Slow progress in murder and rape cases

PHUKET: The police have admitted that investigations of two recent headline-grabbing cases have not being going as well as they had hoped. In the case of the mutilated corpse of an unidentified woman found in Kathu on October 7, Pol Maj Withoon Kongsoodchai, Inspector of Tung Tong Police Station, said, “There has been almost no evidence that points us towards the murderer. “Many people have contacted Tung Tong police station to look photos of the woman taken on the day the body was found. But so far none of them has identified her,” case investigator Capt Teerarat Choychanchaikul told the Gazette. Police have meanwhile visited more than 100 laundries in Phuket, trying to identify which one might have written the number 15 in blue ink on the woman’s blue batik wrap-around sarong. So far, they have drawn a blank. Anyone with information is urged to contact Tung Tong Police Station at 321182 or 321516. Meanwhile, progress on solving the rape of a 22-year-old British tourist, Dawn Farmer, on October 3 in Phuket Town, has also been slow. Pol Gen Pornsak Durongkavibulya, Commissioner-General of the Royal Thai Police, ordered provincial police to arrest the perpetrator within seven days, but Pol Capt Cherdpong Chiewpreecha, Deputy Investigator at Phuket Town Police Station, told the Gazette that they are still hunting the perpetrator. Capt Cherdpong said that one problem has been the victim’s inability to give more details of the license plate of her rapist’s motorbike because she could not read the Thai alphabet. She told police that the plate contained the number 50 or 51. “This has made it hard for us to track down the motorcycle,” the captain said. “There are about 2,000 motorbikes with those numbers in their plates. “We have questioned five men who appear similar to the sketch of the man drawn from Ms Farmer’s description, but she was sure that some of them were not the rapist, and was not certain about the others.” Forensic medical testing had subsequently cleared all five. Ms Farmer is now traveling around Thailand and is still in touch with Phuket Town police, Capt Cherdpong says, adding that her current whereabouts cannot be revealed.