WEBVTT - What's Next For The Aussie Charged With Thailand's Suitcase Murder? 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.240 It's a Friday in late June twenty twenty six and 0:00:06.320 --> 0:00:09.320 police in the city of Pataya, Thailand, are scarring through 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:14.120 CCTV footage. They're watching an Australian man going about his Thursday. 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:19.279 He's eating breakfast, buying groceries, doing his laundry, ordinary daily happenings. 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:22.599 But at nine pm they see him leave his unit 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:26.079 under the cover of darkness, wheeling a suitcase behind him. 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:28.640 Instead of going through the front entrance of the accommodation 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:32.879 he's staying at, he exits through a back door. He 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:36.199 rents a scooter, and footage captures him driving through the 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:40.480 streets with the luggage in tow. Suddenly the vision cuts out. 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:43.200 There are no more cameras on that stretch of road. 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:48.479 When the man reappears driving back towards his hotel, the 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:56.160 suitcase is gone. I'm Jemmy Bath and you're listening to 0:00:56.200 --> 0:01:00.960 True Crime Conversations, a podcast exploring the world's mostorious crimes 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.320 by speaking to the people who know the most about them. 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:08.800 The man in the footage was Australian born Simon Peter Carmen, 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:12.240 and later that Friday he was arrested at the airport 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:15.840 about to board a flight because in a suitcase on 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:18.960 the side of the road, investigators found the body of 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:23.200 a teenage girl. Her belongings had been jammed in beside her. 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:28.720 Her name was Tanjanok don Homla, and Carmen has been 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:32.920 charged with her murder. This is a story that made 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:38.120 international headlines, outraging people in Thailand and Australia alike, and 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:41.000 we're only at the start of it. Carmen is about 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:45.200 to face a lengthy, highly publicized court process, while the 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:48.400 family of the girl he allegedly murdered share their grief 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:52.520 with the world. Zach Hope is the Sydney Morning Herald's 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:55.040 Southeast Asia correspondent and has. 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:57.720 Been following this story closely. He joins us. 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:05.600 Now, Zach, thanks for joining us on true crime conversations. 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:08.720 Can you tell me about how you first heard about 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:10.360 this story and what it meant for you as a 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:12.079 correspondent on that side of the world. 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:14.639 Yeah, Well, it was a weekend. 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:19.400 I was out with my family and an email and 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:23.440 a couple of texts started to come through, and straight 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:27.520 away I knew that it would probably be a big one. 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:31.720 Anytime in Australia is in trouble overseas in this part 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:36.840 of the world. I'm often on a plane. 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:35.360 You know. 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:39.280 I don't think we knew at that time sort of 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:42.720 the full well, we didn't have maybe a comprehension of 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:47.639 the full sort of horrors of this story, the backstories 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:49.520 and the grizzliness behind it. 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:53.200 But yeah, I was, I was on a plane. 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:56.760 I was in part of you the next day, I 0:02:56.800 --> 0:03:00.919 believe it's It's been a really big, a really big 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:03.519 couple of weeks as the correspondent in this part of 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:06.120 the world. And I mean just from a sort of 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:10.880 a work perspective. Some of the challenges are filing against 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:16.359 really tight deadlines in time zones that are not very complementary, 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:17.760 and language. 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:18.160 Barriers and. 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:22.240 Access to the right people and this sort of thing. 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:24.600 So these are just all parts part of the challenges 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:25.720 of this role. 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:29.720 Let's start with Simon Peter Carmen. What do we know 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:32.400 about him and his backstory and why he was in 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:33.720 Thailand in the first place. 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.560 There's still a lot that we don't actually know about 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:38.200 this fellow. 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:42.080 He was born in Ballarat forty five years old. 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:45.119 He appears to have lived much of his life in 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:48.760 Western Australia. He was a truck driver for a time. 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:52.880 He seems to have been a guy who spent a 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:55.120 lot of time in Thailand, so he wasn't just a 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:57.960 tourist there for a few days or for a week. 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:00.720 He seems to have lived there sort of on and 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:04.880 off for quite some time. His neighbors in the condominium 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:07.560 where he lived said that he'd been in that particular 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:11.840 unit for about the last eight months, so he was 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:16.000 a long, long term kind of guy in that condominium complex. 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:20.800 It's a multi tower sort of thing which costume the 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:23.360 equivalent of three hundred and thirty Australian dollars a month 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:26.000 to live there, so pretty cheap. Lots of lots of 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:30.080 expats there, lots of lots of older Europeans who have 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:31.800 gone there to retire. 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:33.599 You know. 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:36.640 It's interesting that the area where he lived is called 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:42.440 john t Enne. That's about twenty minutes drive south of Pata. 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:46.239 John Tien is a much quieter Karma sort of place. 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:48.480 That's often where people go to live to get away 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:53.440 from the wild scene of Pata, and that's. 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:58.400 Also where this alleged murder has also taken place. In 0:04:58.520 --> 0:04:59.680 his condominium in. 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:05.120 John Well to move over to Pattaya and to tell 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:07.479 that story, a little bit. It's known as the sex 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:08.920 capital of the world, isn't it. 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:14.440 Yeah, yeah, and I absolutely couldn't disagree. I've never actually 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:19.000 been there before until this story. We stayed in john 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:22.719 Tenn when we were there and before going to pata 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:25.080 And of course it's all part of the same ecosystem, right. 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:27.560 You could call John Tienne Paatea if you're like, it's 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:31.039 sort of a neighboring suburb or satellite kind of neighborhood 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:34.039 or something, you know. But anyway, before going to Patea, 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:36.360 I was in a pub talking to some old grizzled 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:39.400 Englishmen and they sort of said, we've you know, we've 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:40.280 done Paatea. 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:42.920 We've you know, this is more our speed. Now. 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:44.800 It's the kind of place where you can go for 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:47.039 a little while, but you have to check out pretty 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.040 quickly because it's so full on. So I was sort 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:52.799 of prepared for it. But yeah, it's a really really 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:57.040 wild scene. We went down a lot of your listeners 0:05:57.040 --> 0:05:59.400 and viewers would have been to walking street in Patea. 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:03.559 I'm sure the neon lights, the blaring music, the rows 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:09.960 of girls, the men holding little cards for ping pong shows, 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:12.719 and god knows what other shows trying to get you 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:18.279 into their establishments, and then not too far away is 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:21.039 Soy six, which means Street six. And I think that 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:23.360 was even while they're still there, there must have been 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:28.360 at least a thousand young women in bikinis and lingerie 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:30.880 sort of dancing out the front of the bar trying 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:34.400 to entice guys in for a drink and whatever was 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:37.520 to follow after that drink. And you know, this was 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:43.760 this was the low season as well. You know, I 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:45.919 can just imagine what it's like on a weekend in 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:47.080 the high season. 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:47.240 Two. 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:50.479 What is the situation with sex services in Thailand? Is 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:54.240 it legal illegal? Are the kind of things that they 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:55.880 are allowed to do not allowed to do? 0:06:56.120 --> 0:07:01.200 Well, it's a real it's a real grayzone. So brothels 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:08.440 strictly outlawed, pimping strictly outlawed. Prostitution in and of itself 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:10.880 is a little bit more complicated. The way it was 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:14.040 explained to me by a tire legal expert is that 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:16.320 that is not in and of itself and it's not 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:19.400 actually outlawed. And if you go look at the laws, 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:23.600 there are no offenses for prostitution in and of itself, 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:27.720 but there are offenses for doing it openly, shamelessly, or 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:31.200 creating a nuisance. And I think that creates a lot 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:33.560 of gray zone. I mean, for example, what does openly mean? 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:38.040 You know, does that mean just someone coming up and 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:40.800 talking to someone on the street, approaching someone on the street. 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:44.480 Does openly mean you know, wearing skimpy clothes and clearly 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:45.960 presenting as a sex worker? 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:46.640 You know? 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:49.000 So I think that's where the grave zone comes in. 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:53.000 But most people just would just say that it's illegal 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:57.320 essentially just because of this gray zone. But that doesn't 0:07:57.320 --> 0:07:59.920 stop the industry at all. In fact that it's just 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:04.760 absolutely rampant. Everyone knows it's rampant. There's some estimates that 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:07.920 there might be in aarone as many as fifty thousand 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:12.160 sex workers in the high season there. So you know, 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:16.680 if it is illegal, then it's certainly not being policed. 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:19.560 Do people go to this area of Thailand for things 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:23.440 other than sex? Is it a popular tourist spot for 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:25.160 you know, families or anyone else? 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:28.800 Yeah, well, it's it's been trying to rebrand itself as 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:30.840 a spot for families. And there's a nice beach and 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:33.280 it's beautiful weather and all this stuff. And yeah, I 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:35.760 saw a lot of families, even on Walking street. Now, 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:37.720 I wasn't there at two or three o'clock in the morning. 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:39.480 It was sort of more around ten or eleven at night, 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:42.720 and I saw families there taking it in and the 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:45.080 parents who were probably a little bit regretful that. 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:47.880 They've taken their taken taken their kids there. 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:52.240 But as for other people, you know, it's quite funny 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:54.640 because everyone you speak to, they're not there for the girls, 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:55.240 they'll tell you. 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:57.880 So we's both to a lot of men, and none 0:08:57.920 --> 0:08:59.000 of them were there for the girls. 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:01.640 They're you know, they're all there for the clubs and 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:05.200 the drinks and the beach and the good time. So anyway, 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:07.160 there are a lot of other things to do there, 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:13.120 but certainly sex is what is its brand, is what 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:15.480 it's known for, and that's that's what brings in the dollars, 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:16.640 I believe to Pata. 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.640 Do we know if Carmen had been paying for sex 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:22.959 services before this incident. 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.160 There has been some reports about communication and sort of 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:30.960 attempts and chats that he's had with girls, but nothing 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:36.719 official like that has come from police. But yet there 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:40.320 certainly is reporting to that end. We spoke to one 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:44.319 of his neighbors said that he'd never seen you know, 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:47.719 he'd been living next to Carmen this whole time, or 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.360 living down down the hallway from Carmen this whole time, 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:52.800 and I saw him quite a bit and had never 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:56.079 seen him with the girl. But he also said that's 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:58.559 not to say it wasn't happening. You know, they didn't 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:02.880 really mix. Carmen didn't seem to really mix very closely 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:04.680 with many of the neighbors, at least the ones that 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:05.360 we spoke to. 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:07.840 So a bit hard to tell. 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:12.400 Were those neighbors that had had interactions able to kind 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:14.640 of paint a picture of who this guy was in 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.480 terms of behavior or what he was like to live around. 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:22.120 It sounds so cliche to say this, but this is 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:24.280 just what they said to us, and they were very 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:27.440 shocked when this news came out. And that's not to 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:31.720 say that he was sort of a you know, came 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:34.199 across as a lovely guy or anything like that. They 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:36.880 said he could be a little bit difficult at times. 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:38.960 He was the kind of guy who wanted his own way, 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:44.480 but he never caused any trouble at the condominium. He 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:48.200 could sometimes get a bit frustrated at drunk people, but 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:50.880 one lady as she said to us that that's just 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:53.720 normal to get frustrated at drunk people if they're making 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:59.880 a nuisance in your room. The most striking thing that about, 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:04.880 they told us, was his slow manner of speaking, his 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:10.680 slow manner of walking, his slow manner of staring at things. 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:14.000 He does have a scar on the back of his head. 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:17.360 One of his neighbors, actually, a couple of people there 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:21.280 thought that he'd had a tumor at some point and 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:23.439 had an operation on the back. 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:25.319 Of his on the back of his head. 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:28.439 You know. There's been other reports though about maybe an 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:29.440 accident that he had. 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:29.920 At some point. 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:33.880 No one knows for sure, and or you know what, 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:36.480 maybe he was just a natural sort of slow talker 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:39.120 and slow walker. I guess all that sort of information 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:43.120 will come out more fulsomely once the court process begins, 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:43.560 we hope. 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:46.920 Let's bring in tannjannok here. What do we know about 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:48.560 her and her kind of story. 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:55.000 I spent an evening and a morning with her family. 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:58.719 That's in the province of Carlsen in the northeast, in 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:05.200 a pretty small ordinary town called Bumbo. She has a 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:10.880 pretty large extended family. We know that her mother left 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:15.760 the family when she was still a baby, her father 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:22.440 and her great aunts raised her. What her father told 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:27.080 us and is a source of immense sort of shame 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:29.960 and grief and regret on his part, is that he 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:34.400 was jailed from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty three for 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:39.040 drug offenses. He was caught with some with pills on him, 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:41.120 which he says was for personal use, but he got 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:47.200 put away for prison for having trafficable amount. But those 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:52.959 years were in Karachuk don Homler's formative years. And this 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:55.880 is a really poor family and her father was the 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:59.480 principal breadwinner, so when he was in prison, they really struggled. 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:00.720 They were really destitute. 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:04.720 And even once he came out, he's not earning very 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:08.880 much money at all. He's a freelance farmhand essentially, and 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:12.920 while his income fluctuates, it averages to that the equivalent 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:15.760 of two hundred and fifty Australian dollars a month, so 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:21.160 that's not very much and a tonachuk. She did used 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:24.360 to go to school, but her family says that she 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:28.840 was bullied and teased at school because in part because 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:31.280 her mother had gone and her father was in prison. 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:33.800 So you can maybe imagine some of the cruel kind 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:36.480 of things that was said to her in the playground. 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:40.120 Whether she was still attending schools was a little bit 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:43.760 harder to get to. Her family say she hadn't left school, 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:48.040 but she was doing a different curriculum that didn't require 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:52.800 her to be on person at the school premises all 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:57.160 the time, So still a little bit of uncertainty about that. 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:03.760 She didn't have many friends, and her father said that 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:08.720 he didn't necessarily approve of her latest batch of frenzy, 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:13.800 didn't specify why, but he wasn't going to step in 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:15.760 and get in the way of those friendships because she 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:20.200 didn't have others. And so when one of those friends 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:26.440 proposed a trip to Pata Tanachuk wanted to go, and 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:31.480 her father, feeling this intense grief and shame and wanting 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:34.160 to give everything that he possibly could to his daughter, 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:38.240 said she could go and gave it the equivalent of 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:41.160 about forty dollars to help her on her way. She 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:44.440 was only supposed to go for a short time, he said, 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:48.880 And he said that the reason that she'd given was 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:51.400 for a holiday to Potato, and she wanted to see 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:52.160 the beach. 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:56.840 And as far as they knew, they didn't know that 0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:59.239 she would be involved in sex services. 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:03.640 Absolutely not. No, they're still very uncomfortable about that detail. 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:08.040 It's it's in the police report that she and Simon 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:14.920 Carmen had agreed to sexual services. They're very uncomfortable about that. 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:18.720 They are still wrapping their heads around it. Of course 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:21.240 they're going to try and defend their daughter, but they 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:23.840 say that wasn't what she was doing back home. 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:25.720 She wasn't into drugs. 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:29.560 And her father, you know, said to me, what sort 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:32.920 of father would allow her to do that kind of work. 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:38.800 So whether it was an opportunistic thing, whether she was 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:42.560 taken advantage of in some way, that's still a playout. 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:47.640 After the break, Zach tells me what happened at three 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:50.840 am on the morning of June twenty five, when Tanjanok 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:56.600 met Simon Carmen. Can you talk us through what we 0:15:56.720 --> 0:16:01.640 know happened because the pair no met at about three am, 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:05.440 and a lot of this story, I guess is captured 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:06.720 on CCTV camera. 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:08.440 We can kind of see their movements. 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:10.520 Yeah. 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:14.240 So they yeah, they met it at three am on 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:18.360 the twenty fifth of June at near the beach and 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:22.200 say seven in John ten so not in pata in 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:26.400 john Ten one of the friends that Cake and that's 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:29.240 what her friends called That's what Tinner Chook's friends and 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:32.400 family called her Cake. One of Cake's friends who was 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:38.000 with her then filmed the pair walking off, not in a. 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:40.640 Not in a like a. 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:46.440 Sort of a scared or you know, worried kind of 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:49.720 way filming. It seemed, you know, the friend even sort 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:52.200 of made a bit of a like a gesture sort 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:55.800 of thing, almost like a celebritory gesture. Off they go, 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:59.600 So there were no red flags at that point. At 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:04.800 about three point thirty, they've arrived back at Carmen's condominium 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:09.280 and that's where the CCTV cameras capture them in the foyer, 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:13.880 and it captures them disappearing at the elevator. They would 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:16.399 have then got off at Carmen's fifteenth floor and walked 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:22.119 to his room twenty building. What happens next is only 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:27.440 one person alive to give their version of events. When 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:33.359 Simon Carmen was first attained, he said that he didn't 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:36.359 have anything to do with it, but later they started 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:39.920 to present the police started to presenting with evidence, and 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:45.200 that evidence is the same CCTV cameras in his condominium 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:50.040 capturing him about eighteen hours after they had first entered, 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:54.800 leaving with the suitcase, and then less than an hour 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:58.840 later he returns without that suitcase. And now there's also 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:02.879 other CTTV cameras around Pataya and Jumpedy and that have 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:06.560 captured him driving on a motorbike with that suitcase strapped 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:09.960 to the back. So once they've started to present him 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:13.879 with that, then he as according to police, this is 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:18.600 what police have told us. He then said, yes, this happened, 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:22.560 but that he was acting in self defense and that 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:24.639 Cake had come at him with a knife. 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:27.280 I want to get to those details in a minute, 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:30.560 but first I'm I'm astounded by how quickly the police 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:34.040 moved in this, because you know he was at an 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:35.560 airport by Friday night. 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:39.800 How did they clue into this and get him so quickly? 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:45.560 It was extremely, extremely quick. The police colonel said that 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:49.160 he had had as soon as this woman, as soon 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:53.920 as Cake was reported missing, and that a foreigner was involved. 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:55.840 He said that he had a bad feeling about this 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:59.880 because this sort of thing has happened before. So rather 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:03.679 then just doing the usual missing person report and waiting 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:07.040 for them that missing person to give. 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:08.560 Him a couple of days to turn up again. 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:14.399 They've immediately cracked into gear, so the Cake's friends knew 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:18.080 where Cake had gone and police were then able to 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:22.199 go and look at that CCTV footage, so they whizzed 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:25.400 through the whole thing, so they saw the suitcase coming down, 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:29.680 they saw Carmen returning without the suitcase, and then they've moved. 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:33.800 They've they've then seen CCTV of him leaving with another suitcase, 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:37.199 presumably going to the airport, so they've moved really quickly 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:41.040 from there. They've notified immigration authorities who have picked him 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:44.480 up at the Bangkoks of an a Bum airport just 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:45.880 minutes before he was about. 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:48.920 To get on a flight, a flight back to Australia, right, 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:52.760 that's right, yes, And if he'd made that flight, would 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:55.600 the tie authorities been able to get him back, well, 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:56.160 they would have. 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:59.320 Been an interesting one. They would have wanted him back, 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:03.520 no doubt. Thailand, of course has a death penalty, so 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:09.000 Australia would not extradite someone if the death penalty was 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:11.520 on the table, So I think what would have happened 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:14.080 then there would have been a negotiation between the governments. 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:16.399 Maybe they would have agreed to take that off the table. 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:19.919 And then maybe he would have been extradited back to 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:25.040 Thailand to face court, but I guess that's a hypothetical. 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:25.240 Now. 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:29.560 Yeah, well, they detained him, arrested him, and they immediately 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:32.800 noticed that he had injuries on his body. 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:33.679 Can you tell us about that? 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:38.720 Yeah, he had what appeared to be scratch marks, and 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:43.000 even some of the published photos that police have released 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:46.639 just of him being detained, if you look closely, you 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:49.359 can see some of the scratch marks or alleged scratch 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:53.000 marks on his body. What the police told us was 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:56.960 that when the immigration authorities at the airport noticed those 0:20:57.000 --> 0:21:00.880 and asked what they were all about, and then allegedly 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:02.520 said that he'd been in a fight with one of 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:03.280 his friends, and. 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:04.000 That's what they were. 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:09.600 But as I said, once they got him back to 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:13.880 the to the police station and presented him with evidence, 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:17.720 that's when his story started to change, and he admit 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:21.720 that there had been a struggle with Cake and that 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:25.920 he was protecting himself and that he had strangled her 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:30.959 and didn't intend to kill it. He then moved her 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:34.320 into the bathroom, and what he told us police was 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:37.800 that when he realized that she was no longer alive, 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:39.320 that's when he put her in the suitcase. 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:43.280 So he has been charged with murder, concealment of a body, 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:45.920 and moving or destroying a body, and taking a miner 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:49.480 for indecent acts. As you mentioned, the death penalties on 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:50.200 the table here. 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:53.119 That's correct, that's correct, depending on who you asked. The 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:56.400 legal scholar that I spoke to seems to think that 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:00.760 if convicted, it would be quite likely that he would receive. 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:01.280 The death penalty. 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:02.960 Really, but there's. 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:07.439 The big caveat is that precedent for Thailand's king to 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:12.679 commute people on death row. So there hasn't been an 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:19.280 execution in Thailand since two thousand and eighteen. Just last year, 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:24.639 Amnesty International's report said, I believe it was one hundred 0:22:24.640 --> 0:22:27.360 and nineteen people were given death sentences in Thailand mark 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:30.480 just last year. But it is precedent for the king 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:34.119 to commute those sentences the life imprisonment, and that often 0:22:34.160 --> 0:22:40.639 happens on celebration occasions like his birthday or the queen's birthday, 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:44.440 this sort of thing. So what would happen then if 0:22:44.440 --> 0:22:48.879 his sentence would be commuted by the king, then he 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:51.919 would probably be given life imprisonment, which would be a 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:54.520 minimum of fifteen years, and after fifteen years he could 0:22:54.560 --> 0:23:00.200 again petition the king to have his sentence commuted again. 0:23:00.400 --> 0:23:02.639 Of course, this is if he's convicted, because you know, 0:23:02.760 --> 0:23:07.879 he claims he claims self defense. So we'll just have 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:10.199 to we'll just have to see what the what the 0:23:10.240 --> 0:23:12.520 court decides in that manner of the tight court. 0:23:12.880 --> 0:23:16.280 We do have two videos that are circulating from the 0:23:16.320 --> 0:23:19.280