a family grieves for Cake, the teen killed in alleged Pattaya suitcase murder

Ban Bo, Thailand: When he returns from work in the evening, Thongchai Donhomla still smells his daughter’s perfume. He says he’s stepping away from his room to relax, and reminds her that his spirit may still be nearby.

But now he must go and be in peace, he says from his sparse home in the small town of Ban Bo in northeastern Thailand’s Kalasin province. “The soul cannot hold a grudge.”

But the living need not be so forgiving.

Donhomla and other grieving family members of 17-year-old Thanchanok Donhomla in Ban Bo want the alleged killer, Australian Simon Peter Carman, to face fair justice and, if found guilty, to be punished to the fullest extent permitted by Thai law, namely execution.

“One life for one,” says Mee Boonsert, 75, one of two great-aunts who played a central role in raising Thanchanok when his biological mother left when he was a baby.

Carman, 45, is accused of killing Thanchanok, or Cake as he was known, in the early hours of June 25 near the tourist and expat hub of Pattaya, about 600 kilometers from his hometown.

Family members rushed to Pattaya after being told she was missing, but on the way they learned her body had been found stuffed inside a suitcase and dumped in the tall grass next to the railway tracks.

Her aunt, Miruntree Thanachai, went to the scene of the alleged crime (Carman’s squalid $330-a-month unit) to assist in the ritual of returning the spirit home.

He noticed a pile of dirty dishes and clothes. “He was a dirty man,” she says. However, the most curious items were “three or four” women’s bags and other items that appeared to be women’s clothing.

According to the official police report seen here, the couple allegedly met at 3 a.m. and “both parties agreed to provide sexual services.” Cake’s family is disturbed by this detail. She had never been a sex worker and wondered “what father would let his daughter do this?” Donhomla says. He also says that he does not use drugs and that he was a bright student when he was in school. He had gone to Pattaya for what, as far as they knew, was supposed to be a “short” holiday.

“Cake had a transgender friend [from a neighbouring district] Donhomla said he came and stayed with her at my house and asked her if she wanted to go to Pattaya. [Cake] I wanted to go. He said he wanted to see the beach. “He asked us for some money, and even though we didn’t have much money, we gave him what we could.”

Like many fathers, Donhomla had a hard time letting his daughter down. But he explains that this was compounded by the shame and guilt he felt resulting from his four-year prison sentence from 2019 for drug offences. The free time left Cake and other members of the family who relied on his meager income destitute.

The family says that with his father in prison and his biological mother out of his life, Cake was mercilessly teased and bullied, leading him to abandon the regular curriculum and replace much of what he was learning with other school-approved activities.

“I couldn’t be there for Cake, so when I got back from prison, I wanted to give him everything I could,” Donhomla says.

He works as a farm laborer and earns an average of $250 a month, well below the minimum wage in Thailand.

“Sometimes he wanted a new phone, but they were too expensive and I couldn’t afford it. I felt bad because I couldn’t meet his needs,” she says.

Cake, who had about $40 from his father and $80 from his great-aunts, got on a bus with his friend on June 16 and went to the neon lights of the party town Pattaya. He promised to bring clothes to his six-month-old cousin, Wayu.

Donhomla says she called him several times, including asking for additional money, but never in the four or five days before he disappeared, which is unusual.

Once in Pattaya, Cake met up with another friend of Donhomla’s, a transgender woman he had never met or seen before. He says this is the person seen in the photographs he encountered in the Australian’s squalid apartment on June 26, when Cake did not return. By then, it had already been dumped in a suitcase next to the railroad tracks.

Donhomla rushed to Pattaya when she was told her daughter was missing. During the journey, he received the sad news that the woman was found dead.

“I was shocked, I couldn’t accept it,” he says. “I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t eat.”

Not only Cake, but also the family’s sense of confidence in the future has been stolen. Who will take care of his father and great-aunts when they can no longer take care of themselves? Little Wayu is now the extended family’s future sole provider.

Pattaya police said Carman claimed self-defense and attacked him with a knife during a fight over money.

Cake’s family brought him home to Ban Bo in a police van on Monday night last week. He was cremated on Tuesday morning and his remains were interred in a small golden urn placed at the base of the Buddhist temple’s perimeter wall.

His room is now empty except for a miniature dresser, old sepia-colored family photos and a social media ring light kit that his father says he rarely uses. In accordance with the family’s beliefs, most of his other belongings were burned next to his body. One day the smell of the perfume will disappear.

A date has not yet been set for Carman’s first hearing.