O’Hanlon murder suspect surrenders

PATONG: Paul Chetwynd-Talbot, sought for the murder of his girlfriend, Debra O’Hanlon, who was found dead on Tuesday afternoon (see story here), turned himself in to the police last night.

Pol Col Teeraphol Tipjaroen, Superintendent of Kathu Police Station, told the Gazette that Talbot had come to the front of the police station at about 8pm last night and had sat there doing nothing until a police officer asked him if he needed something.

“The officer walked up to him and asked whether he wanted to report something to the police and he said, yes, he was the one who had killed Debra,” Col Teeraphol said.

“He said that he had tried to commit suicide by cutting his wrists after he killed Debra in the room [the couple were sharing in Nanai Rd].

“This explains why we found so much blood at the scene of the murder. There were deep wounds in his wrists, the tendons were slashed and he had lost a lot of blood. He looked a wreck; no one could recognize him,” Col Teeraphol added.

Col Teeraphol said that Chetwynd-Talbot, when asked where he had been since the murder, told police that he had been sitting on the beach or walking aimlessly along the sand.

He was charged with murder and taken for treatment at Wachira Phuket Hospital.

The Times newspaper in Britain has reported that the accused man is a member of the family of the Earl of Shrewsbury, Charles Henry John Benedict Crofton Chetwynd Chetwynd-Talbot, and described him as the “black sheep of the family”.

Chetwynd-Talbot is, according to The Times report, not a blood relative of the Earl, but received the family name “through a female member of the clan”.

His namesake, Paul Alexander Anthony Bueno Chetwynd-Talbot, told the newspaper, “He has been the bane of my life for years. Every time he runs up a debt, people come on to me about it.

“He is a thoroughly bad lot who has gone round causing a lot of trouble. I have never met this character,” he continued.

“I have had telephone calls from people on whom he has bounced checks, which is always extremely annoying.”

Friends of the couple, speaking to the Gazette yesterday before he surrendered, said that they believed Chetwynd-Talbot had debts in Phuket of around 100,000 baht.

Pol Maj Gen Suwit Othong, Phuket Provincial Police Commander, was quoted in The Times as saying that investigators believe that Chetwynd-Talbot had tried to cheat Ms O’Hanlon out of money.

However, a friend of the couple, speaking to the Gazette before the arrest said, “The idea that [the murder] was in any way for financial gain is just out of the question.

“They would have shared whatever they had. Whatever she had, he could – in a pinch – have persuaded her to share with him, and vice versa.”