Australian murder suspect Simon Peter Carman shopped and did laundry while girl’s body lay in suitcase, police say
Updated ,first published
Warning: Graphic content
Jomtien, Thailand: A young girl accused of murder by Australian Simon Peter Carman claims that she was busy doing mundane tasks such as shopping, eating out and doing laundry while she lay stuffed in a suitcase in her room in a Thai seaside town for hours.
Quick detective work and a network of CCTV cameras recording the 45-year-old’s seemingly mundane comings and goings on Thursday led to Carman’s arrest at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport the next day, just minutes before boarding a flight to Australia.
“While he was being detained by immigration officers at the airport, they noticed him. [apparent scratch] There are injuries,” Pattaya City police colonel Anek Srathongyoo said on Monday.
“He explained that he was out at night and had a fight with a friend, which is why he had these marks.
“It wasn’t until he came to us and we showed him the evidence that he began to accept what had happened, starting with the footage of him dragging the suitcase, loading it on the back of his motorcycle and driving away for about 10 to 20 minutes and then returning without the suitcase.”
Police said Carman, who was born in Ballarat and lives in Western Australia, claimed self-defence.
He is accused of picking up 17-year-old Thanchanok Donhomla for sex around 3 a.m. on Thursday and bringing her back to his unit at a multi-tower complex in Jomtien, a satellite district of Pattaya, about 150 kilometers south of Bangkok. Those who knew him said he had been living in the tower for at least eight months.
CCTV footage shows the couple holding hands in the foyer and climbing up to the 15th floor at 3.34am. Nong Cake, as the victim was known to people close to him, was never seen leaving the complex.
Just a week ago he had traveled alone from northeastern Thailand to Jomtien to meet friends; One of his friends reported him missing when he didn’t show up on Friday.
“Normally we would raise a missing person alert. But in this case, something didn’t seem right to me,” Sthongyoo said.
“There have been cases before where a foreign suspect committed a crime and then ran to catch a flight out of the country. So I told my team to check whether the missing person report was genuine… and then decided to go back to where it all started with the CCTV footage.” [at the condo tower].”
Thanchanok may have already been dead when one of Carman’s neighbors saw him eating breakfast at the complex. Cameras in his building capture him doing ordinary activities throughout the day and talking to people in the foyer.
“From 3.30am to 9pm, when he disposed of the body, he seemed to be going about his daily routine as usual. We watched each clip. He went downstairs to get food, bought some groceries, washed his clothes; everything seemed completely normal,” Srathongyoo said.
“Then we got to the part of the footage where he was with the bag… but instead of going out the front entrance, he went out the back door.” CCTV footage shows him wandering the streets with a suitcase strapped to the back of his rented scooter and then returning without it.
The researchers’ problem was that there was no camera view along the two-kilometer route. Srathongyoo then sent 10 inspectors to comb the entire area with thick grass and found a suitcase just a few hours after Carman was detained at the airport on Friday.
Inside was Thanchanok’s naked, distorted body. Srathongyoo said his clothes and belongings – an e-cigarette, phone and several receipts – were stuffed into the spaces between his limbs.
Srathongyoo said Carman eventually told investigators that the girl came at him with a knife and strangled him, killing him unintentionally. Thai media reported that the two had argued over just $20, but Srathongyoo did not comment on this because Thanchanok was not alive to tell his version.
Carman faces three charges: murder, concealing a corpse and transporting or destroying a corpse, and taking a minor for indecent acts.
In a video taken after his arrest, Carman addressed the victim’s family and said he felt “bad” about the incident.
“I’m sorry about what happened to your daughter. It was out of my control,” he said. “I know you’ll be very sad, upset, just like me. It shouldn’t be like this and I hope you’re okay. I know you’re not but I hope so and please tell the other girls…to be careful.”
The victim’s father, Thongchai Donhomla, expressed his grief outside a police station in Pattaya.
“I was very sad. My daughter did not have a mother because we have been divorced since she was two years old,” she said in an interview with Thailand’s TMN Cable TV Pattaya channel.
“He was a good kid. When he wanted something, he would always find a way, and he always helped me. He never bothered me.”
Carman lived for a time in an industrial corner of Rockingham, a coastal city in Western Australia, about 50 kilometers south of Perth. He previously owned firearms, but WA court records show his license was revoked and the firearms were seized by the state police commissioner. An appeal against the move was rejected in 2024.
Murder conviction in Thailand May be sentenced to death penalty or 15 to 20 years in prison.
with Michael Philipps
Take notes directly from our foreign country reporters about things that make headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What’s on in the World Newsletter.
Zach Hope is a Southeast Asia correspondent. He is a former reporter for the Brisbane Times.Connect via email.
