Immigration officers pulled a 46 year old Australian man off a flight to Australia at Suvarnabhumi Airport, just five minutes before takeoff, after police traced him to the disappearance of a 17 year old girl whose body was later discovered stuffed inside a suitcase by a Pattaya railway line.
The victim, a Kalasin native known only as Cake, vanished after a night out near Jomtien Beach on June 25. Her body turned up two days later, setting off a fast-moving manhunt that ended on the tarmac of Thailand’s busiest airport.
Cake’s friends told police she was in regular contact with them until around 3.44am on June 25, after which she went silent. CCTV footage placed her walking hand in hand with an Australian man not long before that, heading into a condominium near the beach around 3am. The pair were filmed riding a lift up to a room on the 15th floor. No camera ever caught her leaving.
It took more than a day for the silence to raise alarm. A friend, unable to reach her, filed a missing person report with Pattaya police on the morning of June 26.
Detectives turned to the condominium’s security cameras and found their answer there. Footage allegedly showed the man, later identified as Peter Carman, also known by the alias Simon, walking out of the building alone at around 9.30pm on June 25, hauling a 29 inch black suitcase behind him. Other clips reportedly showed him lashing the case to the back of a motorcycle before heading towards a railway stretch near Chaiyaphruek Road. He vanished from view for roughly nine minutes, then reappeared back at the condominium without the suitcase.
When police searched his room, they reported finding signs of a struggle, but by then Carman was already gone. Within hours, immigration checkpoints across the country had been put on alert to stop him from leaving Thailand.
Arrest at the Airport
The net closed that evening at Suvarnabhumi. Immigration officers identified Carman as he readied to board his flight home and arrested him five minutes before departure. Officers said they noticed scratch marks on his neck and arms, the kind investigators often associate with a struggle. Questioned, Carman denied knowing anything about Cake’s disappearance and said he had simply been asleep. Police held him under a warrant tied to the alleged abduction of a minor while the investigation continued.
Suitcase Discovery
Armed with the CCTV trail, investigators zeroed in on a patch of grass beside the railway tracks in Pattaya’s Chaiyaphruek area. Shortly after midnight on June 27, they recovered the suitcase there and found Cake’s body inside. Her clothing, underwear, wallet and shoes were packed in alongside her, matching exactly what she had been wearing in the condominium footage.
Police have not disclosed a cause of death. The body has been sent for a full forensic autopsy.
Investigation Continues
Officers have seized the motorcycle they believe was used to move the suitcase and are now running DNA and fingerprint tests on the evidence collected. Carman has been transferred back to Pattaya, where police are working to establish a motive and prepare further charges against him.
News of the arrest has spread quickly across the resort city, with many residents pointing to the coordination between Pattaya police and immigration as the reason Carman was stopped before he could fly out of the country, reported Pattaya Mail.
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