Flashermac Posted January 5, 2006 Report Share Posted January 5, 2006 You didn't mention that Egyptian driving a "black plate taxi" -- i.e. private car -- who picked up Pattaya bound tourists at Don Muang and murdered them for their money. He did in around half a dozen Farang men before the cops finally got him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted January 5, 2006 Report Share Posted January 5, 2006 The Times Online January 03, 2006 Mother heard backpacker's murder, police say From Andrew Drummond, for The Times, in Koh Samui The mother of the murdered Reading University student Katherine Horton heard her daughter scream before her mobile phone cut off at the time of the brutal killing on the Thai holiday island of Koh Samui. Ruth Adams, 21, Ms Horton's friend and travelling companion, told Thai police that she spoke to Elizabeth Horton, Katherine's mother, by phone at her home in Cardiff the following day. "She said, 'Katherine's mother told me that she heard a dog bark, then a scream, then the line cut'," said Colonel Tirawat Wamsiton of the Thai police. When police checked an area just 300 yards from the hut where Ms Horton had been staying they found her telephone and red stains in the sand. The red stains were not blood but betel nut, a nut with tobacco-like characteristics chewed by many Asians. Ms Horton had earlier spent a happy few hours dining with friends and chatting before, police confirmed today, she was brutally beaten with a blunt object and dragged into the sea to be drowned. Shortly after 7 pm on Sunday, after recovering from the new year celebrations, she had donned a favourite black evening dress and left Room No 2 at New Hut bungalows to join Ms Adams for dinner at the nearby Ninja restaurant on the island's Lamai Beach. Lamai is a quieter beach than nearby Chaweng where resort owners hold regular raves. By 9 pm Ms Horton and her friend were back was back chatting with the occupants of the nearby A-framed bungalows that are packed closely together facing the sea. New Hut resort owner Amnuay Dachana said: "During the day she had been relaxing and sunbathing on the beach. After she came back from the Ninja restaurant I saw her chatting with friends. The last time I saw her was 9.30pm. The next time I looked was at 12.30. Everyone had gone to bed and the lights were out." That night, perhaps suffering from a lack of awareness of her surroundings, an easy enough mistake in a country where people are known for their smiles, friendliness and hospitality, Ms Horton, who was studying psychology at Reading University walked off alone to her death. She had answered a new year's phone call from her mother in Cardiff and walked off , chatting happily , into the darkness. Not far from the New Hut is a blackspot - part of the beach not lit and not even reflecting the light of nearby restaurants which shut up early. Ms Adams got bored waiting for her friend to return and went to bed. Just 300 yards from her hut, outside a resort known as Tapee Bungalows Ms Horton was beaten half to death and then dragged into the water and drowned. Police Lieutenant Colonel Dr Pattana Kitkailart, who performed the autopsy on Ms Horton's body in Bangkok's Police hospital, said that there were wounds on her head from being hit with a blunt object and on her body but it was not yet clear from the autopsy if she had been raped. Koh Samui police said tonight, however, that they were also investigating a rape. Ms Horton's body was found at a place called Thong Krak, almost two miles along the bay which forms Lamai Beach. "The body had been taken by the tide," said Police Superintendent Thanomsak Aksornam. "We have no suspects at this stage." It was a tourist who spotted the corpse in the water and alerted Watchareon Kongman, a 24-year-old jet ski rental boss. Ms Horton's body was found half naked. She had bruises on her arms and shoulders. Reporters who were at the scene said that her nose appeared broken and there was damage to her skull. Today, a full 24 hours after her body was found, police belatedly cordoned off the small section of the beach, between two palm trees and opposite the Tapee Resort where Ms Horton had paused while talking to her mother. Two uniformed officers stood guard and another four plain clothes officers moved among the resort's guests. At the New Hut bungalow resort police arrived to take away the owners, Amnuay and Jintana Dachana, and 14 of their staff for interview. Ms Jintana said: "I picked Katherine and Ruth up at the Express ferry pier at 11.30am last Saturday, New Year's Eve. We brought 17 tourists back to the bungalows. Katherine and Ruth became friendly with a couple of young Australian men. "They had booked one night only. But they decided to stay some more. They left it open ended. I liked them. In fact my husband and I love the British more than any other tourists." Ms Adams, also 21 and a student, today gave a statement to police and was then escorted away looking very distraught by a British Embassy official. Koh Samui police had been reluctant to give statements to the press. They told holidaymakers not to talk to journalists, and they have told Thai journalists to play the story down - although that seems to have had little effect on the Bangkok newspapers which published pictures of Ms Horton's body. At the New Hut bungalows today a light drizzle drove people off the beach. "One young British holidaymaker said: "We have been told by police to say nothing. All I can say is some 16 police arrived here today and took away the owner and most of the staff. But none of us knows what happened." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limbo Posted January 5, 2006 Report Share Posted January 5, 2006 Police hunt Thai men Jan 5 2006 Tryst Williams, Western Mail POLICE in Thailand last night launched a manhunt for four Thai men they believe raped and murdered Welsh backpacker Katherine Horton. Reports broadcast on the country's national television yesterday suggested Katherine had been raped by a group in or around a boat on the beach. The development came after a security guard reported seeing four men on motorbikes near the scene of the 21-year-old's brutal death on the paradise island of Koh Samui on Sunday night. The police officer leading the investigation said that the psychology student from Cardiff had "probably" been raped, despite earlier uncertainty from the forensic scientist who carried out the post-mortem examination. Journalist Andrew Drummond, who has lived in the region for decades, said yesterday's development was a "dramatic switch in the inquiry". Police Major General Suntharn Chaiyanand, Deputy Commissioner of the Royal Thai Police, called village elders to a meeting at a temporary police headquarters near the site of Katherine's death. Mr Drummond said the officer ordered the 25 men to report any suspicious behaviour from the young men of their villages in the past four days. Two British women had earlier approached police to say they heard screams outside their rented home on Lamai Beach shortly after 10pm on Sunday night and a security guard told officers about the four motorcyclists he had seen there. The launch of yesterday's manhunt coincided with the arrival of Katherine's father Ian in Thailand from his home in the Cardiff suburb of Lisvane. Mr Horton was accompanied by an officer from South Wales Police, although the officer will not be taking an active part in the criminal investigation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limbo Posted January 5, 2006 Report Share Posted January 5, 2006 Thai Newspapaers apparently report that the autopsy report states that she was not raped. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted January 6, 2006 Report Share Posted January 6, 2006 Talked to a Brit mate today who was just in Samui a couple of weeks ago. He was shocked to see where it happened, since he had stayed at Tapee Bungalows and had breakfast every morning at the Ninja Cafe. He actually called me from the beach one night on his mobile, and I could hear the waves lapping in the background -- the very place where Katherine Horton was murdered. He says the folks at Tapee Bungalows are very nice, as were the people at the Ninja Cafe. But he went into the New Hut bungalows just one time. Said he got a very bad feeling about the young Thai guys working there, and promptly left. His comment was that the police should start checking the DNA of every guy working in that place! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckwoww Posted January 6, 2006 Report Share Posted January 6, 2006 Can't please everyone I guess... "The long-running Tapee has chunky concrete bungalows that are an absolute eyesore, with rising damp thrown in for free. They all face each other rather than out to sea. We only recommend this if it's high season and you can't find anywhere else." http://tinyurl.com/ckr35 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuffHello Posted January 6, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 6, 2006 Flashermac said:You didn't mention that Egyptian driving a "black plate taxi" -- i.e. private car -- who picked up Pattaya bound tourists at Don Muang and murdered them for their money. He did in around half a dozen Farang men before the cops finally got him. BANGKOK, June 7 (AFP) - Embassy officials on Monday named a German man who was among six tourists abuducted and brutally murdered hours after arriving at Bangkok airport. Herbert Reiter, 41, was identified by dental records, a German embassy official told AFP. The spokesman did not divulge when Reiter died but press reports said he was murdered after arriving in Bangkok in October. Thai police are holding an Egyptian in connection with the murders of the German, two French tourists, an Austrian and Iranian and a citizen of the United Arab Emirates. All the victims were lone travellers and were believed to have been lured into an unlicensed taxi at Bangkok's international airport. Their bodies were found with stab wounds alongside the main highway leading from the airport to the city centre over the course of 10 months. An Austrian diplomat Monday said two Austrians were currently missing in Thailand, one of whom was believed to have been among the dead tourists. He refused to name the man. Police earlier named one of the dead Frenchmen as Jesus Benamard, who arrived on a Swissair flight on April 6 and was found fatally wounded early the next morning. The Egyptian suspect Chanam Said Muhamad, 35, was remanded in custody for 12 days on Saturday. Muhamad is suspected of working in a gang with another Egyptian and a Saudi Arabian, said police Colonel Weesrasak Burapakarn, commander of Bangkok's Min Buri police station. "The police are trying to find the other gang members," Weesrasak told AFP. He said Muhamad had denied the allegations and told police that his Egyptian friend had left the country, while the Saudi had recently died of cancer. The murders came to light after European Union heads of mission appealed to the Thai government to expand the investigation into the murders. Heads of mission were "concerned about this and wanted to demonstrate this to the government," an EU source said Monday. The French embassy has already warned its citizens not to take unlicensed taxis from the airport. "The story is that these people were picked up by this bogus taxi driver who was not a registered taxi driver. Obviously, if these reports are true, it is safer to use registered taxis," said the official. The German spokesman said his embassy would wait for the results of the police investigation before acting. -- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuffHello Posted January 6, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 6, 2006 5 January 2006 MY SHOCK OVER THAI BEACH HELL Exclusive Scot knew murdered girl By Amy Devine A SCOT who met Thai rape and murder victim Katherine Horton before she died told last night of his shock at the attack. Wes Thomson, 27, is on holiday on the Thai island of Koh Samui and was neighbours with Katherine. Police yesterday carried out DNA tests on locals and visitors, including two unidentified Scotsmen who had befriended 21-year-old Katherine, from Cardiff, and her best pal Ruth Adams. But they confirmed the chief suspects are four local men and stressed the DNA tests on the Scots were a matter of routine. Financial services specialist Wes, of Inverkeithing, in Fife, is on holiday with his friends, brothers Callum, 23, and Fergus MacDonald, 21, and Ronald Corbin, 27, all from Edinburgh. Wes, who was staying in the shack next to Katherine and Ruth, said: "Katherine was lovely, really happy, bubbly, always laughing and joking, always smiling. Advertisement "It is just horrible. It is something you always hear about when you're travelling but it is always a faceless name you have never met. "I just can't get my head around how young she was with so much to look forward to." Thai police said that Reading University psychology student Katherine was bludgeoned and gangraped before being dragged into the sea to drown at Lamai Beach. Callum and Fergus's mum Vera said they were distraught at what had happened to Katherine. She said: "It is such a terrible thing to happen." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuffHello Posted January 6, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 6, 2006 BRITISH BACKPACKER?S DEATH: Four held over Samui murder Published on January 06, 2006 Resort employees questioned, DNA samples taken; father makes appeal. Police last night detained four men for questioning after taking DNA samples from them as part of their investigation into the murder of Welsh university student Katherine Horton on this popular resort island. The four are employees of a resort close to the bungalow where Horton, 21, was staying. Witnesses saw the men dining at a food stall nearby on the night of the murder, police said. No charges had been filed against the four as of last night. A motorcycle owned by one of the men, whose identities were not immediately released by police, was seen parked outside Katherine?s bungalow at the New Hut resort on the evening of January 1. But the owner said he had earlier rented it to a foreign tourist, investigators said. The man produced a document to support his claim, they said. Police yesterday questioned the four for several hours after taking them into custody at the Sea View Paradise resort on Lamai Beach. The resort is located next to the one where Horton, a third-year psychology student at Reading University, Cardiff, was spending her New Year?s holiday with friends at the time she was killed. Investigators took tissue samples from the men for DNA analysis after questioning them yesterday and escorting them to Samui Hospital for medical checks last night. They were later brought back to Samui police station for further questioning. A source at the hospital said DNA sampling was yesterday conducted on seven foreigners and eight Thais, including the four men under detention, as part of the police investigation. Horton?s body was found on Monday in the sea off Thong Krok Beach, a few kilometres from the resort where she stayed. Police said she had been hit several times on the head and body with a blunt object and thrown into the sea to drown. A primary police investigation showed that Horton was likely attacked while walking on the beach near her bungalow on the evening of January 1. Horton was talking to her mother, Elizabeth, on her mobile phone when the attack took place and her mother reportedly heard her scream before the call was cut off. Institute of Forensic Medicine commander Pol Maj-General Liang Huiprasert said the latest autopsy results on Horton?s body showed no traces of rape. ?No traces of semen were found in the genitals and no human tissue was found under the fingernails. More thorough forensic tests, however, will be conducted,? he said. Katherine?s father Ian Horton yesterday appealed for anyone who witnessed the crime to come forward and help police in the investigation. ?On a personal note I urge those who did this to come forward. The perpetrator is too cowardly to offer themselves to justice in Thailand. But there is a person here that knows. A person that can assist the police. Someone that can maybe save another life,? he said in a written statement. ?I urge that person to come forward to speak out. Katherine was my little girl. Please help her father.? Horton?s father and family members yesterday travelled to Koh Samui to observe the police investigation but asked for privacy from the media. The investigation team, comprising more than 30 local police officers and detectives and a special team dispatched from Bangkok, was anxiously awaiting the results of tests conducted on traces of DNA found on Horton?s body, said Maj-Gen Sunthan Chayanon, deputy commissioner of Police Region 8. The results of the tests, which were being conducted by the Institute of Forensic Medicine, were expected today or tomorrow, he said. Investigators planned to use photographs from an automatic security camera installed near the spot where Horton was believed to have been attacked to help in the investigation, a police source said yesterday. ?At a resort nearby, there is a set of sensor-equipped cameras and lights that automatically snap pictures when something moves past at night. We hope to find some leads from the photo records,? the source said. Police yesterday set up a field command centre on Koh Samui to closely follow up the investigation of the murder case. More than 100 police personnel from local and Bangkok-based units fanned out across the island to try to find leads in the case. Central Investigation Bureau deputy commissioner Maj-Gen Asavin Kwanmuang and Tourist Police commander Maj-Gen Panya Mamen held a meeting with investigators to inquire about their progress in the probe. ?We have found some leads but cannot publicly discuss the details now. Some witnesses have been questioned and evidence gathered that leads to certain suspects,? Panya said. ?I am a father with daughters too, and so are many other officers who are racing against time to solve the case here with the heart of a father,? said Surat Thani provincial police chief Maj-Gen Voravate Vinitnatyanon. Arthit Khwankhom, Anan Paengnoy The Nation KOH SAMUI Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuffHello Posted January 6, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 6, 2006 Male waiter being hunted by police POST REPORTERS Police are looking for a waiter from a local restaurant who disappeared following the death of 21-year-old Welsh student Katherine Elizabeth Horton on Koh Samui. A police source said investigators believe the missing waiter had information about, or was involved in Horton's brutal murder. Her body was found on Monday floating in Lamai bay off Samui island. Forensic test results, released yesterday by Pol Maj-Gen Liang Huiprasert, Forensic Medicine Institute chief, indicated Horton had not been raped before her murder. Examinations had found no traces of any sexual assault. Police said progress had been made in the investigation. A waitress, who handed over Horton's mobile phone to police, and claimed she had received it from two foreign couples, later admitted she had found the phone on Lamai beach herself and removed the SIM card. Police said they would continue to question the waitress. Tourist Police Division chief Pol Maj-Gen Panya Mamen and his deputy Pol Col Ronnapong Saikaew took police to inspect the victim's rented room at New Hut Bungalow on Lamai beach. They also went to Thong Krok beach where the victim was seen leaving a restaurant and talking on the phone before she disappeared. Police said it was possible she might have been dragged from the beach, since the area was unlit at night. Police also sought court approval for six of Horton's friends to testify as witnesses in one day, before leaving the country. Meanwhile, the victim's father, Ian Horton, accompanied by his son, Christopher, and British consular officials, met police yesterday to follow up on the case. After being briefed by a police team led by Central Investigation Bureau deputy commissioner Pol Maj-Gen Assawin Kwanmuang, Mr Horton placed a garland on the spot where his daughter's body was found. ''On a personal note I urge those who did this to come forward. The perpetrators are too cowardly to offer themselves to justice. But there is a person here that knows. A person that can assist the police. Someone that can maybe save another life. I urge that person to come forward to speak out. Katherine was my little girl. Please help her father,'' he said in a sombre tone as his son wept. Mr Horton asked reporters to leave the family to grieve in peace. ''All I wish is to return Katherine to her home with dignity and privacy, for which I beg the indulgence of the press,'' he said soon after arriving in Thailand to take the body of his university student daughter home to Cardiff in Wales. Regional Police Bureau 8 commissioner Pol Lt-Gen Kamol Huayhongthong said security would be boosted in all risky tourist spots in the South including Koh Phangan, Phuket and Krabi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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