorly operated like most everything else in Thailand. There is no way anyone is convincing me that there is not an increased risk of contaminated DNA sampling at these facilities.

Everybody on here says they don't trust the police one iota and we live in an era where a DNA match is all it takes to convince the population at large that someone is guilty. Do you really want people you have great distrust for to have that ability to have access to your DNA and access to a crime scene?

No thanks.

But then I am an american and we have an entirely different issue with something we call our Rights.

One of which is the Right to Privacy.

We don't think a police force has the right to barge into our home without probable cause. For alot of us Americans we think that is the kind of thing they did in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Onion. Out homes are our castles and what is even more sacred than our home? Our persons. You won't find many Americans who think the authorities should be able to just bust down every door in a neighborhood where a crime took place and that is exactly what a mandatory DNA test is like on an even more personal level.

Cheers

But mate, if it were your daughter with her head bashed in and the rest of it, would you say, oh, don't test those folk it's against this and that. ?

If it were your daughter I would give my back teeth to get hold of the bloke...

I understand what you are saying but...

The actions and motivations of a bereaving father are very different from what a society should want from its police force.

One small problem with saying it wasn't anyone from this family. None of them appear to have given DNA samples, so I don't see how they can all be cleared. Police cleared the 2 the other day, immediately after their interrogation. Assuming they did actually take DNA samples, it still takes a day or 2 to get results, so clearing them at that stage made no sense. The suspect in Bkk may have real evidence as he apparently claimed, such as security video of him at his uni, however that does not clear other members of his family.

Until I read that DNA samples taken from a family member show no family connection to the 2 samples taken from the victim, I for one will not accept that someone from that family was not involved in the apparent rape.

[metisdead]

An inflammatory post has been removed as well as a reply.

[Thai at Heart]

In the other paper, apparenlty the son has been cleared because he has an alibi for not being on the island.

Now you see the power of the mafia because there will not be one person brave enough to say otherwise.

[laobali]

Correct me if I am wrong, isn't this by definition a form of corruption that needs to be addressed by the PM, the police and the NACC? Under no circumstances should a governmental agency be able to consider accepting this kind of payment.

You must remember that in LOS EVERYTHING revolves around cash. So the putting up of cash in this way is a wow for locals but means sod all to farangs. To me it is a smoke screen and they fear "other" investigators being involved. of course his family may not have been involved but for sure they know who were, there are nooooo secrets in LOS.

If I had any doubt in mind that they not involved, this has now been completely erased by this move, havent mutiple politican's in Thailand used the same "smoke screen" tactic to distract people when they where accused of something, a famous one related to the holding of PTT shares comes to mind and in most cases it turns out the said politicans have been up to no good or telling little white lies....

The fact the headman is being so vocal about this and playing it up says to me the family/ family members are most certainly involved.

"[He] doth protest too much, methinks."

[greenchair]

Yep 1 million if anybody is found guilty. And maybe 3 million if no evidence is found on any family members. Did any of them have to submit DNA. Certainly not the boy in Bangkok. i do see that since meeting the headman, there do not seem to be anymore suspects and the police have gone eerily quiet. Well those families are grieving right now..And after that the anger will come. I would like to encourage thai: visa to help set up a donation account for the purpose of hiring a private investigator . I will be one of the first to donate :

[yougivemebaby]

I see the BIB now consider 3 suspects and some may have left the island !

Well it's only been well over a week since the crime was discovered and of course suspects wouldn't hang around unless of course they were very stupid or very confident and where have the new 3 suspects been conjured up from ?

As for The Family Guy maybe Revenue Dept should be having a look at him, his accounts and tax returns. C'mon I only said Maybe.

Include Sean Mc Anna in that,no dna on the sperm,doesnt mean he wasnt weilding a hoe.That blood on him needs further explanation.

Where is the "spa worker" to confirm this? I'm sure if it was only one spa worker it's bogus. There's so much hearsay with no evidence.

Speaking of evidence. DOes anyone know the toxicology report is on the victims? Be interesting to see if they were taking anything besides alcohol or if their drinks were spiked etc.

[ClutchClark]

They should still DNA him regardless

Please help me to understand what benefit there is in taking the time to DNA test a person that can prove he was 800 kms from the crime?

Some might think that was a waste of investigative resources that could be spent actually pursuing credible leads.

[catweazle]

Think this was quite an expensive purchase... If they want to cast their claim they are not involved into concrete, then do the DNA test for Pete's sake!

"My family has been helping authorites … and police in the investigation since the first day."

Just one question: In history, how many murderers have joined search parties and/or volunteered in the investigation of their own crimes just to be up to date with the progress while trying to mislead investigators?