Jomtien, Thailand: The Australian accused of murdering a Thai teenager and stuffing her body into a suitcase was prone to “wanting his own way” and late-night walks on the beach when he couldn’t sleep, people who knew him say.
One of the most striking things about Simon Peter Carman, one woman told this masthead, was how “everything about him was slowly – he talked slow, he walked slow”.
She said he had been living at the Rimhad Jomtien, a 20-minute drive south of the busy metropolis of Pattaya, for about eight months.
Though she would hear his stories about getting angry with drunk people, she never knew him to be particularly aggressive. “Drunk people can be very rude, so that [reaction] is just normal,” she said. “When I heard the news, I couldn’t believe it.”
Carman, 45, is accused of picking up Thanchanok Donhomla, 17, about 3am on Thursday from the beach at Jomtien and taking her back to his room on the 15th floor. Sixteen hours later, according to the official police report, seen by this masthead, only one of them walked out.
Police allege he jammed the teenager’s body into a suitcase before driving about four kilometres on a motorbike and dumping it in long grass. The grisly discovery of the suitcase was made in the early hours of Saturday, hours after Carman was apprehended at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport.
He faces three charges: murder, concealment of a body and moving or destroying a body, and taking a minor for indecent acts.
Police Lieutenant-Colonel Kanonnan Suksri told this masthead Carman had denied the charges and claimed to have acted in self-defence.
In a video captured after his arrest, Carman addressed the victim’s family, and he felt “bad” about the incident.
“I feel bad for what happened to your daughter. It was out of my control,” he said. “I know you’ll be very sad, upset, same, same me. It shouldn’t happen, and I hope you’re OK. I know you’re not, but I hope, and please tell other girls … to be careful.”
In a separate video obtained by the ABC, Carman was asked by police whether he had killed the teenager, to which he replied on multiple occasions: “No.”
Thai sources said Carman was paying the equivalent of about $330 a month in rent.
The condo complex was popular with foreigners who preferred a quieter life to living in Pattaya, which is about 150 kilometres east of Bangkok, said a man who lived on the same floor as Carman.
The man, who asked to remain anonymous, believed he was born in “Balla? Ballarat? Is that right?” Another person said he had lived in Perth.
“He seemed a bit abnormal to me because he speaks slowly and looks at things for a long time,” said a staff member at a nearby business. “But he lived like a normal expat here, going swimming, ordering food and eating out. I noticed that when he couldn’t sleep at night, he liked to go walking along the beach.”
The victim’s father, Thongchai Donhomla, spoke of his grief outside a police station in Pattaya.
“I am deeply saddened. My daughter had no mother because we’ve been divorced since she was two years old,” he said.
“She was a good kid. Whenever she wanted anything, she would find a way herself, and she always helped me, too. She never bothered me,” he said in an interview with Thailand’s TMN Cable TV Pattaya.
Oradee Bussarakum told TV Pattaya while seated alongside the girl’s father: “I told the police I want him executed. As a stepmother, I don’t know what else do say. I just want him executed.”
Zach Hope is South-East Asia correspondent. He is a former reporter at the Brisbane Times.Connect via email.
