KOH TAO MURDERS – A TASTELESS JOKE BY ISLAND DISC JOCKEYS.

MURDER ISLAND BAR SIGN

While Thai police are still pursuing the killers of Hannah
Witheridge and David Miller and dismissing mafia allegations someone has had
the bad taste to put this notice up on the internet. It is allegedly a sign put
up in a bar in Koh Tao which I will not name playing on a well known cocktail.

It is hard to think of anything more tasteless referring to
a young British woman who was brutally raped and murdered on Sairee beach on the
island nine days ago.

Unless someone can show Hannah went to the beach to be raped by two local men then why put this sign up.  It’s not as anyone in Koh Tao needs to be told anymore that it an be dangerous walking on the beach there at night.

But forget about the bar for a minute. This has been doing the
rounds of young Thai nationals on Facebook.

It would be easy to dismiss this purely as joke by internet trolls – but closer examination of those who ‘like’ this picture,
shows that several have posted from Koh Tao and several appear to be, or have
been working there in the tourism industry.  

Included in the ‘likes’ are three other local
djs and a resort owner.

The original poster from
Bangkok appears to have been a DJ at the AC bar judging by the other photographs
on his Facebook page. He is not the only dj commenting.

The AC bar is of course the last night spot that Hannah Witheridge, 23, from Great Yarmouth, and David Miller, 24, from Jersey were seen alive.

On September 15th both were found beaten to death, Hannah by a garden hoe, and David by some sort of club. Hannah was raped by two men whose DNA is Asian

Posting of this joke is up there alongside the person (possibly in uniform) who posted nasty pictures of the bodies of the two British victims.

Sex or not, however, foreigners, particularly single women, should know that it is not safe to walk alone in the dark, whether on a beach or not in Thailand. In 2006 Katherine Horton ,23, from Cardiff was brutally murdered and raped on  Lamai Beach, Koh Samui, while talking to her mother on the phone. And the killers told their mates how ‘delicious’ she was.

‘

No DJ Spicy Fx who answered  ‘5555 – meaning Ha Ha Ha.  It was not funny.

A member of the bar concerned has stated on his Facebook site.: “The warning in the photography – we would say it with many things with care of our customer. Sometime(s) they sex everywhere on the beach on the boat or in the water. There is not the safe place to have sex while drunk.”

It has has never been established that Hannah and David Miller had sex on the beach.

Its been business on the island since the murders and foreigners continue to arrivc to enjoy Koh Tao’s life style. The picture above shows Hannah out on a pub crawl on September 12, they day she arrived with her three friends.

The picture below shows people on the same pub crawl in Sairee Beach on September 15th 18 hours after the bodies of Hannah and David were found.

The party goes on – meanwhile the answer from a bar in Koh Tao is that the poster was a warning to foreigners (see below)

Two men questioned by police yesterday over the murders have been cleared of any involvement in the killings, but police are still trying to trace the son of a village head man from Bang Tao who left the island believed to have fled to Bangkok or are they?

This report which has been carried extensively in local and international newspaper and television stations is now being disputed. General Somyot Pumpunmuang, Deputy Thai Police Chief has announced: ‘We have not targeted anyone and have not concluded whether murderers are in the still in the area,” he is quoted as saying in the English language newspaper the Bangkok Post.

But in Bangkok’s other English language newspaper The Nation the Southern Regional Police Chief Lt. General Panya Mamen is quoted as saying that the head man’s son was in Bangkok and they expected to make an arrest today (Wed).

The released men who included the manager of the AC Club Montrivet Toovichien are understood to have been able to help police but they had no connection with themselves to the murder and have since angrily denied such allegations.

Montrivet admitted he had followed Sean McAnna to a convenience store earlier this week after a discussion in the AC bar because he was suspicious of McAnna’s explanation of where he was on the night in question.

He is now reported to have said that he needs to get on with his work now and keep tourists happy and to continue to enjoy their holidays.

Meanwhile his elder brother Waraporn Toovichien, head man of Village 1 in Koh Tao held a press conference denying his family had any connection to the murders and offering 1 million Thai baht if any of his relatives or brothers were involved.

There appears to be some disparity, or north-south divide between statements from Lt. General Panya Mamen, and those of General Somyot Pumpunmuang. 

However General Somyot has blamed the ‘social media’ for the image problems and confusion, according to the ‘Bangkok Post’. 

He said ‘groundless reports’ on social media had ‘confused investigators’. In Thailand Facebook is the most commonly used social media with some 24 million users in a population of 62 million.

Pictures of the bodies of Hannah and David were published on several Facebook sights believed to have been circulated by the first medical and police officials on the site.  His comments may have been lost in translation because few international police murder investigators follow Facebook.

The Darkside of Thailand – Time Magazine