Simon Peter Carman, 39, entered a Pattaya condominium at 3:34 a.m. on Thursday with 17-year-old Tunchanok Donhomla. Security cameras recorded him leaving alone later that night, dragging a large suitcase toward a motorcycle.
Thai police reconstructed the route: from the condominium to a railway line where he abandoned the bag. Carman was arrested at Bangkok airport, 150 km away, as he was preparing to leave the country. Fifteen minutes after his arrest, they found the teenager’s naked body inside the suitcase.
He claims they argued over payment for sexual services and that she “disappeared from the room” while he was asleep. He has fingernail scratches all over his body, consistent with a fight, but attributes them to a spider. Her father, Thongchai Donhomla, and stepmother, Oradee Bussarakum, hope for the death penalty if he is found guilty.