Man accused of killing Thai teen found in suitcase charged with murder: report
PATTAYA, Thailand – A 17-year-old Thai girl was on a lively strip of palm-fringed sand in the seaside city of Pattaya on Wednesday night, where a friend said she met a foreign man and struck up a conversation.In the early hours of Thursday, they returned to his apartment, where she was strangled and killed, police said.Two days later, Thai police said they found the teenager’s naked corpse, stuffed inside a suitcase and dumped in waist-high grass, near a railway track, a short distance away from the beachfront.At almost the same time as the body’s discovery in the early hours of Saturday, Thai immigration authorities at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport apprehended a middle-aged Australian man as he prepared to board a flight out of the country.Now in custody, Simon Peter Carman has been charged with intentional murder, concealing a corpse, moving or destroying a corpse, and abduction of a minor for indecent purposes, according to Thai police.If found guilty, the suspect could face between 15 and 20 years in jail, life imprisonment, or the death penalty, said Police Colonel Anek Srathongyoo, the superintendent of Pattaya City police station.Reuters was unable to reach Carman for comment, and police said he has not yet appointed a lawyer.A spokesperson for Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said that it is providing consular assistance to an Australian detained in Thailand and declined to comment further.In Pattaya, a popular beach resort known for its colourful nightlife and an epicentre of illicit sex tourism, police said that Carman had made a partial confession.“He said he did not intend to kill her, but admitted strangling her, causing her death,” Anek told Reuters.“He stated that they had an argument and, during the altercation, he strangled the woman.”Authorities were first alerted to a missing person at around 5 p.m.local time (1000 GMT) on Friday when a friend of the victim reported to Pattaya City pol...