March 29, 2023 • 40 mins
Koh Tao is a tropical nirvana, but behind the palm trees and sandy beaches lies a dark mystery, with a growing number of unsolved deaths and disappearances. In episode one, our award-winning investigative team delves into the tragic case of Elise Dallemagne, whose death is just the beginning of a larger, intricate puzzle. Follow us as we unravel the threads of this twisted web, where nothing is as it seems and every clue leads us closer to understanding why paradise has its price.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From the studio who brought you the number one podcast,
The Pikedon Massacre. This is Death Island, just a few
miles off the Thailand coast. The island of Kotau looks
like a postcard. It's almost like if you were going
to imagine a paradise island, they'll draw a picture of one.
(00:22):
That's what Kata looks like. Young tourists from all over
the world visit the pristine beaches and crystal clear water,
but underneath the surface lies something sinister. In the last
two decades, dozens of tourists have died mysteriously on the island.
A dark cloud has come over the island and cast
(00:44):
its shadow death, mystery, and danger. I'm journalist Connor Powell.
Even while making this podcast, another death on the island
just happened. One thing is certain in this beautiful place,
no coast is clear. This is Death Island. That's like
(01:06):
murdering someone in fine sweat and saying there's no witnesses.
A production of Katie Studios and iHeartRadio. On April seventh, seventeen,
a woman's body was found hanging from a tree island.
Locals became suspicious that something was wrong when a monitor
(01:30):
lizard kept going back and forth in the jungle. Following
the animal, they discovered a woman's body tied up with
shirts and nylon rope used for boats. The woman's body
was half suspended, her lower extremities on the ground. By
the time the victim was found, her remains were decomposing,
(01:52):
half eaten by lizards. There was a small empty gas
tank found beside her on the ground. Using dental records,
authorities identified the body as thirty year old Belgian national
Elise del Magna. Thai police quickly ruled the death a suicide,
(02:13):
but Elisa's mother questioned the explanation given by local authorities
and the death of her daughter. Welcome to Death Island,
a production of Katie Studios and iHeartRadio. Episode one, The
Case of Elise del Magna. I'm Connor Powell, an investigative
(02:37):
journalist at Katie Studios with Stephanie Lydecker, Courtney Armstrong, Andrew
ar Now and Jeff Shane. We've been working on this
story for years now, and the question still remains, how
is it possible? Dozens of people have died in so
many different horrific and unexplained ways, and nobody wants to
seem to get to the bottom of what's happening there,
(02:58):
not even the family members of the victims. They don't
even have answers. Yeah, and why are all of these
cases allegedly being underinvestigated by TIE authorities As of this recording.
There was yet another mysterious death this week, this time
a completely healthy Scooba instructor. What's so scary about this
(03:21):
place is that it looks so beautiful and perfect. If
you've ever seen the movie At the Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio,
it kind of looks like that, and it attracts young
people who want to backpack and go on adventure despite
the fact that it's incredibly dangerous. What we didn't know
until we started working on this story is that there
are a lot of people who are trying to keep
(03:42):
anybody from talking about what's happening on kotoul. This island
has a nickname of death Island for a reason. It
makes it dangerous to talk to people. It makes it
dangerous to even do this podcast. But why is there
a cult, a serial killer or a cover up. One
of the people that I was able to talk to
(04:02):
was a friend of Elisa's, and she didn't want to
be recorded. She's very hesitant, but you know, she told
me that anything that helps bring some light to the
mystery of how Elise died on Kotoo, you know, she
would be willing to help. And so we exchanged a
lot of messages over the course of several weeks. But
her friend described Elise as somebody who was a free spirit,
(04:24):
somebody who was just really kind, really happy. She said
she had a lot of friends, she loved to travel,
she loved life. Elisa Magna was born and raised in Belgium.
In looking at her photos, you can see she's incredibly fit,
athletic and has gorgeous brown hair and a large smile.
She described Elise as somebody who was really interested in
(04:46):
spiritualism and meditation, and it started out as sort of
an interest, but it grew over time. And then Elisa's
friend told me she went to Thailand first to do
an internship in yoga, and then she decided she wanted
to go back to Thailand lived there, and she had
always wanted to live abroad, and it was it was
sort of the spiritual connection that really drew a lease
(05:07):
to Thailand. She went to meet a group of people
that you know, I think we would describe I think
most people would describe it as sort of a cult.
And it started with a communication when Elise was in Belgium,
and then she went there and she joined this group.
We got a hold of an ex boyfriend of Elise's
(05:29):
who traveled with her to Thailand. For his safety and privacy,
we will not reveal his name. That's one thing I
didn't expect when we started this project was just how
unwilling a lot of people connected to Kotao would be
with regards to talking. So we've reached out to a
lot of people connected to Kotaw, family members who've lost
(05:49):
loved ones, friends who've lost loved ones, and just people
who've lived on the island over the course of the
last twenty years. And what we keep coming up across
is really an unwillingness to talk. A whole bunch of
people who lived on the island are scared to talk.
They're scared of the time mafia, they're scared of Thai officials,
and the other thing that really surprises me is they're
(06:10):
scared of being harassed online. And this is something that
we keep coming across when I've spoken to people or
spoken to friends of friends is there has been an
online attack of anyone who talks negatively about Kotel for
years now. People speaking anonymously will be common in this
podcast because frankly, it's dangerous to talk. Can you just
(06:33):
tell me a little bit about who she was as
a person and how you knew her? I met the
Lise on a Duner festival and she was a very
remarkable person. Elise was a dancer and she loved to move.
She had a very light kind the way she walked
and talked like she would have wings. I used to
(06:55):
call her an angel. Can you talk a little bit
about what drew her to a place like Thailand and
personally she graduated a school of buyernergetics, and she was
working as a healer or professional healer and therapist, and
she was given session to people from all around the world.
And Thailand was the place where a lot of virtual
(07:16):
people used to meet, and this was like a hub
for for country community and for yoga schools. We went
there to get her on an island Kopangang and stayed
there for some months. While in Kopenyang, Alice joined a
tantra community called Sacred This group is an offshoot of
(07:39):
the saiab abaccult and was led by self described guru Ramanandreis.
For a little more than a year, Alice studied with
ramenandres on the island of Kopenyang, about a two hour
ferry ride from Katao. At some point in twenty seventeen,
Alice decides to leave Copenyang and flee Sacred. Here's Andrew
(07:59):
and Connor and you're referring to Sacred, which is kind
of splinter sect of a Sai Baba religion or cult
if you will, Yeah, exactly, this group that was not
on Kotal but was on another island in the sort
of Gulf of Thailand area, and that's where Alise spent
(08:20):
a long period of time. She apparently got very into
this group. And over a period of time, Alise just
stopped communicating with people, with her friends back in Belgium,
She closed her Facebook account, She just sort of cut
herself off from everybody, from her friends. But it's definitely
a cause for concern anytime somebody leaves their home, goes
(08:42):
to another country and then cuts off communication. Then over time,
Alise came to the realization that she needed to get
out of this group, out of this cult, and that's
when she flees. That began a sequence of horrible and
unfortunate events, ultimately leading to her demise and some really
puzzling questions here, Stephanie. What's particularly odd about her story
(09:08):
is that Elise was actually set to leave Katao. In fact,
she already sent her bags back to the mainland and
was slated to return home. However, sadly she'd never made
it there and you know, as we know, her lifeless
body was found on April twenty seventeen, hanging in the jungle,
(09:28):
half eaten by lizards. That is an unspeakable crime that
somebody committed. Police determined it was a suicide, but Elisa's
parents had serious doubts from the beginning. Alice showed no
signs of depression, there was no note left, and why
would Elise send her bags home if she planned on
(09:49):
taking her own life. Elisa's mother had questions about her
daughter's death and got in touch with Sam Gruber, a
German journalist who now lives on Kofaniang. Sam speaking to
us that remote island in Thailand, which is why you'll
hear jungle noises in the background. He has been helping
Elsa's mother search for answers. I don't like the term
(10:11):
death island because it throws everybody in the same bucket.
I say, the majority in Coulde how they do decent business.
It's one of the most beautiful remote islands in the world.
But we cannot deny that CVA cases. We had murders, rapes,
people disappeared for good and in such numbers that there
must be some suspicion and it must be allowed to
ask questions. And this is how I see there's something wrong.
(10:35):
Sam has uncovered more details about the circumstances surrounding Elisa's death.
She is a very tragic case because she was extraordinary,
beautiful woman, very smart, from a great background in Belgion,
and she moved to Kopangan, which is the neighboring the
bigger island, and then she came into this yoga spirit
(10:59):
to see was she in communication with her mom? Was
she the tail of person that didn't talk to her
mom her family for weeks? Her mother said there was
regular communication, maybe sometimes not for weeks, because when you
live here in Thailand, it's it's a different word. Especially
Kan there are cultural communities and they stay among themselves.
It's like a hippie post hippie bird. And when she
(11:22):
finally decided to go back to her parents and turned
it back to Thailand, then she booked the boat. And
there is a boat from Kopangan which stops over in
Kotau and from there it continues to the mainland chump On,
which is further up in the north. You enter the
bus and you in Bankok within six hours. So that's
the normal regular travel route for backpackers. And we have
(11:43):
no idea but on this day she left the boat
in Kotau, but her luckage stayed on the boat. Here's
Stephanie at least did make it to her hotel in
Syre Beach. And this is known because there's CCTV or
survey As cameras that are there for security purposes that
captured her. Just to give some contacts about Syree Beach.
(12:07):
It's a major attraction and what really lures people there.
It's basically the stretch of uninterrupted beach on the island's
west coast that is littered with hotels and restaurants and
bars and clubs and dive shops. We've been told people
are always barefoot and kind of in party mode. And
(12:28):
the Syree Beach area is also the location where nearly
every suspicious death has happened on Katao in the last decade.
And despite the police from their families who have lost
loved ones on this island and the growing number of
suspicious fatalities, Katao still remains a very very popular destination.
(12:48):
We do know that she rented a hotel room somewhere
between Maya and Syree Beach, and that she stayed there
for one night, and somehow in that same night that
bungalow down and there were witnesses people saw her running
away from her hut and that was it. While helping
Elise's mother, Sam Cooper, is able to get receipts. These
(13:12):
receipts were able to sort of piece together a picture
of what happened after Elise fled the hut and was
seen on camera at her first hotel again, Elise checked
in to another hotel and she used this really strange
fake name, Elise Dua. What we found out is then
(13:33):
she moved to the other side, to Canopay, and she
booked in a hotel there. Three days before she disappeared
for good. She booked a flight home and I have
the ticket, I have everything. I like to find out
what happened. Why did she book? And she paid by
credit card with Kata Air and the ticket was confirmed
and the next day she disappeared. We have to see
(13:55):
that this young lady, she was scared. Obviously, she was
fleeing Copangan by what reason ever, and she was all
on herself. But she communicated with her family, she booked
the ticket and then something must have happened. You have
no idea why she left the boat in Quotau. There
are a lot of questions surrounding Elisa's final days. Why
(14:16):
did Eliza get off the boat on Kotau when she
could have made it to the mainland and then home.
Why did she use the fake name? Was she fleeing
or trying to throw someone off her trail? And what
caused the first bungalow that she stayed in to burn down?
Is there any evidence in investigation into what caused the fire?
I never saw a report. Did really said okay the
fire was caused by this and that I'm curious that
(14:37):
Elisa's mum did anything that was a valuable, worthwhile report
from the police. As far as I recall she waited
for a police reporter forensic report for months. When I
talked to her, she was always upset because she had
no information and she didn't have much hit by the
Patian embassy in Bangkok either, she felt lost and alone.
(14:59):
Could a Maverick umber of Sacred have come after a
lease or did the trauma of separating from the cult
make her suicidal as the type police have suggested. Forensic
expert Joseph Scott Morgan explores the theory that it was
a suicide at Lease was found. I believe hanging wrapped
in T shirts next to an empty gas can. How
(15:21):
common is it when forensic investigators discover bodies for them
to be covered if they're ruled a suicide. Well, it
all depends on who the individuals were that discovered her,
and it all depends on where the covering is. Okay,
So let's just take what we refer to as face covering,
which is a manifestation that you see in homicides and
(15:44):
also to a certain degree in suicides too, and generally
that indicates a level of intimacy. You see it in
families many times, or in the sense of a homicide
that involves an intimate, okay, because the psychology that's behind
all this is kind of fascinating. If they do face covering,
(16:05):
even after they're dead, the perpetrators staring at the body,
they have the appearance the dead will have the appearance
that they're staring back at them. Makes people very uncomfortable,
so they cover the face. Then you have a group
of people that will cover bodies in order to conceal bodies.
That's completely different, different kind of worms at that point,
(16:27):
because you're you're dealing with somebody that if they're trying
to conceal a death. First off, as an old death investigator,
you know, the first thing I'm thinking is that they're perpetrator.
They've brought about the death, and so that's one of
the things that you would begin to think about when
you're looking and trying to profile the individual. You know, why,
(16:47):
why in the world would you would you have clothing
covering a body. I've read a couple of things relative
to at least where some had said that she was
suspended from a tree. Some have said she was laying down,
and some said that there was a partial suspension. Now
there there are deaths involving partial suspensions. I've worked many
(17:12):
of them over the course of my career. I think,
you know, people always think that in order to hang
oneself you have to be completely suspended in the air,
you know, you're just kind of hanging there like an
ornament on a tree. That's not the case. If people
have the will, they will actually, you know, place a
ligature around their neck, tied off and then essentially sit
(17:33):
down and asphyxiate themselves that way. It's not a traditional
hanging like many people think. So that's within the investigative
around the possibility. Let's stop here for a break. We'll
be back in a moment. Forensic expert Joseph got Morgan
(18:00):
has a lot of questions regarding the investigation that the
Thai police carried out. I think the question I would
ask is, on that same day, how many other bungalows
burned down on this island. Why was it that Elise's bungalow,
the ones she had been assigned to, burned down. I'd
want to know the origin of the fire, the causality,
(18:21):
why it takes so long to discover her body. You know,
by the time they find her body, you've got animal activity,
you know, you've got monitor lizards, that are out there,
they're looking, they're looking for things to ingest, and so
that's that's the course of nature. That's that's what happens.
And here she is laying on the floor of this jungle.
You know, it's it's bizarre. The half eaten body was
(18:44):
decomposing and attached to a tree by a blue nylon rope.
Elise was covered up by several t shirts and curiously,
resting just a few feet away was a small can
of gasoline. Tai police immediately ruled out foul play and
claimed a lead had stolen the gas canister and rope,
and declared her death is suicide. Here again, Sam Gruber,
(19:09):
do you really get a nylon rope, steve gasoline, walk
up there and hang your safe up there, and you
book just a ticket flight home one or two days before.
It doesn't make sense to me. Sam has some reservations
about how Thai police handled the investigation. What disturbed me
was in the first place that there was no notice
of her findings. So normally, when you know Kutao already
(19:31):
has a reputation, why don't you come straightforward with information
and you build up some credibility. You say, today the
police found this and this and give her body of
forensic examination. Everything would have been fine. Sam and Lisa's
mother put pressure on Hi police by continuing to ask
(19:52):
questions even after they ruled her death of suicide. Soon
local and western media began to notice. At that point,
Hi police reopened the investigation into Elsa's death in June
of twenty seventeen, three months after her body was found.
It was actually me coming back and rolling the first stone,
and then the whole thing blew up, and weeks later
(20:15):
suddenly the biggest police came in an helicopter and started
to investigate a case which was actually that the spot
of the findings the crimes in There was nothing more
to be found, so we have to rely on people
who lied about the finding the circumstances and didn't come
up with a forensic report in the beginning, so we
have to rely on their expertise. Weeks later. It doesn't
(20:37):
make me feel good, does it? Again? No suicide note
was ever found. Do you think she committed suicide? As
the Thai officials have said, I see, dearly, dearly thought it.
You have a nylon rope, you have a container of gasoline,
you have a fire in a previous hotel room, a bungalow,
and you have her leaving the barry without her own luggage.
(21:01):
So you have four things that could possibly be investigated
and used as some stepping stone to trying to find
out at least part of the story. Yes, and yet
you pointed out police didn't seem to investigate any of
these and like, there's a lot of cases where there's
no evidence, there's no information, and yet here you have four,
(21:24):
I think pieces of evidence that would be a possibility
to lead to a clue to some inside as to
what had happened. Police don't even touch these things, do they.
We never heard anything by the police. The parents found
a luggage, not the police. When the parents came in,
they investigated, they found the luggage. It was still in
the storage in Tromponi Ty. Police justified their decision to
(21:47):
rule the cause of death as suicide by pointing to
Elisa's troubled past. It was always the suicide version because
it was the most for them, the most comfy, comfy explanation.
So they always come up with some arguments bringing the
victims into a paid light, and they never come up
with the re effects. This is what story pieces meals.
(22:11):
We decided to look deeper into Alisa's involvement with Sacred,
the yoga community slash cult she'd been involved with before
her death. Here again Connor speaking with the Lisa's friend
who wishes to remain anonymous, and when she joins the
Sacred group of Saia Baba, would you know if she
was attracted to the Saia Baba or to Raman Andres
(22:32):
Did you have any sense of what sort of came first?
First was Saia Baba because she used to talk about
this spiritual guru and she had some good thoughts about him,
and that was one of her favorite teachers. And then
she became connected to the Sacred Cop and Yang group. Right. Yes,
Sai Baba as a movement would be considered a new
(22:55):
religious movement in academic terms, because it's relatively new twentieth
century phenomena. We reached out to called expert Joseph Simhart
to have him tell us more about this community. He's
been researching cults and helping people exit them for more
than forty years. The person himself, Sai Baba or Sicha
Sai Baba as they call him, was a magician when
(23:17):
he was young who learned how to convince people he
was doing miracles. He's quite narcissistic, So he took on
this name Sai Baba as a reincarnation of a true
holy man called Sherty Sai Baba and India, who was
well respected. So Sai Baba claimed to be carrying on
that energy or whatever as an avatar, and being Sai
(23:38):
Baba came to view himself and sell himself off as
the Avatar of the age. In other words, he was
Christ for Christians, the Imam Mahdi for Muslims, the tenth
Avatar for Hindus, all roll up into one guy, you know,
with a bushy haircut. And he gathered a large following,
(24:00):
very popular in India, millions of followers. The Sciath Sai
Baba organization reported in twenty and ten that there was
an estimated twelve hundred centers in twenty six countries around
the world. Sai Baba supposedly transferred this Guru avatar energy
and franchise rights to Roman Andreas Ramanan Joyce's group promoted
(24:23):
itself as the local Sia Sai Baba sect, and in
twenty and sixteen, Elise was deeply involved with Sacred and
growing close to Andreas Connor asked Elise's friend what he
thought of Sacred You had some reservations about the way
that group operated or way the leader operated. Right, Well, Yes,
(24:44):
I connected with the leader of the group, and he
explained to me how do they operate, and introduced me
to his tribe. But when as soon as I started
asking questions, he became very nervous and he didn't want
to me to expose him in any way in front
of his disciples, so he very soon asked me to leave.
(25:08):
Later on, I heard that he's been using some hypnosism
people just to get them to do what he wants,
and I could see how some people were blindly believing
in him. Two other people told me that his group
was while it included men, it was almost overwhelmingly young
women sort of searching for stuff a fair characterization. Yes,
(25:33):
there were women at his place where and I was
visiting him, and he told me that he likes to
have those girls, and he was bragging about it a lot.
Did you think it was a healthy environment for somebody? Well,
I could feel that there was something fishy around that,
because I've seen different spiritual teachers there and around the world,
(25:55):
and you can feel if someone is genuine and do
it from his heart. Then this guy was more like
a narcissist. He was mostly boosed on himself and really
wanted others to admire him, and I could feel that
his intention wasn't quite pure. Did you ever say anything
(26:20):
to at least or express your concerns about Ramen Andreis.
We didn't have much time to talk about it, but
I would probably have to warn her more about this guy,
which I didn't, and I regret that obviously she failed
for him. They were in love. I don't know both sides,
but she definitely was, and she was living there and
(26:44):
they had some sea trouble in obviously because ran away,
but she was deep in deserted the Thaie government and
the months before she was killed they sort of said
that she was having mental problems to try to kill herself.
Do you think she's the type of person who would
try to kill herself. Absolutely not. I don't believe that
(27:04):
she wasn't suicidal at all, and she never had these
temptations or I never could see anything depressive so that
she would be capable of doing that. But when I
heard the news that she probably killed herself. That was
(27:25):
like a nonsense. I couldn't believe that because it didn't
make any sense. Knowing at least, I never believe that
she would be a suicidal that's for sure. Yeah, I
mean that's what another friend told me as well. Absolutely,
let's stop here for another break. It seems the more
(27:57):
we dig into a Lease's story, the more questions we
had about what the Tie police did or didn't do
during the investigation. Everything about Elise's death screams, you know,
red light, something's not right here, something's really wrong. Both
fleeing a cult on another island, why she stopped off
in Katao, why she was in one bungalow that burned
(28:20):
down and then checked into another hotel bungalow under a
fake name, and then how did she end up in
the sort of hills and mountains the non touristy part
of Katao. And what is a canister of gasoline doing there?
Why is there blued islon rope there? And how does
she die? There's a lot of questions surrounding why Elise
(28:43):
left sacred There's no doubt so much in there. It's
like brainwashing. I went into the guy's history, it is
urun and uh, I don't think he's a nice guy.
He fled, he escaped because never ever anybody heard of
him again. So the whole story is very mysterious, and
(29:03):
the police never investigated. The parents of Alice thought he
might have been involved somehow, and I don't know where
that somebody follows her to cook out points down a.
Is there any feeling or suspicion based on the people
you talked to understanding the dynamics that somebody from the
cult that she was a part of and it was
spending time with it, they had any role in her death.
(29:25):
They could have at least checked the footage is from
there from the videos and see whether this guy was
following her, but it was all too late. Tie police
they can work very very well. I've seen cases they
solved in an extreme professional manner, but in this case
I think it was another body oops and they wanted
to keep it low. They wanted to keep a low
(29:47):
level and it didn't work out the game. It alayspac
fires because of the way the Tie police conducted the investigation,
the window to obtain evidence of foul play appears to
have closed. If police wasn't suicidal and she was laying
the cult. Could someone from Sacred have played a part
in her death. Here's Andrew speaking with cult expert Joseph Simhart.
(30:09):
Given that this is right after she left Sacred, one
would assume she's trying not to be found from them.
How common is it when people are leaving groups like
this that they need to actually run away and hide
and how common is it for people that leave groups
(30:29):
like this to end up dead? Yeah, no, it's not common.
It might be more common in some types of groups
to want to hide for quite a while. When some
groups will go after you, it's kind of like, you know,
turning your back on the mafia. And if you become
a snitch or say anything, you're walking dead. You know
they will come after you and hurt you someway. So
(30:51):
that's true of a lot of cults. So the majority
of these New Age groups or Bible cults or whatever
aren't going to necessarily attack you in any really harsh way.
That really depends on the group, and it depends what
kind of secrets you know about the group. If, for instance,
this young woman as if she knew some secrets about
this guru, and she said, listen, I'm tired of your bullshit.
(31:13):
I'm gonna tell people, Well, there might have been something
that he didn't want leaked out, and something could have happened,
you know, that would be one way to look for
a motive. Could at least have known a secret about
raman Andreis or of Sacred that the Guru didn't want
getting out to the public. Here again, Connor and Andrew,
Does sai baba have a history this sect or enlarge
(31:35):
historically across the entire cult? Do they have a history
of violence against people who leave? It's not known as
a sai baba called trade to go after X members.
A leader might not say attack, attack that man. The
devotees might be so fanatic that they don't want their
leader to be hurt. So you can have a maverick
(31:56):
person just on their own go after you for criticizing
the guru. So that's always a danger. Over recent years,
a dark cloud has come over the island and cast
its shadow, which is sadly one of death. And actually
I think danger really for youngsters. And if I was
in my twenties now and a backpacker and thinking about
(32:18):
going to Thailand, I may think twice about going to
Katau simply because of its recent history. Here again Connor,
Andrew and Stephanie. So, I guess the thing that's so
troubling about Elisa's death is just there really isn't sort
of a scenario you can paint that says, Okay, this
(32:39):
is logically how she ended up dying. It's clear, I
think if you look at the evidence that she didn't
commit suicide. So how did she end up being dead?
Was she killed by somebody? Was that somebody connected to
the cult. Was that somebody connected to the island. If
you paint the scenario that she was fleeing the coult
and that somebody from the cult essentially tractor allowed her,
(33:00):
and that that was the person who killed her on
the island, the problem with that scenario is that that
takes some local knowledge, right, like to be able to
dump the body up in the mountains, the hills, the
sort of off the beat and track of Kotao. That
doesn't strike you as somebody who's coming from another island
who may or may not know Kotao. Because a lot
of the stuff that was used in her death, if
(33:22):
we believe it wasn't a suicide, you know, it does
seem to come from the local community there. Yeah, for
the most part. But then on the other hand, you know,
she was found in the jungle not too far from
where her hotel was. It wasn't necessarily some secret spot. Additionally,
you get everywhere by boat in Katao. You can't get
(33:42):
there any other way, So that means that there's going
to be lots of ropes laying around from boats, and
lots of gas cans for all the boats that need gas.
So I don't know. Actually, now it seems to me
maybe you don't necessarily need to have that intimate of
a knowledge of Katao to pull this off, because they're
things that aren't necessarily impossible to find, right, It's not
(34:03):
like you need to know a rope guy to get
a blue nylon rope. Yeah, that's a fair point. There
is the possibility that the person who killed her just
grabbed those local materials that said, like, there was a
bunch of T shirts. Where did the T shirts come from?
That doesn't appear to have been hers, So did that
person who came from another island bring those T shirts?
They grab them from somewhere else. Also, you could look
at it from a different angle, which says it had
(34:25):
to have been somebody local, and then that raises the
question of well, why would somebody from Kotao kill Alise.
The thing that keeps me scratching my head though every
time I think about this is what's the motive. The
only people to me that seemed like they have a
motive would be people trying to prevent her from getting away. Yeah,
(34:50):
and it's hard to look at Alisa's death and not
keep coming back to the connection to this cult on
Copenyang and Ramenandres because there's just so little information about him,
you know, from a distance, but he just looks like
a dodgy figure. You hear the word Culton, immediately I
know my mind goes to the worst. And so my
(35:12):
mind keeps coming back with Elisa's death to what role
did Roman Andre's playing this. We know that the cult
leader fled Thailand very shortly after Elisa's death, and once
police started asking questions, he claims no interaction or reasonfully
convenient time for a visa run. Yeah exactly. I mean
(35:34):
that was sort of Roman Andreasa's excuses that he had
to go do a visa. He just happened to leave
the country for a couple of years. It looks like
somebody who felt some heat decided to get out of
town and then returned to Thailand once the heat had
died down. Yeah, I agree, it looks awfully suspicious, and
(35:54):
we've tried a few times reaching out to him the email, yeah,
to hear anything back. But I think the point that
we've heard from others, and it needs to be stressed,
is that there isn't really any evidence that this cult
on Cope and Yang with Rama Andres has a history
(36:15):
of violence that would lead you to think like, yeah,
of course they could kill Elise while she's fleeing them.
There are other people who have left the cult, and
there doesn't appear to have been any deaths connected. It
still leads with too many unanswered questions. After hearing everything
about Elise's death, her personality forensic, I still feel like
we don't have any real concrete answers. I hope as
(36:39):
we go through this process looking at all these deaths
in these cases on Kotao, I hope that somewhere we
are able to answer some questions. The families and the
loved ones, the friends of these people who have died
on Kotao, they deserve it. But I can tell you
looking at the data, looking all the research, talking to people.
Every time we get a little bit of information on Hotel,
(37:00):
more questions seemed to spring up. What do we not
know about her that is important to her story? Not
her death, forget about her death for a second, but like,
what do we not know about her that's important to
who she was as a person, to her story as
the person on the planet. There was something very fascinating
about this human being because I was in a very
(37:23):
deep depression and I was asking for help, for angels
or for some guidance to help me from this whole
that I was in. And on the first night we
met each other and we stayed together ever since for
months ahead, and she healed me in a way that
(37:45):
I could get out of my depression. And my life
changed completely after meeting her. So I somehow I can
save and she saved my life because I was on
the edge of a suicide when she came into my
life and completely changed that. And this was like a
miracle for me that someone was trusting her inner voice
(38:09):
and went to another country to meet someone for the
first time, and this was like a life changer for you.
Do you think you were unique in your experience with
at Last or do you think there are other people
who had these sort of life changing moments. Definitely there
are others as well, because that was her mission. She
(38:32):
was constantly traveling the world and helping people. It's absolutely
horrific the number of people who died going to Katao,
and you know, in lots of instances, the circumces in
which they've died is just not in any way satisfactory
to the family. He's finding out what truly happened, whether
(38:53):
it's somebody jumping off the roof of a building into
a swimming pool and then dying as a result, or
somebody dying while scuba die or somebody dying with their
hands tied behind their back but they're supposed to have
hanged themselves. You know, all of those deaths are absolutely
tragic and it must be awful as so much, so
(39:15):
much with this investigation. There's a lot of heat, but
not a lot of light. I know from speak of
the families myself, it's just not good enough not to
know what happened, and you just want to know the truth,
and the questions won't at a stop unless you've got
confidence in the authorities to get to the bottom of it.
I will just continue to dig away and get more
(39:35):
and more, and hopefully I can at least find the truth.
And we think we know who's to blame. It's just
a measure of pun pointing it. Getting justice will be
another issue. The problem is that an Katao, there's dozens
of questionable deaths that straddle the line, dozens of last
souls whose families are looking for closure. If you have
(39:58):
any information about at least aDNA, please contact us at
producers at kat dash studios dot com. Death Island is
produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Connor Powell, Andrew Arnow, Jeff Shane,
Chris Cacaro, Gabriel Castillo, and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and
sound designed by Jeff Tis. Music by Vanacore Music. Death
(40:20):
Island is a production of iHeartRadio and kat Studios. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From the studio who brought you the number one podcast,
The Pikedon Massacre. This is Death Island, just a few
miles off the Thailand coast. The island of Kotau looks
like a postcard. It's almost like if you were going
to imagine a paradise island, they'll draw a picture of one.
(00:22):
That's what Kata looks like. Young tourists from all over
the world visit the pristine beaches and crystal clear water,
but underneath the surface lies something sinister. In the last
two decades, dozens of tourists have died mysteriously on the island.
A dark cloud has come over the island and cast
(00:44):
its shadow death, mystery, and danger. I'm journalist Connor Powell.
Even while making this podcast, another death on the island
just happened. One thing is certain in this beautiful place,
no coast is clear. This is Death Island. That's like
(01:06):
murdering someone in fine sweat and saying there's no witnesses.
A production of Katie Studios and iHeartRadio. On April seventh, seventeen,
a woman's body was found hanging from a tree island.
Locals became suspicious that something was wrong when a monitor
(01:30):
lizard kept going back and forth in the jungle. Following
the animal, they discovered a woman's body tied up with
shirts and nylon rope used for boats. The woman's body
was half suspended, her lower extremities on the ground. By
the time the victim was found, her remains were decomposing,
(01:52):
half eaten by lizards. There was a small empty gas
tank found beside her on the ground. Using dental records,
authorities identified the body as thirty year old Belgian national
Elise del Magna. Thai police quickly ruled the death a suicide,
(02:13):
but Elisa's mother questioned the explanation given by local authorities
and the death of her daughter. Welcome to Death Island,
a production of Katie Studios and iHeartRadio. Episode one, The
Case of Elise del Magna. I'm Connor Powell, an investigative
(02:37):
journalist at Katie Studios with Stephanie Lydecker, Courtney Armstrong, Andrew
ar Now and Jeff Shane. We've been working on this
story for years now, and the question still remains, how
is it possible? Dozens of people have died in so
many different horrific and unexplained ways, and nobody wants to
seem to get to the bottom of what's happening there,
(02:58):
not even the family members of the victims. They don't
even have answers. Yeah, and why are all of these
cases allegedly being underinvestigated by TIE authorities As of this recording.
There was yet another mysterious death this week, this time
a completely healthy Scooba instructor. What's so scary about this
(03:21):
place is that it looks so beautiful and perfect. If
you've ever seen the movie At the Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio,
it kind of looks like that, and it attracts young
people who want to backpack and go on adventure despite
the fact that it's incredibly dangerous. What we didn't know
until we started working on this story is that there
are a lot of people who are trying to keep
(03:42):
anybody from talking about what's happening on kotoul. This island
has a nickname of death Island for a reason. It
makes it dangerous to talk to people. It makes it
dangerous to even do this podcast. But why is there
a cult, a serial killer or a cover up. One
of the people that I was able to talk to
(04:02):
was a friend of Elisa's, and she didn't want to
be recorded. She's very hesitant, but you know, she told
me that anything that helps bring some light to the
mystery of how Elise died on Kotoo, you know, she
would be willing to help. And so we exchanged a
lot of messages over the course of several weeks. But
her friend described Elise as somebody who was a free spirit,
(04:24):
somebody who was just really kind, really happy. She said
she had a lot of friends, she loved to travel,
she loved life. Elisa Magna was born and raised in Belgium.
In looking at her photos, you can see she's incredibly fit,
athletic and has gorgeous brown hair and a large smile.
She described Elise as somebody who was really interested in
(04:46):
spiritualism and meditation, and it started out as sort of
an interest, but it grew over time. And then Elisa's
friend told me she went to Thailand first to do
an internship in yoga, and then she decided she wanted
to go back to Thailand lived there, and she had
always wanted to live abroad, and it was it was
sort of the spiritual connection that really drew a lease
(05:07):
to Thailand. She went to meet a group of people
that you know, I think we would describe I think
most people would describe it as sort of a cult.
And it started with a communication when Elise was in Belgium,
and then she went there and she joined this group.
We got a hold of an ex boyfriend of Elise's
(05:29):
who traveled with her to Thailand. For his safety and privacy,
we will not reveal his name. That's one thing I
didn't expect when we started this project was just how
unwilling a lot of people connected to Kotao would be
with regards to talking. So we've reached out to a
lot of people connected to Kotaw, family members who've lost
(05:49):
loved ones, friends who've lost loved ones, and just people
who've lived on the island over the course of the
last twenty years. And what we keep coming up across
is really an unwillingness to talk. A whole bunch of
people who lived on the island are scared to talk.
They're scared of the time mafia, they're scared of Thai officials,
and the other thing that really surprises me is they're
(06:10):
scared of being harassed online. And this is something that
we keep coming across when I've spoken to people or
spoken to friends of friends is there has been an
online attack of anyone who talks negatively about Kotel for
years now. People speaking anonymously will be common in this
podcast because frankly, it's dangerous to talk. Can you just
(06:33):
tell me a little bit about who she was as
a person and how you knew her? I met the
Lise on a Duner festival and she was a very
remarkable person. Elise was a dancer and she loved to move.
She had a very light kind the way she walked
and talked like she would have wings. I used to
(06:55):
call her an angel. Can you talk a little bit
about what drew her to a place like Thailand and
personally she graduated a school of buyernergetics, and she was
working as a healer or professional healer and therapist, and
she was given session to people from all around the world.
And Thailand was the place where a lot of virtual
(07:16):
people used to meet, and this was like a hub
for for country community and for yoga schools. We went
there to get her on an island Kopangang and stayed
there for some months. While in Kopenyang, Alice joined a
tantra community called Sacred This group is an offshoot of
(07:39):
the saiab abaccult and was led by self described guru Ramanandreis.
For a little more than a year, Alice studied with
ramenandres on the island of Kopenyang, about a two hour
ferry ride from Katao. At some point in twenty seventeen,
Alice decides to leave Copenyang and flee Sacred. Here's Andrew
(07:59):
and Connor and you're referring to Sacred, which is kind
of splinter sect of a Sai Baba religion or cult
if you will, Yeah, exactly, this group that was not
on Kotal but was on another island in the sort
of Gulf of Thailand area, and that's where Alise spent
(08:20):
a long period of time. She apparently got very into
this group. And over a period of time, Alise just
stopped communicating with people, with her friends back in Belgium,
She closed her Facebook account, She just sort of cut
herself off from everybody, from her friends. But it's definitely
a cause for concern anytime somebody leaves their home, goes
(08:42):
to another country and then cuts off communication. Then over time,
Alise came to the realization that she needed to get
out of this group, out of this cult, and that's
when she flees. That began a sequence of horrible and
unfortunate events, ultimately leading to her demise and some really
puzzling questions here, Stephanie. What's particularly odd about her story
(09:08):
is that Elise was actually set to leave Katao. In fact,
she already sent her bags back to the mainland and
was slated to return home. However, sadly she'd never made
it there and you know, as we know, her lifeless
body was found on April twenty seventeen, hanging in the jungle,
(09:28):
half eaten by lizards. That is an unspeakable crime that
somebody committed. Police determined it was a suicide, but Elisa's
parents had serious doubts from the beginning. Alice showed no
signs of depression, there was no note left, and why
would Elise send her bags home if she planned on
(09:49):
taking her own life. Elisa's mother had questions about her
daughter's death and got in touch with Sam Gruber, a
German journalist who now lives on Kofaniang. Sam speaking to
us that remote island in Thailand, which is why you'll
hear jungle noises in the background. He has been helping
Elsa's mother search for answers. I don't like the term
(10:11):
death island because it throws everybody in the same bucket.
I say, the majority in Coulde how they do decent business.
It's one of the most beautiful remote islands in the world.
But we cannot deny that CVA cases. We had murders, rapes,
people disappeared for good and in such numbers that there
must be some suspicion and it must be allowed to
ask questions. And this is how I see there's something wrong.
(10:35):
Sam has uncovered more details about the circumstances surrounding Elisa's death.
She is a very tragic case because she was extraordinary,
beautiful woman, very smart, from a great background in Belgion,
and she moved to Kopangan, which is the neighboring the
bigger island, and then she came into this yoga spirit
(10:59):
to see was she in communication with her mom? Was
she the tail of person that didn't talk to her
mom her family for weeks? Her mother said there was
regular communication, maybe sometimes not for weeks, because when you
live here in Thailand, it's it's a different word. Especially
Kan there are cultural communities and they stay among themselves.
It's like a hippie post hippie bird. And when she
(11:22):
finally decided to go back to her parents and turned
it back to Thailand, then she booked the boat. And
there is a boat from Kopangan which stops over in
Kotau and from there it continues to the mainland chump On,
which is further up in the north. You enter the
bus and you in Bankok within six hours. So that's
the normal regular travel route for backpackers. And we have
(11:43):
no idea but on this day she left the boat
in Kotau, but her luckage stayed on the boat. Here's
Stephanie at least did make it to her hotel in
Syre Beach. And this is known because there's CCTV or
survey As cameras that are there for security purposes that
captured her. Just to give some contacts about Syree Beach.
(12:07):
It's a major attraction and what really lures people there.
It's basically the stretch of uninterrupted beach on the island's
west coast that is littered with hotels and restaurants and
bars and clubs and dive shops. We've been told people
are always barefoot and kind of in party mode. And
(12:28):
the Syree Beach area is also the location where nearly
every suspicious death has happened on Katao in the last decade.
And despite the police from their families who have lost
loved ones on this island and the growing number of
suspicious fatalities, Katao still remains a very very popular destination.
(12:48):
We do know that she rented a hotel room somewhere
between Maya and Syree Beach, and that she stayed there
for one night, and somehow in that same night that
bungalow down and there were witnesses people saw her running
away from her hut and that was it. While helping
Elise's mother, Sam Cooper, is able to get receipts. These
(13:12):
receipts were able to sort of piece together a picture
of what happened after Elise fled the hut and was
seen on camera at her first hotel again, Elise checked
in to another hotel and she used this really strange
fake name, Elise Dua. What we found out is then
(13:33):
she moved to the other side, to Canopay, and she
booked in a hotel there. Three days before she disappeared
for good. She booked a flight home and I have
the ticket, I have everything. I like to find out
what happened. Why did she book? And she paid by
credit card with Kata Air and the ticket was confirmed
and the next day she disappeared. We have to see
(13:55):
that this young lady, she was scared. Obviously, she was
fleeing Copangan by what reason ever, and she was all
on herself. But she communicated with her family, she booked
the ticket and then something must have happened. You have
no idea why she left the boat in Quotau. There
are a lot of questions surrounding Elisa's final days. Why
(14:16):
did Eliza get off the boat on Kotau when she
could have made it to the mainland and then home.
Why did she use the fake name? Was she fleeing
or trying to throw someone off her trail? And what
caused the first bungalow that she stayed in to burn down?
Is there any evidence in investigation into what caused the fire?
I never saw a report. Did really said okay the
fire was caused by this and that I'm curious that
(14:37):
Elisa's mum did anything that was a valuable, worthwhile report
from the police. As far as I recall she waited
for a police reporter forensic report for months. When I
talked to her, she was always upset because she had
no information and she didn't have much hit by the
Patian embassy in Bangkok either, she felt lost and alone.
(14:59):
Could a Maverick umber of Sacred have come after a
lease or did the trauma of separating from the cult
make her suicidal as the type police have suggested. Forensic
expert Joseph Scott Morgan explores the theory that it was
a suicide at Lease was found. I believe hanging wrapped
in T shirts next to an empty gas can. How
(15:21):
common is it when forensic investigators discover bodies for them
to be covered if they're ruled a suicide. Well, it
all depends on who the individuals were that discovered her,
and it all depends on where the covering is. Okay,
So let's just take what we refer to as face covering,
which is a manifestation that you see in homicides and
(15:44):
also to a certain degree in suicides too, and generally
that indicates a level of intimacy. You see it in
families many times, or in the sense of a homicide
that involves an intimate, okay, because the psychology that's behind
all this is kind of fascinating. If they do face covering,
(16:05):
even after they're dead, the perpetrators staring at the body,
they have the appearance the dead will have the appearance
that they're staring back at them. Makes people very uncomfortable,
so they cover the face. Then you have a group
of people that will cover bodies in order to conceal bodies.
That's completely different, different kind of worms at that point,
(16:27):
because you're you're dealing with somebody that if they're trying
to conceal a death. First off, as an old death investigator,
you know, the first thing I'm thinking is that they're perpetrator.
They've brought about the death, and so that's one of
the things that you would begin to think about when
you're looking and trying to profile the individual. You know, why,
(16:47):
why in the world would you would you have clothing
covering a body. I've read a couple of things relative
to at least where some had said that she was
suspended from a tree. Some have said she was laying down,
and some said that there was a partial suspension. Now
there there are deaths involving partial suspensions. I've worked many
(17:12):
of them over the course of my career. I think,
you know, people always think that in order to hang
oneself you have to be completely suspended in the air,
you know, you're just kind of hanging there like an
ornament on a tree. That's not the case. If people
have the will, they will actually, you know, place a
ligature around their neck, tied off and then essentially sit
(17:33):
down and asphyxiate themselves that way. It's not a traditional
hanging like many people think. So that's within the investigative
around the possibility. Let's stop here for a break. We'll
be back in a moment. Forensic expert Joseph got Morgan
(18:00):
has a lot of questions regarding the investigation that the
Thai police carried out. I think the question I would
ask is, on that same day, how many other bungalows
burned down on this island. Why was it that Elise's bungalow,
the ones she had been assigned to, burned down. I'd
want to know the origin of the fire, the causality,
(18:21):
why it takes so long to discover her body. You know,
by the time they find her body, you've got animal activity,
you know, you've got monitor lizards, that are out there,
they're looking, they're looking for things to ingest, and so
that's that's the course of nature. That's that's what happens.
And here she is laying on the floor of this jungle.
You know, it's it's bizarre. The half eaten body was
(18:44):
decomposing and attached to a tree by a blue nylon rope.
Elise was covered up by several t shirts and curiously,
resting just a few feet away was a small can
of gasoline. Tai police immediately ruled out foul play and
claimed a lead had stolen the gas canister and rope,
and declared her death is suicide. Here again, Sam Gruber,
(19:09):
do you really get a nylon rope, steve gasoline, walk
up there and hang your safe up there, and you
book just a ticket flight home one or two days before.
It doesn't make sense to me. Sam has some reservations
about how Thai police handled the investigation. What disturbed me
was in the first place that there was no notice
of her findings. So normally, when you know Kutao already
(19:31):
has a reputation, why don't you come straightforward with information
and you build up some credibility. You say, today the
police found this and this and give her body of
forensic examination. Everything would have been fine. Sam and Lisa's
mother put pressure on Hi police by continuing to ask
(19:52):
questions even after they ruled her death of suicide. Soon
local and western media began to notice. At that point,
Hi police reopened the investigation into Elsa's death in June
of twenty seventeen, three months after her body was found.
It was actually me coming back and rolling the first stone,
and then the whole thing blew up, and weeks later
(20:15):
suddenly the biggest police came in an helicopter and started
to investigate a case which was actually that the spot
of the findings the crimes in There was nothing more
to be found, so we have to rely on people
who lied about the finding the circumstances and didn't come
up with a forensic report in the beginning, so we
have to rely on their expertise. Weeks later. It doesn't
(20:37):
make me feel good, does it? Again? No suicide note
was ever found. Do you think she committed suicide? As
the Thai officials have said, I see, dearly, dearly thought it.
You have a nylon rope, you have a container of gasoline,
you have a fire in a previous hotel room, a bungalow,
and you have her leaving the barry without her own luggage.
(21:01):
So you have four things that could possibly be investigated
and used as some stepping stone to trying to find
out at least part of the story. Yes, and yet
you pointed out police didn't seem to investigate any of
these and like, there's a lot of cases where there's
no evidence, there's no information, and yet here you have four,
(21:24):
I think pieces of evidence that would be a possibility
to lead to a clue to some inside as to
what had happened. Police don't even touch these things, do they.
We never heard anything by the police. The parents found
a luggage, not the police. When the parents came in,
they investigated, they found the luggage. It was still in
the storage in Tromponi Ty. Police justified their decision to
(21:47):
rule the cause of death as suicide by pointing to
Elisa's troubled past. It was always the suicide version because
it was the most for them, the most comfy, comfy explanation.
So they always come up with some arguments bringing the
victims into a paid light, and they never come up
with the re effects. This is what story pieces meals.
(22:11):
We decided to look deeper into Alisa's involvement with Sacred,
the yoga community slash cult she'd been involved with before
her death. Here again Connor speaking with the Lisa's friend
who wishes to remain anonymous, and when she joins the
Sacred group of Saia Baba, would you know if she
was attracted to the Saia Baba or to Raman Andres
(22:32):
Did you have any sense of what sort of came first?
First was Saia Baba because she used to talk about
this spiritual guru and she had some good thoughts about him,
and that was one of her favorite teachers. And then
she became connected to the Sacred Cop and Yang group. Right. Yes,
Sai Baba as a movement would be considered a new
(22:55):
religious movement in academic terms, because it's relatively new twentieth
century phenomena. We reached out to called expert Joseph Simhart
to have him tell us more about this community. He's
been researching cults and helping people exit them for more
than forty years. The person himself, Sai Baba or Sicha
Sai Baba as they call him, was a magician when
(23:17):
he was young who learned how to convince people he
was doing miracles. He's quite narcissistic, So he took on
this name Sai Baba as a reincarnation of a true
holy man called Sherty Sai Baba and India, who was
well respected. So Sai Baba claimed to be carrying on
that energy or whatever as an avatar, and being Sai
(23:38):
Baba came to view himself and sell himself off as
the Avatar of the age. In other words, he was
Christ for Christians, the Imam Mahdi for Muslims, the tenth
Avatar for Hindus, all roll up into one guy, you know,
with a bushy haircut. And he gathered a large following,
(24:00):
very popular in India, millions of followers. The Sciath Sai
Baba organization reported in twenty and ten that there was
an estimated twelve hundred centers in twenty six countries around
the world. Sai Baba supposedly transferred this Guru avatar energy
and franchise rights to Roman Andreas Ramanan Joyce's group promoted
(24:23):
itself as the local Sia Sai Baba sect, and in
twenty and sixteen, Elise was deeply involved with Sacred and
growing close to Andreas Connor asked Elise's friend what he
thought of Sacred You had some reservations about the way
that group operated or way the leader operated. Right, Well, Yes,
(24:44):
I connected with the leader of the group, and he
explained to me how do they operate, and introduced me
to his tribe. But when as soon as I started
asking questions, he became very nervous and he didn't want
to me to expose him in any way in front
of his disciples, so he very soon asked me to leave.
(25:08):
Later on, I heard that he's been using some hypnosism
people just to get them to do what he wants,
and I could see how some people were blindly believing
in him. Two other people told me that his group
was while it included men, it was almost overwhelmingly young
women sort of searching for stuff a fair characterization. Yes,
(25:33):
there were women at his place where and I was
visiting him, and he told me that he likes to
have those girls, and he was bragging about it a lot.
Did you think it was a healthy environment for somebody? Well,
I could feel that there was something fishy around that,
because I've seen different spiritual teachers there and around the world,
(25:55):
and you can feel if someone is genuine and do
it from his heart. Then this guy was more like
a narcissist. He was mostly boosed on himself and really
wanted others to admire him, and I could feel that
his intention wasn't quite pure. Did you ever say anything
(26:20):
to at least or express your concerns about Ramen Andreis.
We didn't have much time to talk about it, but
I would probably have to warn her more about this guy,
which I didn't, and I regret that obviously she failed
for him. They were in love. I don't know both sides,
but she definitely was, and she was living there and
(26:44):
they had some sea trouble in obviously because ran away,
but she was deep in deserted the Thaie government and
the months before she was killed they sort of said
that she was having mental problems to try to kill herself.
Do you think she's the type of person who would
try to kill herself. Absolutely not. I don't believe that
(27:04):
she wasn't suicidal at all, and she never had these
temptations or I never could see anything depressive so that
she would be capable of doing that. But when I
heard the news that she probably killed herself. That was
(27:25):
like a nonsense. I couldn't believe that because it didn't
make any sense. Knowing at least, I never believe that
she would be a suicidal that's for sure. Yeah, I
mean that's what another friend told me as well. Absolutely,
let's stop here for another break. It seems the more
(27:57):
we dig into a Lease's story, the more questions we
had about what the Tie police did or didn't do
during the investigation. Everything about Elise's death screams, you know,
red light, something's not right here, something's really wrong. Both
fleeing a cult on another island, why she stopped off
in Katao, why she was in one bungalow that burned
(28:20):
down and then checked into another hotel bungalow under a
fake name, and then how did she end up in
the sort of hills and mountains the non touristy part
of Katao. And what is a canister of gasoline doing there?
Why is there blued islon rope there? And how does
she die? There's a lot of questions surrounding why Elise
(28:43):
left sacred There's no doubt so much in there. It's
like brainwashing. I went into the guy's history, it is
urun and uh, I don't think he's a nice guy.
He fled, he escaped because never ever anybody heard of
him again. So the whole story is very mysterious, and
(29:03):
the police never investigated. The parents of Alice thought he
might have been involved somehow, and I don't know where
that somebody follows her to cook out points down a.
Is there any feeling or suspicion based on the people
you talked to understanding the dynamics that somebody from the
cult that she was a part of and it was
spending time with it, they had any role in her death.
(29:25):
They could have at least checked the footage is from
there from the videos and see whether this guy was
following her, but it was all too late. Tie police
they can work very very well. I've seen cases they
solved in an extreme professional manner, but in this case
I think it was another body oops and they wanted
to keep it low. They wanted to keep a low
(29:47):
level and it didn't work out the game. It alayspac
fires because of the way the Tie police conducted the investigation,
the window to obtain evidence of foul play appears to
have closed. If police wasn't suicidal and she was laying
the cult. Could someone from Sacred have played a part
in her death. Here's Andrew speaking with cult expert Joseph Simhart.
(30:09):
Given that this is right after she left Sacred, one
would assume she's trying not to be found from them.
How common is it when people are leaving groups like
this that they need to actually run away and hide
and how common is it for people that leave groups
(30:29):
like this to end up dead? Yeah, no, it's not common.
It might be more common in some types of groups
to want to hide for quite a while. When some
groups will go after you, it's kind of like, you know,
turning your back on the mafia. And if you become
a snitch or say anything, you're walking dead. You know
they will come after you and hurt you someway. So
(30:51):
that's true of a lot of cults. So the majority
of these New Age groups or Bible cults or whatever
aren't going to necessarily attack you in any really harsh way.
That really depends on the group, and it depends what
kind of secrets you know about the group. If, for instance,
this young woman as if she knew some secrets about
this guru, and she said, listen, I'm tired of your bullshit.
(31:13):
I'm gonna tell people, Well, there might have been something
that he didn't want leaked out, and something could have happened,
you know, that would be one way to look for
a motive. Could at least have known a secret about
raman Andreis or of Sacred that the Guru didn't want
getting out to the public. Here again, Connor and Andrew,
Does sai baba have a history this sect or enlarge
(31:35):
historically across the entire cult? Do they have a history
of violence against people who leave? It's not known as
a sai baba called trade to go after X members.
A leader might not say attack, attack that man. The
devotees might be so fanatic that they don't want their
leader to be hurt. So you can have a maverick
(31:56):
person just on their own go after you for criticizing
the guru. So that's always a danger. Over recent years,
a dark cloud has come over the island and cast
its shadow, which is sadly one of death. And actually
I think danger really for youngsters. And if I was
in my twenties now and a backpacker and thinking about
(32:18):
going to Thailand, I may think twice about going to
Katau simply because of its recent history. Here again Connor,
Andrew and Stephanie. So, I guess the thing that's so
troubling about Elisa's death is just there really isn't sort
of a scenario you can paint that says, Okay, this
(32:39):
is logically how she ended up dying. It's clear, I
think if you look at the evidence that she didn't
commit suicide. So how did she end up being dead?
Was she killed by somebody? Was that somebody connected to
the cult. Was that somebody connected to the island. If
you paint the scenario that she was fleeing the coult
and that somebody from the cult essentially tractor allowed her,
(33:00):
and that that was the person who killed her on
the island, the problem with that scenario is that that
takes some local knowledge, right, like to be able to
dump the body up in the mountains, the hills, the
sort of off the beat and track of Kotao. That
doesn't strike you as somebody who's coming from another island
who may or may not know Kotao. Because a lot
of the stuff that was used in her death, if
(33:22):
we believe it wasn't a suicide, you know, it does
seem to come from the local community there. Yeah, for
the most part. But then on the other hand, you know,
she was found in the jungle not too far from
where her hotel was. It wasn't necessarily some secret spot. Additionally,
you get everywhere by boat in Katao. You can't get
(33:42):
there any other way, So that means that there's going
to be lots of ropes laying around from boats, and
lots of gas cans for all the boats that need gas.
So I don't know. Actually, now it seems to me
maybe you don't necessarily need to have that intimate of
a knowledge of Katao to pull this off, because they're
things that aren't necessarily impossible to find, right, It's not
(34:03):
like you need to know a rope guy to get
a blue nylon rope. Yeah, that's a fair point. There
is the possibility that the person who killed her just
grabbed those local materials that said, like, there was a
bunch of T shirts. Where did the T shirts come from?
That doesn't appear to have been hers, So did that
person who came from another island bring those T shirts?
They grab them from somewhere else. Also, you could look
at it from a different angle, which says it had
(34:25):
to have been somebody local, and then that raises the
question of well, why would somebody from Kotao kill Alise.
The thing that keeps me scratching my head though every
time I think about this is what's the motive. The
only people to me that seemed like they have a
motive would be people trying to prevent her from getting away. Yeah,
(34:50):
and it's hard to look at Alisa's death and not
keep coming back to the connection to this cult on
Copenyang and Ramenandres because there's just so little information about him,
you know, from a distance, but he just looks like
a dodgy figure. You hear the word Culton, immediately I
know my mind goes to the worst. And so my
(35:12):
mind keeps coming back with Elisa's death to what role
did Roman Andre's playing this. We know that the cult
leader fled Thailand very shortly after Elisa's death, and once
police started asking questions, he claims no interaction or reasonfully
convenient time for a visa run. Yeah exactly. I mean
(35:34):
that was sort of Roman Andreasa's excuses that he had
to go do a visa. He just happened to leave
the country for a couple of years. It looks like
somebody who felt some heat decided to get out of
town and then returned to Thailand once the heat had
died down. Yeah, I agree, it looks awfully suspicious, and
(35:54):
we've tried a few times reaching out to him the email, yeah,
to hear anything back. But I think the point that
we've heard from others, and it needs to be stressed,
is that there isn't really any evidence that this cult
on Cope and Yang with Rama Andres has a history
(36:15):
of violence that would lead you to think like, yeah,
of course they could kill Elise while she's fleeing them.
There are other people who have left the cult, and
there doesn't appear to have been any deaths connected. It
still leads with too many unanswered questions. After hearing everything
about Elise's death, her personality forensic, I still feel like
we don't have any real concrete answers. I hope as
(36:39):
we go through this process looking at all these deaths
in these cases on Kotao, I hope that somewhere we
are able to answer some questions. The families and the
loved ones, the friends of these people who have died
on Kotao, they deserve it. But I can tell you
looking at the data, looking all the research, talking to people.
Every time we get a little bit of information on Hotel,
(37:00):
more questions seemed to spring up. What do we not
know about her that is important to her story? Not
her death, forget about her death for a second, but like,
what do we not know about her that's important to
who she was as a person, to her story as
the person on the planet. There was something very fascinating
about this human being because I was in a very
(37:23):
deep depression and I was asking for help, for angels
or for some guidance to help me from this whole
that I was in. And on the first night we
met each other and we stayed together ever since for
months ahead, and she healed me in a way that
(37:45):
I could get out of my depression. And my life
changed completely after meeting her. So I somehow I can
save and she saved my life because I was on
the edge of a suicide when she came into my
life and completely changed that. And this was like a
miracle for me that someone was trusting her inner voice
(38:09):
and went to another country to meet someone for the
first time, and this was like a life changer for you.
Do you think you were unique in your experience with
at Last or do you think there are other people
who had these sort of life changing moments. Definitely there
are others as well, because that was her mission. She
(38:32):
was constantly traveling the world and helping people. It's absolutely
horrific the number of people who died going to Katao,
and you know, in lots of instances, the circumces in
which they've died is just not in any way satisfactory
to the family. He's finding out what truly happened, whether
(38:53):
it's somebody jumping off the roof of a building into
a swimming pool and then dying as a result, or
somebody dying while scuba die or somebody dying with their
hands tied behind their back but they're supposed to have
hanged themselves. You know, all of those deaths are absolutely
tragic and it must be awful as so much, so
(39:15):
much with this investigation. There's a lot of heat, but
not a lot of light. I know from speak of
the families myself, it's just not good enough not to
know what happened, and you just want to know the truth,
and the questions won't at a stop unless you've got
confidence in the authorities to get to the bottom of it.
I will just continue to dig away and get more
(39:35):
and more, and hopefully I can at least find the truth.
And we think we know who's to blame. It's just
a measure of pun pointing it. Getting justice will be
another issue. The problem is that an Katao, there's dozens
of questionable deaths that straddle the line, dozens of last
souls whose families are looking for closure. If you have
(39:58):
any information about at least aDNA, please contact us at
producers at kat dash studios dot com. Death Island is
produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Connor Powell, Andrew Arnow, Jeff Shane,
Chris Cacaro, Gabriel Castillo, and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and
sound designed by Jeff Tis. Music by Vanacore Music. Death
(40:20):
Island is a production of iHeartRadio and kat Studios. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Stephanie Lydecker
Courtney Armstrong
Jeff Shane
Conor Powell
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