A teenage girl’s body was found stuffed inside a suitcase and dumped in bushes hours after she was last seen holding hands with an Australian tourist in a condominium lobby, police in Thailand have said.
Discovery of the body
The victim has been identified as Tunchanok Donhomla, 17, known to her family as “little cake”. Her remains were discovered by police near railway tracks about 4.2km from the hotel where she had been with the suspect, after a missing person report was lodged by a friend. The suitcase was opened on national television, revealing her naked body. Police said her face showed signs of severe assault, with swelling and bruising covering the entire face, and blood flowing from her mouth and nose. Investigators believe she had been dead for approximately two days before the discovery.
Pattaya City Police Superintendent Anek Sarathongyu described the injuries in detail, saying they were consistent with a violent struggle. The body was found at around 1.30am on June 27, shortly after the suspect was arrested at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport.
CCTV evidence and timeline
Central to the police case is a sequence of CCTV footage that traces the movements of the Australian tourist, Simon Carman, and the teenager over a 24-hour period. The evidence begins in the early hours of June 25, shortly after 3.30am, when cameras in the lobby of a condominium in Pattaya capture Carman and Ms Donhomla walking hand-in-hand and entering an elevator. They are believed to have gone to Room 20 on the 15th floor.
More than 17 hours later, between 9.25pm and 9.48pm, CCTV allegedly shows Carman dragging a large black suitcase out of the building and strapping it to the back of a motorcycle before driving away. He travelled along Sukhumvit Road, turned into Soi Chaiyapruk 2, and proceeded along a road parallel to the railway tracks. During this journey he crossed a railway line and disappeared from camera view for approximately nine minutes. Footage then shows him returning to the accommodation at 10.06pm on the same motorcycle — without the suitcase.
Police later located the black suitcase dumped in bushes near the railway tracks, about a 10-minute drive from Carman’s hotel. The precise location matched the route seen on CCTV, and officers confirmed that the suitcase contained Ms Donhomla’s body.
Arrest and suspect’s claims
Simon Peter Carman, a 46-year-old Australian national, was arrested on the evening of June 26 as he attempted to board a Jetstar flight to Perth, Australia. He had been flagged by the airport’s immigration system after Pattaya City Police had put out a warrant for his arrest. Officers found his passport during an inspection of his hotel room earlier that day.
According to Thai media, Carman told investigators that he had not known Ms Donhomla before meeting her in Pattaya, and that they had initially agreed on a payment of 1,000 baht (£20) for sex. He claimed they got into a heated argument after he offered only 500 baht (£10) instead. Initially, Carman denied killing her, telling police that she “disappeared from the room while I was asleep”. Later, he reportedly confessed to the killing but claimed it was in self-defence, stating that Ms Donhomla had threatened him with a kitchen knife during the argument over money.
Superintendent Sarathongyu said Carman had “fingernail scratches across his body that are consistent with a struggle”. When questioned about three scratches on his neck, Carman told police: “I think it’s a spider; they always get in here.” Officers believe the marks are inconsistent with spider bites and instead suggest a physical altercation.
In a video taken after his arrest, Carman issued an apology to Ms Donhomla’s family from custody. “I feel bad for what happened to your daughter; it was out of my control,” he said. “Um, I know you will be very sad, upset, same me. It shouldn’t happen and I hope you okay, I know you’re not, but I hope. Please tell other girls … just to be careful.”
Carman has been charged with murder, concealing a corpse, moving or destroying a body to conceal the cause of death, and abducting a minor over 15 but under 18 for indecent purposes. Under Thailand’s criminal code, a murder conviction can carry the death penalty or between 15 and 20 years’ imprisonment. Aggravated murder, including cases involving torture or extreme cruelty, can attract a mandatory death sentence. Thailand retains the death penalty by lethal injection, though a de facto moratorium on executions has been in place since June 2018. The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed it is providing consular assistance to Carman.
Family’s grief
Speaking outside a police station in Pattaya, Ms Donhomla’s father, Thongchai Donhomla, said: “I am deeply saddened. My daughter had no mother, so whenever she wanted anything, she would find a way herself, and she always helped me too.” The family had tried to contact her after she failed to return home, but received no response.
Her stepmother, Oradee Bussarakum, described the agonising wait for news. “We were scared. We just hoped it wouldn’t turn out the way we feared,” she said. She added that Ms Donhomla sometimes helped the family by selling garlands or fruits at intersections during the Songkran water festival, and that they did not force her to work. “She was still young, so sometimes we let her go out and gave her 50 to 100 baht (£1.70 – £2.40),” Ms Oradee said. The teenager had travelled from her home in Kalasin province to Pattaya on June 16 for what was reportedly her first visit to the city, arriving with a friend shortly after the Songkran holiday.
Ms Oradee has publicly called for the suspect to face the harshest punishment, saying she wants him to be executed. Pattaya, a popular tourist destination, has long grappled with issues of sex tourism and prostitution, and police have conducted periodic crackdowns to improve the city’s image. The investigation remains ongoing, with forensic teams gathering further evidence and witness statements.
