Thai suitcase murder suspect pleads not guilty to all charges

Pattaya: Australian Simon Peter Carman has pleaded not guilty to murdering a Thai teenager and hiding her body in a suitcase.

Carman, 45, is accused of picking up 17-year-old Thanchanok Donhomla for sex at about 3am on June 25 and taking her back to his unit on the outskirts of coastal Pattaya, about 150 kilometres south of Bangkok, before killing her and stuffing her slender frame into one of his suitcases.

Carman is charged with intentionally killing a person, concealing a body and two charges relating to taking a minor for indecent acts.

At his first court appearance, in Pattaya on Friday, Carman said he had been on a long walk near the beach and wanted to go home to sleep, but Thanchanok had followed him.

He insisted the pair never had sex and claimed Thanchanok asked for money and grabbed a knife from the kitchen when he didn’t have what she wanted, pointing it at his throat.

He pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Carman has been detained since he was intercepted by immigration officials the night after the alleged murder, just minutes before boarding a flight to Australia at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport.

Much of his time in custody has been spent without legal representation. He said outside court that he was given a state-appointed lawyer only three weeks ago, despite, he claimed, having asked for one through the Australian embassy about two weeks after his arrest.

In June, police released CCTV footage from Carman’s multi-tower complex in Jomtien that captured him doing laundry and picking up food before leaving with a suitcase later that night. More CCTV of him driving through the streets with the suitcase strapped to the back of his rented scooter, before returning without it, led police to quickly find Thanchanok’s concealed body in long grass near railway tracks.

The Ballarat-born, long-term resident of Thailand initially told the arresting officials at the airport that scratches on his body were the result of a fight with a friend, Pattaya City Police Colonel Anek Srathongyoo previously told this masthead.

But when he was confronted with the security footage, Srathongyoo said Carman admitted to unintentionally killing the 17-year-old in a struggle after she had come at him with a knife.

Though never confirmed by investigators, local media reported the pair argued over the equivalent of just $20.

Thanchanok, nicknamed Nong Cake, had travelled close to 600 kilometres from the north-east province of Kalasin only a week before her death on what her family insisted was a holiday to see friends.

The judge suppressed this masthead and the ABC, the only media inside the Pattaya courtroom, from reporting Carman’s emotional testimony in detail.

More to come

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.