Even though it was dark outside, I could see Charlie’s face turn white—dead white—and he didn’t take his eyes off of me nor blink as he walked around the table, found a chair and slowly sat down.
I need to tell you something, he said, visibly shaken.
He said it with such sickness, for a moment one would think he was about to confess to all the killings himself.
I was there, barely whispering and now looking down at the ground. I was there and was on that beach with a girl and something made me stop. Do you know what kind of force is going to stop a 20-something year-old on a tropical beach half-drunk and half-naked with a beautiful girl? Something… something powerful. But I remember feeling it and telling her we had to stop and that we needed to get out of there. I felt something or someone watching us and I never knew what it was and I always wondered.
He slowly raised his face back to mine and I could see he was petrified. It might have happened nine years ago, but based on his reaction, it seemed to have taken place that very night.
And now, now I know. Now I know what I felt was evil and now I know why we ran away from there and now I know. When was it again?
I gave him the dates of the last slaying.
That’s two months before I was there, he said. It happened while I was there.
I honestly thought he was going to throw up.
And now I have an answer, he said.
And now I have an ending, I said right back to him. I’ve had this story for three years now and never could finish it and never knew why.
But now I know.
Now I know had I finished it, we’d probably not be having this conversation.
And you would have never gotten an answer as to why you felt what you did, and why you left that beach in a hurry.
Now you know.
And now I can finish the story.
The story of Murder Island.
This is how they get you! I thought, my hand inches away from her jaundiced face. She’s totally faking it and one of them is going to bludgeon me to death just like they did with that other couple and then drop me off at the bottom of this hill and then just tell the cops that I was another drunk tourist or something.
The results of this inner monologue didn’t exactly make me the most popular guy in the rescue operation—stopping our little envoy as we headed down the mountain, carrying a hyperventilating lady on a gurney. Stopping so that I could change my position from being at the front + facing-forward + holding on with my right hand, to switching to the left + turning 180 degrees around so that now I could face them… meaning I was walking backwards. Sure, I looked ridiculous and sure, they were probably rethinking asking me — the biggest guy in the village — to help them and sure, the lady who was needing to get to the hospital could now add extreme annoyance at Amercians to her list of ails, but this was going to keep me alive.
Because what many tend to forget is that in this tropical Thai paradise – peppered with hidden coves, fresh cheap seafood and bottomless SangSom rum – the sunsets here on Koh Tao are to die for…
Literally.
For you see, the destination printed on the ferry ticket is known by a different name.
Something much more different.
Due to its popularity, I hadn’t planned on visiting what many, including my close friend Scott, called “the best island in Thailand”, but, as Covid would have it, this, along with every other destination in the world, was barren. I had plenty of time to kill as I waited on the Malaysian border to open up, so I thought I’d go ahead and check Koh Tao out. My mindset of travel these days was more present — a mixture of hey, these spots are empty / why not? and besides, when will I ever be back in Asia again? — Don’t get me wrong, though. Asia, especially SE Asia, is gorgeous and great and I was having a wonderful time and couldn’t have been luckier to have been “stuck” in Thailand, but Southeast Asia is a younger man’s game… a younger man or or a much, much older man’s… if you know what I mean.
And so off I set on the migrant worker’s overnight ferry — a no-frills-yet-fun-because-of-that seven-hour crossing from Chumphon to Koh Tao, excited to have paradise all to myself.
It was still dark when we arrived on Koh Tao at a bleary-eyed 5am, so I sat on the concrete pylon and ate some leftover mango sticky rice from the night before until it got light enough, then made my way to the (ridiculously cheap) resort overlooking the western edge of the island — far above the saturated touristy area of Sairee Beach — complete with a pool and hammocks hanging in every cabana… and it was all mine. Literally all mine. Not a single soul on the property, save for the occasional visit from Raymond, the kind, but easily distracted Burmese caretaker.
I posted a photo on Instagram of the stunning view, doing what the kids refer to as a “humblebrag”, but within minutes, my friend Amelie ruined all of that with a simple message:
“Death Island! Have fun!!”
At first I thought she was being very French-Canadian and implying ironically that because it was paradise, I might never leave slash die there, but half an hour on Google told me that only half of that statement was true, and I would spend the remainder of that first day going down the rabbit hole of why — and worse, how — this island got its nickname: Murder Island.
And that would be the 11 grisly and unexplained murders of foreign tourists in the past eight years.
Alone in the hammock with night falling, that previous excitement about being far away from any other tourist suddenly was not as celebratory as it was a few hours ago. No one could hear me start up a jet engine, much less scream. And even then, I was guessing that people on this island had made a habit of ignoring the occasional tourist’s scream.
Knowing I needed to sleep, I took a few big swigs of my SangSom whiskey and tried to convince myself of a few weak and probably untrue comforts.
The murders were a long time ago (except, that it wasn’t; 2018 being the last)
None of them were American (silly to think, sure, but being from a nation of violence does sometimes work in our favor)
After the NYTimes piece in Nov ‘18 — the first publication to name it “Death Island” — surely that caused them to stop (possible).
But none of that helps when all of the lights are off and you’re stuck in an easily-breached bungalow with only a tire pump and some leftover mango sticky rice to wield against any would-be attackers.
But I survived and the next morning, I pushed away the dark cloud hanging over me on a cloudless day and decided to rent a motorbike for the week and explore the town. I convinced myself that it was barely more than one murder a year and there must be millions that come to Koh Tao every year (6,000,000 in 2019 alone) so that was actually a pretty small number. And, let’s be honest, most of these victims were British and if you’ve ever seen a Brit on holiday, you can almost justify these murders.
$50 + a downpayment + an expired New York drivers license later and I was on a scooter, headed into town. The first stop was breakfast down on Sairee Beach, a mile-long stretch of white sand, peppered with decent cafes and terrible bars, sadly the common landscape in SE Asia. But as I sat with a banana pancake and Americano in a cafe down on the beach called “El Toro”, I glanced to my left and towards a familiar rock formation. Familiar, I should say, from the previous night’s story about the 2015 murders of Hannah Witheridge and David Miller, whose bodies were found right behind those rocks after being bludgeoned to death with a garden hoe.
Both from England, they had met that evening at the AC Beach Club, a bar less than 100 feet from where I sat. After a few hours drinking inside, they walked out onto the beach…
And that would be the last anyone would hear from them.
Their bodies were found between those rock formations the next morning by a mute Burmese worker and it immediately it became an international story — both for the brutality, but also because of the Thai Prime Minister, who turned the blame on Hannah Witheridge with his press statement “I’m asking if they wear bikinis in Thailand, will they be safe? Only if they are not pretty.” This vile response would eventually be walked back on his part, shifting blame then to the “not-good people... such as unregistered alien workers” for the crimes.
And blame they would get, as within days of the murders, every Burmese worker was rounded up and put through numerous investigatory tests—some hinging on the bizarre, possibly for show; “They even filmed me running on the beach with a special camera to check my steps and feet,” said Raymond, my hotel caretaker that I mentioned , who was more than willing to talk about something I assumed most anyone would be silent about, “and they kept me overnight in the jail, but fortunately I had a good excuse. I was drunk and passed out in a bar and they got it on the CCTV.”
Lucky for Raymond, sure, but not for the two other Burmese workers - Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Tun - who confessed to killing both Witheridge and Miller that night. I italicized confessed because both claim to have been tortured. And while the police-appointed doctor found no injuries, the prison doctors testified to them both having numerous bruises. Their Burmese translator also claimed he was tortured, with a plastic bag being put over his head and suffocated until he passed out. The ongoing joke is that “You’ll never meet a Thai on Koh Tao”, as the island is 5000 people: 3000 expats/tourists at any given time, and 2000 workers, majority of them being Burmese and all of them basically without rights. Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Tun would sit on death row from 2015-2020, but on August 15th, a month after I left the island, their sentences would be commuted from their the death penalty (changed in 2003 from firing squad to lethal injection, I might add) to life in prison - all by a royal decree.
But mysterious/unanswered deaths of tourists weren’t anything new, and the brutal murdering of tourists had begun years before Hannah Witheridge and David Miller were killed.
The first of these took place in 2012 when Ben Harrington, 32, from the UK, was found dead from a broken neck after crashing his motorbike into a pylon. However, upon arriving on the scene, the paramedics noticed that both his wallet and phone had gone missing. Because of this — along with a considerable amount of pressure from both his Mother and the British press — a second autopsy was done, finding that he died of transected aorta (a rupture of the body’s largest artery and a common cause of death in vehicular accidents), as opposed to a broken neck, which was originally reported. However, the coroner in the U.K., after examining the body, refused to write the word “accident” on his report, and still contests that it was not. So what would it have been, if not a simple drunk driving tragedy? His Mother and others claim it was the practice of locals using tripwires to cause tourists to crash, and then robbing them afterwards. Far-fetched? Sure. But I’ve had it done to me—2010 in Saigon, when two young men attempted to throw a large 2x4 into the road as my then-girlfriend and I were driving home (I swerved, they missed, but the next day at work, I’d be told this was a common method of mugging). But still pretty far-fetched and not taken too seriously.
But that was about to change.
Three years later, in 2015, Nick Pearson, 25, also from the UK, was found floating face-down in a bay at the bottom of a 50 ft drop on New Year’s Day, 2014. Despite the quote-unquote fall, he was found with no broken bones, but did show—as in the testimony from a pathologist, Dr. Michael Biggs—that there were severe wounds to the head, limbs and face — none of which were consistent with being dropped. The local cops immediately ruled out foul play, but Nick’s family (still) claims that the officers did not detain, nor investigate, a single witness.
9 months after that, the aforementioned Hannah Witheridge and David Miller were found bludgeoned to death a few yards from where I now sit writing this.
But the murders didn’t stop — despite the island’s deaths now making international headlines.
Another murder, also on New Year's Day, in a remote part of the island, Frenchman Dimitri Povse was found hanging in his bungalow. Police immediately ruled it a suicide, going so far as to leak the photos (which can still be seen online), but after outside investigations, photos show that his hands were tied behind his back — making the act of self-strangulation nearly impossible. How do you bind your own wrists and then tie a noose? One of the many questions asked by the French press.
12 days after that, Cristina Annesley, another British tourist, was reported to have died in her hotel from natural causes due to mixing alcohol with antibiotics. When pressed for the toxicology report, the local authorities admitted that no report had been done, and their conclusion was simply speculation due to finding medication in her belongings, and having been seen by witnesses that night drinking in a club. Further attempts at questioning the arriving officers were squashed by the local police force.
March, 2015 - a 23 year-old Russian tourist named Valentina Novozhyonova disappeared. The staff of the hostel found her passport, phone and camera amongst her belongings, but to date, she has not been found. Nor did she ever take a boat off the island. Nor has she ever returned to Russia.
January 2016, Luke Miller, also from the UK, was found facedown in the pool of Sunset Bar - located on the main stretch of Saraii Beach. His family continues to claim that this is a cover-up, and many have speculated that his family name of “Miller” might have been the reasons for his murder, as whoever was responsible for the death of David Miller (no relation) might have thought it to have been a family member coming to take revenge, and simply executed the would-be related vigilante before he could act.
It was quiet for over a year, but on April 28th, 2017 one of the more grisly deaths — which is saying something at this point — took place. Belgian backpacker Elise Dallemagne, 30 years old, was found half-eaten by lizards on the opposite side of the island from where she originally checked in - a fact mentioned only because her original guesthouse room had been set on fire (reasons still unknown) the previous evening, and she had since moved to the other side of Koh Tao, booking that room under a fake name. Local authorities seemed to hint that her involvement with the Sathya Sai Baba cult — one of the more famed “snake oil” organizations — had something to do with what they called another “suicide”, but phone records show a call to her mother, Michelle Dallemagne, about having booked a ticket for Bangkok leaving on the 24th, and having sent her luggage ahead of her back to the port of Chumpon (a fact since proven). Eight days later, having not heard from her daughter, Michelle phoned the local police, who then followed up on a previous report from locals having been perplexed over a large monitor lizard going to and from a specific spot in the hills. Koh Tao police then released a report—following a gruesome autopsy in which dental records had to be relied upon for a match. Following mother Michelle’s then-demand into a new investigation being opened, a CCTV image was released of a (back of a) woman walking into the jungle — supposedly to end her life — only to spark an internet outrage with people pointing out clearly that the body of the CCTV female did not match that of Elise. Her mother continues to contest the final reports.
And then on July 09th, 2018, the body of Bernd Grotsch, “an incredibly healthy” 47-year old from Germany, was found dead at his home from what police called “a heart-attack brought on by a snake bite”, although many locals and family members claim that he had been facing previous threats of violence from the local gang regarding his popular motorbike rental business, and more than one rumor on the island revolves around the local mafia simply getting “creative” with using Bernd’s own snakes to kill him.
But that wouldn’t be the final murder.
A few months after that, back on Sairee Beach—a stone’s throw from where David Miller and Hannah Witheridge were found bludgeoned to death—Moldovan tourist Alexandr Bucspun was found floating facedown in the ocean. When pressed for an investigation, the police simply contended he simply walked into the water to kill himself and filed the report as such, a conclusion so ridiculous it bears repeating: He walked into the water to kill himself.
And then on Nov 3rd, 2018, the island’s horrific secrets and penchant for murdering tourists were then put on the most prominent of international display, when the NYTimes would run a front page story:
I read that article and told myself — still high above and far away from anyone on Koh Tao — that appearing in the world’s most popular newspaper would have surely caused whoever was responsible for these murders to stop… or at least dial it back. I also told myself that being there, there on Death Island, was too delicious of a story not to write and so I started jotting down notes, telling myself again and again that there were no American deaths. And then I told myself that these were all (mostly) younger victims.
But the fact remained that I was all alone — no travel partner or neighbors — and a quick Google of my name would make it at least seem like I was a writer or journalist of some kind. Add to this, I was one of only a few tourists there during the pandemic, meaning blending in with the hoards wasn’t an option. And if that didn’t make me stand out, my soon-to-be investigatory actions , IE: visiting the death sites and trying - hilarious at times - to be sneaky about getting the shot, were bound to. But that didn’t stop me from trying to be sneaky, such as:
Standing directly in the rock formation where Hannah Witheridge and David Miller were slain with a garden hoe, I extended my camera out with my right hand, making a peace sign with my left, in what the uninformed would simply regard as a selfie.
At the pylon where Ben Harrington “broke his neck”, I stepped way back to get a nicely framed photo of the road + ocean, with the location in question barely in view.
Near the jungle where Elise Dallemagne was found half-eaten, I turned my back on the path leading up to where she was found and took a nice shot of the bungalows she had last checked into.
… I felt pretty good about having covered-up my true intent. A quick check of any existing CCTV footage of me casually strolling, hands behind back and whistling might tell otherwise, but it was a week of going to the spots + getting the shots + immediately backing them up to Google Photos + immediately deleting photos from my phone. It was a good system and no one would have thought that the final night, I’d be boarding up my own apartment, for fear of having been found out.
But that’s what happened.
And it happened because of this photo:
The AC Resort and Beach Club — last known site of Hannah Witheridge and David Miller. Strange to think that this normal photo would send me over into complete paranoia, but it’s not without merit. For see, when it comes to these murders, one name keep appearing more often than any other suspects:
Woraphan Tuwichian — owner of the AC Resort and Beach Club.
Since the beginning of the murders back in 2012, Tuwichian’s name — and the name of his son, Warot and his brother, Montriwat — are continually mentioned as the family behind most, if not all, of these murders. On paper, Woraphan is simply a “village headman”, but in reality he and his family are said to be the family on Koh Tao - the family who runs the island. The Mob. The Mafia. But there is no hard evidence to tie them to the murders. Following the death of Witheridge and Miller, Warot (the son) was a person of interest and brought in for a DNA test - one that proved negative. CCTV footage also has him in Bangkok on the night of the killings, but — as the recent story of Red Bull heir Vorayuth Yoovidhaya and his hit-and-run (more of a hit-and-drag-to-death) of a police officer in Bangkok tells us, paying someone to simply doctor security footage or provide an alibi is quite a simple transaction.
Adding to this rumor of a mafia family responsible for the murders was a visibly-shaken Scottish tourist, Sean McAnna, giving a interview to the The Telegraph claiming that two men in a bar dragged him out into the jungle, telling him:
“You will die tonight. It was you who killed them. You’ve got two deaths on your hands. We know it was you.You’re going to hang yourself tonight and we are going to watch.”
McAnna continued “They would have taken me up into the hills to hang me and make it look like suicide, so I just ran.”
… an interview that immediately made the rounds, but one that quickly quieted once it came out that McAnna was a convicted sex offender.
Which brings us to the other popular candidate: Santi Kohkpool — known to a few as a friendly former scuba diver instructor for Ban’s Diving Resort, but known to most as the local “henchman”. His name popped up on a few Reddit sites (hardly concrete journalism, but still) in a thread dealing with the murder of the aforementioned Luke Miller in 2016, but seemed to disappear. In fact, it was such a weak argument that I originally had deleted it from this story, but eight weeks after I left the island, he was implicated — and later found guilty by an outside investigation — of slashing a tourist’s throat with a broken beer bottle at the Fishbowl Beach Bar on Sairee Beach. And while local authorities (including his big brother who happens to be a Police Lieutenant Colonel) have cleared him of any wrongdoing, the outside investigation mentioned previously by PADI, the famed scuba diving certification corporation, took all of two days and had him expelled as an instructor from their entire program.. for life.
And here is where I stop with the speculation. Partly out of the fact that Thailand specifically seems to attract Second Life-rs — those who, for whatever reason but usually dealing with sex, drugs or alcohol — couldn’t exist in their own countries, who have found a blank canvas here in the islands to reinvent themselves. And with that comes a leaning towards the fanatical, as anyone can see by typing any of the names mentioned in this piece; paragraphs and videos and infinite threads as to who did it and who covered it up. Not saying that the introduction of novice sleuths are ineffective, but having done a decent amount of research for this story, I can attest to them and theirs being more flair than fact.
But the main reason I’m going to stop this right here is that the combination of this being an empty island — an island host to nearly 10 unexplained and gruesome murders of foreigners — as well as my own and obvious documentation while here, deleted photos not withstanding, gave way to a level of paranoia I’d never experienced before. Even writing this now, as the sun sets on what, from above, seems to be paradise, is anything but. So I’m going to email a copy of this to an alternate email that I have and delete any trace of it from my computer and will see if I can’t finish it if and once I’m out of Thailand.
It’s also how and why I ended up stopping our mountain troupe in order to turn around and walk backwards while my neighbor’s wife had an allergic reaction and needed to be carried down the mountain. Was it all an elaborate ruse — considering they hired a fake ambulance and paramedics and a gurney — probably not. But with all of the news that had come out about the island, they were forced into being creative. And this was creative! “Oh, he was helping us carry her down the hill, but he must have been on drugs and drinking and just fell and that’s why his head’s split open.”
But it wasn’t going to be me. No way. I’m not going to be bludgeoned to death just because Auntie can’t handle shellfish.
(Wednesday, Nov 4th, 2020)
While it’s laughable now, me sitting here in Albania, bundled-up near the fire and revisiting this story, I can promise you it wasn’t then. For three months, I refused to even open the working doc I had penned while on Koh Tao — certain that somehow they had been following me or tapped into my Cloud and had thought me a journalist.
The final night on the island I didn’t sleep, positive in the fact that they were going to come to my (empty) hotel, find me and make me disappear. This is not hyperbole. I even set both a door alarm — coffee thermos filled with loose change that would make a tremendous noise if moved — and barricaded my sliding door with a deck chair + large potted plant, hoping it would at least buy me time to jump out off my 2nd story balcony.
But since the NYTimes article, the murders have seemed to have stopped. A temporary slap in the face to a culture that reveres face more than anything — a possible motive for a number of these killings, it’s been said more than once — and although there were a few month’s dip in popularity following that article and nickname, Koh Tao continues to be one of the more sought-out destinations for holiday-makers and locals alike.
But that’s no way to end a story such as that one. It needed some sort of punctuation. But what? The island would never admit to who did it. The police were obviously being paid to keep quiet. And the victim’s families had all continued to be stonewalled. There would probably never be an answer to these murders, so how was I supposed to wrap it up? Barricading my door and not sleeping the night before and deleting my photos? Realizing I could never go back to Koh Tao again if I published this? Leaving you standing there with me walking backwards with an old lady on a gurney? Even though it wasn’t my story per se, there was no definitive finale—and that’s why I’d held on to this story for so long. Something was missing and for whatever reason, I never submitted it to any editors.
But then flash-forward to Tuesday, Aug 30th, 2022, County Cork, Ireland.
The night before, Charlie had gone ghost white, and told me his story.
Which told me exactly why I hadn’t been able to release mine.
It needed to wait until Charlie had an answer that would have probably eluded him his whole life.
He got that.
And I got my ending.
(Hopefully, only editorially.)
