Thai police are investigating whether an Australian man charged with murdering a 17-year-old girl could be linked to two unsolved cases in the region.
Police colonel Anek Srathongyoo, a superintendent of Pattaya City police station, told the Guardian on Tuesday that although there was no evidence linking Simon Peter Carman to the cases in neighbouring regions, they were investigating the possibility given similarities between the cases.
Carman, 45, was charged over the weekend with the alleged murder of Thunchanok Donhomla, whose body was found in a suitcase near railway tracks in Pattaya, on Thailand’s eastern Gulf coast, in the early hours of Saturday. Police said her belongings were also found in the suitcase. Carman has denied the charges.
CCTV footage, seen by the Guardian and verified by police, allegedly showed Donhomla holding hands with Carman in the lobby of the condo he rented in the suburb of Jomtien Beach in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Footage later that day showed Carman leaving the condo to get food but Donhomla was never seen leaving, Srathongyoo said.
Carman was later seen on the CCTV footage leaving the condo with a large suitcase, which he took on a motorbike. He returned to the condo without it, Srathongyoo said.
Srathongyoo said the two unsolved cases in the last two years also involved similar crime scenes with women’s bodies found in suitcases, but they had been more difficult to solve because more time had passed between the women’s deaths and their bodies being found.
The victims in the unsolved cases are believed to be women who were working in the region’s adult industry.
Their bodies were found in Huay Yai district, in the same province as Pattaya, and Ban Chang district in the neighbouring province, Srathongyoo said.
Srathongyoo is working with police colleagues in those districts to investigate as the other cases took place in districts not in his command.
Carman had rented a condo for one year in Jomtien Beach, he said.
Carman entered Thailand on a tourist visa in December and extended his visa.
There was no record of Carman overstaying his visa or of him having a criminal record in Thailand, Srathongyoo said.
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Carman was arrested on Friday at Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok attempting to leave the country. He initially told police Donhomla had left the condo while he slept.
When officers told him they had found the luggage, Carman said he had killed her after an argument, police alleged.
The medical doctor who examined Donhomla’s body said there was no sign she had been beaten, and she likely died from suffocation, Srathongyoo said.
Srathongyoo said Donhomla, whose nickname was Cake and who was from the province of Kalasin in north-eastern Thailand, had only arrived in Pattaya a week earlier to visit a friend.
She was on the beach at Jomtien with two other friends when she met Carman, Srathongyoo said.
Police are investigating whether one of the friends she was with was working in the sex industry, Srathongyoo said.
The friend, who was from the same village as Donhomla, took a video of Donhomla walking down the promenade hand in hand with Carman, Srathongyoo said.
The last text messages on Donhomla’s phone show she sent her friend a message saying “don’t worry I already arrived in the room. It’s messy”, Srathongyoo said.
Donhomla’s family have taken her body back to Kalasin, he said.
