April 19, 2023 • 37 mins
We dive even deeper into the murders of backpackers Hannah Witheridge and David Miller. We hear from first-hand sources who were on the island in the weeks following the crimes and who reveal that when two suspects emerged, it seemed the nightmare was over, but we discover that the real mystery was just beginning.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
On September fourteenth, twenty fourteen, twenty three year old Hannah
Witherich and twenty four year old David Miller, who'd only
just met by chance on Catau, were talking at the
Ac Bar. The pair, both from the UK, left the
bar together around one am. It was the last time
either of them was seen alive. Early the next morning,
(00:25):
on September fifteenth, a beach cleaner found their partially clad bodies.
David was floating in the water, Hannah was found on
the sand, the waves lapping over her. Near the crime
scene was a pile of clothes, cigarette butts, and a
used condom. Detectives discovered a garden hoe covered in blood
(00:48):
near their bodies, and autopsy revealed that David had scratches
on his back and water in his lungs, indicating he'd drowned.
Hannah's body was covered and bruising and scratches. Their death
sparked international outrage and questions about a lack of justice
on Katau. Welcome to Death Island, a production of Katie's
(01:13):
Studios and iHeartRadio episode four, The Case of Hannah Witherich
and David Miller Too.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I'm Connor Powell, an investigative journalist at KAT Studios with
Stephanie Lydecker, Courtney Armstrong, Andrew Arnow and Jeff Shane. We
left off last episode speaking with reporter Jonathan Samuels, who
was a foreign correspondent based in Australia at the time
for Sky News.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
We have an incident where one morning at breakfast in
the hotel where all the journalists were staying, one of
my colleagues was pretty shaken actually, and he said that
he'd had a knock on his door in the middle
of the night and it answered the door and there
was a local guy on the other side basically warning
him off, telling him it was time to leave the
(02:00):
island and not to ask any more questions. And he'd
been pretty shaken up by that. I don't think he'd
ever sort of had that experience before where someone had
actually threatened him for simply doing his job.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
The investigation was under scrutiny around the world.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Within days, more than sixty police were sent to Kotel,
including Police Lieutenant General Panya Maymon, who was sent from
the mainland and was brought in to oversee the investigation.
It was a real show of force.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Authur Sue Buchanan lived on Thailand for years and wrote
the book The Curse of the Turtle, the true story
of Thailand's backpacker murders. She shares her thoughts on this development.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
And then completely mind blew me when a few days later,
Montreu Atiuichian is then taken in for questioning and he
goes to Panya Maimon goes to the TAYPBS newspaper and says,
we've identified this guy. It's Montreu Atiuichian and his nephew,
Nonsa Juchian. He said, we've got video footage implicates them.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Suddenly it felt like perhaps the police were putting things together.
You know, would this guy Nono be arrested, And if
he was arrested, well, that would prove that the police
were actually independent, that they weren't being bribed by the
big family on the island. That perhaps this investigation was
(03:25):
going to be thorough and fair and proper.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
But not only has Panyu implicated him in his murders,
he's doing press conferences or press statements to say that
he's got the right people and he's not going to
use scapegoats. And we were all like, holy shit, it's like,
what the hell like, this family is going to be
brought down and we're like god that everyone was saying,
Panya Mayman must have the biggest death wish on the planet.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Well, some reporters had been on Katu from the Dayhannah
Witheredge and David Miller's bodies were found. More continued coming
to the island. Connor spoke with veteran international journalist Sarah Yun,
who lived in Thailand for eight years.
Speaker 5 (04:13):
So I arrived back from America just as they announced
that they had found two people who they believed were
the killers of these particular two victims. And when I
arrived back, I literally just took the boat over to
Kotoo and arrived just in time for the re enactment.
I was aware that two days before the police had
(04:35):
said that they now think they knew who carried out
the killing, and they believed it was either the headman
or someone related to the head man on the island,
and they were going to arrest them. So when I
arrived for the reenactment, I was expecting that somebody from
Kotao was going to be paraded as having been arrested
(04:56):
for this crime.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
The big deal that the Thai government, a few months
fresh off a military coup, were willing to take down
a member of this powerful family.
Speaker 5 (05:07):
And we were waiting for the people to come down
to the beach for this reenactment. It's very strange what
Thailand does. They literally take the suspect to the site
and basically before they've had any trial or there's been
any discussion in courts whether they're guilty or not, they
make them reenact what they did during the course of
the crime, which to a westerner watching is like, this
(05:30):
is outrageous because this person hasn't even been tried yet.
But they say that they've got a confession and therefore
they can now reenact it. So there was a big
crowd waiting on the beach, locals, and then the police
came down and they had three men, very small men,
young boys really in my mind, but young men, and
they were wearing helmets and stab vests and they were
(05:53):
being led by about five policemen each down to the beach.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Here's a quote from a Thai police officer from Tomstone's
documentary Murder and Paradise.
Speaker 6 (06:02):
We are not the best police in the world, but
we tried to do our best. We tried to bring
the justice to the victims family.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Here's Connor and Andrew.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
The police were leading the suspects down to the beach,
but they weren't Manchuwat or Nam sad Duvician.
Speaker 7 (06:27):
The two suspects that were led to the crime scene
were Burmese workers Zalin and Wapo. We're going to get
more into them later, but there's more that we found
out about the investigation into the Tuvichians.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
As a reminder, police Lieutenant General Panya Maymon had come
in from Bangkok and had taken over the investigation into
Hannah in David's deaths. Soon the police were closing in.
They said they had CCTV footage, they had DNA results,
and they brought in Manchawat Davichian for questioning, and they
also had Namsad in their sights. But then things changed.
(07:00):
Around September twenty fifth, I spoke with Subiu Kannan about this.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Well in because he ran off to Bangkok and there
was a lot of talk that he had fled the
island on the first boat after the murder.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Remember that police had CCTV footage of the running man
and multiple people said the running man looked like Namsad.
It also seems like investigators had additional CCTV footage in
their possession which connected Namsad and Montrea Davician to the
murders of Hannah and David.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
So things were developing very quickly.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Jonathan Samuel Wills was a reporter from Sky News. He
covered Hannah and David's deaths.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
And then it turned out that Nom Sorb actually had
a perfect alibi, and his alibi was that he was
studying at university in Bangkok and he managed to get
hold of evidence that he was there, some CCTV footage
which was time and date stamped, which had him on
it coming out of a lecture theater. I think it
was so even though this guy looked very like him
(08:04):
on the CCTV, it turned out he had an alibi.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Connor spoke with the man were calling David a a
Thai anti corruption activist who lives in the US. He
led a crowdsource web effort to expose high corruption and
investigated some of the murders on Katau. He had his
doubts about the alibi.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
That was kind of alibi right.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
Everyone on the island said that Nomshad was there, on
that weekend, and then the next morning he took a
speed boat and then left the island.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
So when did Namsad leave Katau ahead to Bangkok. Was
it before the murders happened, or was it the following morning.
There were also questions about the authenticity of the CCTV
footage from Bangkok, which allegedly proved that Namsat was not
on the island during the murders. According to David's social
media group, the video had the wrong timestamp and the
(08:57):
images in the lobby shifted.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
How much credience do you give to the people who
say that there is at least a reasonable doubt that
the video of him in Bangkok was doctor or not real.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
I think that as a journalist, it's not necessarily my
place to speculate or suppose anything. I base everything I
report on as you do. You know on facts and
what you've seen to be the truth, and you speak
to lots of sources, and I try and ignore rumor
and speculation that might be on the internet. And I
(09:30):
actually went to the start of the trial and listened
to the evidence, and certainly it didn't feel like there
was a huge amount of evidence against non sood and
in fact he had, you know, a very credible alibi.
It could have been faked. I don't know, but that's
not for me to say. That was for the defense
to say, and certainly they didn't have any proof that
(09:50):
it was.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
But what about Mantra Davician.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Montrowatt went to a police station, he was questioned an
interviewed for three hours by a senior police officer, but
then he was released. There was no further questioning, no
further action against him. He and Nonsod were both DNA
tested and were both cleared of any involvement, which I
(10:16):
think many people felt was suspicious. But what made people
even more suspicious was that the senior police officer who'd
taken those DNA samples was let go. He was told
he was no longer on the investigation.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Lieutenant General Panya Maman was the officer brought in to
take charge of the investigation and find the killers of
Hannah and David. It appeared he was actually making progress,
So why was he taken off the case.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
And of course all the conspiracy theorists were saying, well,
that's because he tried to finger the chief of the island,
and this is exactly what has happened. The police are
so corrupt they've taken him off the case. Actually, others
say he was always due for promotion anyway, that had
been agreed well before David Hannah's murders, and that he
was simply leaving because he had to take up his
(11:07):
new post. I don't know which of those two scenarios
is the truth.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
It does seem a little bit crazy that in a
very high profile media ship storm, essentially that this guy
who's been promoted is already a top commander in the
police force in Thailand gets yanks from it though.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Right Yeah. And you'd think, wouldn't you, that even if
he has got a new job or a promotion, that
they would leave it a few weeks until he cleared
up what was one of the biggest crimes in Thailand
at the time. I mean, you know, is it conspiracy
or is it cock up?
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Before he was promoted and taken off the case, the
Lieutenant General ruled out Warapan Davichian is a suspect. It's
worth noting that Warapan is not only the chief of
the island of Katao, but an important businessman with ties
to the island's Elite. Connor spoke with Jonathan Samuels.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Can you describe what you know about the island in
terms of the way it's organized and the families and
just sort of how it operates as a small little island.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Certainly, I got to know pretty quickly how the island works,
and I think if you just go on holiday there,
if you're just there for a week or for two weeks,
you probably wouldn't have any clue as to how the
island operate and what the deal is. But basically it's
run by families who've lived on the island forever, and
the main family is the Twitchean family. Warripan Twitchian is
(12:28):
the island's chief. He was elected the chief of the island.
His brother is Montrat Twitchian, and the two of them
pretty much own and run everything. Well, certainly have their
finger in most of the businesses there, particularly along Sari Beach,
which is the main sort of resort drag. They either
own the bars or certainly rent from those that run them.
(12:53):
So it's very much an ordered system in the sense
that if you want to get anything done, it has
to be agreed much by the twitching family. And as
I discovered, it's not only the businesses that work like that,
but also potentially the police as well.
Speaker 8 (13:11):
And I haven't.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Got direct evidence of this, but certainly the suspicion was
that the police would turn a blind eye to certain things.
If that's what the sort of the hierarchy on the
family demanded.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Tavician family seems to be the king among all the
families there, and they own the most important or they
control the most important land on this small little island.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Right, Yeah, that's pretty much how it works. You know,
all the bars, all the businesses, all the shops, all
the hotels that are all sort of rented or leased,
and Twitchian family pretty much control most of them.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
You talk to people on the Davichian family mantra, and
you were there and you interacted with them. You know
they have been accused of being part of the murder,
covering up the murder. What do they strike you as
a family, as a group of people, the ones you talk.
Speaker 9 (13:59):
To, well, well, what I will say for Montrerosuician is
that he fronted up, and people don't always do that.
In these circumstances. He could easily have said no to
an interview with me. He could easily have refused to
answer my questions.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Tomstone produced and directed a documentary on the suspicious death
some Catau. He interviewed Mantua Davician for the documentary and.
Speaker 9 (14:20):
He took on every single question. I answered head on,
and I put it to him squarely and asked him
if he killed them. Now he doesn't have to take
kindly to some snotty nosed British journalist turning up on
his land putting these questions to him. But he fronted up,
and I think that is ultimately very much to his credit.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
What was his response when he was asked, did you
or were you part of the effort to kill or
cover up their deaths?
Speaker 8 (14:47):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Or no?
Speaker 9 (14:48):
Did you kill Hannah? He denied it entirely. And I
think that, in fairness to Montreroucian, what he might have
seen on the beach when he got there that morning
might have shocked him so badly that he might necessarily
have considered that this is now a live crime scene
that needs to be kept clear. I think that he
(15:09):
denied doing anything at all to the crime scene at all,
And besides, the crime scene itself was pretty difficult to
keep sanitized. You've got you know, seawater all over the place.
You've obviously got the tide coming in and out, You've
got waves. You know, he always insisted that he did
his best. But as far as I'm concerned, I can't
say with any confidence whatsoever whether the Tuitian family have
(15:31):
any responsibility for what happened to Hannah, whether Edge or
David Miller. But what I could see was that he
was willing to take responsibility for dealing with the international
media and you know, address what happened.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
You also meet Sean mccanna. Can you tell me how
you met him, where you found him, and how you
were sort of first introduced to him.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
You remember that I went straight to the crime scene
when we arrived on the island, and I was chatting
to backpackge trying to find people who spoke English, trying
to find other English backpackers who may have known David
or Hannah, And quite quickly I came across Sean, and
Sean said that he had been friends with David. They'd
actually been at university together. They weren't traveling together, but
(16:15):
purely by chance, they'd bumped into each other on Kotau
because Sean had been pretty much living there had been
playing his guitar, making a little bit of money, and
basically had spent quite a long time on the island,
and he was happy to talk to me. Well, I
say he was happy, he was actually quite nervous and
quite twitchy. And when I finally persuaded him to speak
(16:37):
to me, and I just wanted him to say a
few nice things about David, what sort of ladie was,
he wanted to do it sort of around the corner
from where this vigil was going on. He said he
didn't really want anyone to see that he was speaking
to the press, which I thought was a bit weird.
And even when I was interviewing him, he kept looking
over my shoulder. He was looking around. It was almost
as if he was keeping an eye out for people
(16:58):
who might see him speaking to me. And after I
did the interview, I said to him, Sean, why are
you Why are you so nervous? You seem really anxious
and I know it's desperately sad what's happened, But is
there anything wrong anything we can help with? And he said,
you'll find out, And it was a very strange thing.
He said, you'll find out there are darker forces at play. Here,
(17:19):
and I wasn't quite sure what he meant, but of
course I found out a bit later because a few
days later, I was fast asleep back in the hotel
and my phone rang and it was the early hours
of the morning, and I woke up with a start,
grabbed the phone, answered it, and it was Sean on
the other end, and he was in a hell of
a state. He was really stressed, really anxious, and he
(17:41):
started sort of rambling and talking about how he was
hiding in the seven to eleven supermarket. He was in
the store behind the counter with the shop assistant and
he said, they're trying to kill me. They're trying to
kill me. And I was like, calm down, Sean, what
are you talking about? And he said, the mafia are
outside staring at me through the whins, telling me I'm going
(18:02):
to die if I don't leave the island, I'm going
to die. And I'm like, oh my god, that's going on.
And he'd been posting similar stuff on his Facebook page
as well, appealing for help. And one of the guys
who was banging on the window was montrat Twitchian and
it was as a result of that that police spoke
(18:22):
to him because obviously it was very public. Sean had
made it very public. It put it on Facebook, the
fact that he was being intimidated.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
We saw the Facebook post that Sean made. He posted
time Afia trying to kill me with the photo of
montrot da Vician and another man. We were told this
other man was a police officer on the island. One
of his posts said guy on the left is the leader.
The guy on the left is montrot da Vician.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
And that was the reason in the end that the
police had to make their first sort of investigations into
the chief family on the island. So anyway, I said
to Sean, look, stay where you are, don't leave the shop.
I'll try and get some help. And I phoned up
the woman I've met in the band's diving store and
her boss, and he went down, calmed everything down, and
(19:10):
and then and then the next day Sean left because
he was absolutely terrified and the whole episode was was
very disturbing.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Sean took the three pm ferry to Ko Samui. Well
he was on the ferry, Sean did an interview with
the news organization recounting what had happened to him on Catau.
Speaker 9 (19:29):
They just said to me, monsieur. He Carol Donald, you've
got two people's.
Speaker 8 (19:35):
Deaths in your arms. You know what, I was sure.
Speaker 9 (19:44):
Got to hang yourself today. You've got yourself today.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
We're gonna watch.
Speaker 9 (19:49):
Your mind that you your day tonight.
Speaker 8 (19:52):
I just ran.
Speaker 9 (19:53):
I just left.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
I know it's a little hard to hear, but essentially
Sean is saying it was you who can them. We
knows you. You're going to hang yourself tonight, and we're
gonna watch you hang. You're going stide tonight. I just
left and ran.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
But that's how I got to know Sean. And I
think Sean has a passed himself. He clearly perhaps upsets
various people on the island for whatever reason, and he
believes they were trying to make him into a scapegoat
for the murders.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
I want to unpack something a little bit because I've
heard this scene at the seven to eleven described as
he's hiding behind the counter with this person. They're on
the outside banging to say, you know, we're going to
get you and stuff like that. It strikes me as
a little bit of an insane description, because if these
guys are the stone called killers and the mafia that
everyone describes them to be. Wouldn't they just go inside,
(20:44):
grab them and take them to somewhere. I mean, I've
heard of assassinations in the street and kotow, you know,
people roughing people up left and right just for looking
or talking to the wrong woman. And it strikes me
as if, like they wanted to get Sean mccnna going
inside the seven eleven where they can, that seems a
very likely possibility that they would just go grab them
if they needed to.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Yeah, yeah, it's a good question, and I you know,
I don't know the answer to that. I mean, I've
thought about that too. Is it a case that there
was no CCTV outside the store, but inside the store
there was and they knew that they'd be caught on
CCTV if they try and grab him and drag him out.
I mean, that would look incredibly suspicious, wouldn't it. But also,
if if you're going to jump on somebody, why would
(21:26):
you do it, you know, on the main drag? Why
not just go quietly to his room or whatever. I
don't know the answers to that, and I think, you know,
it sort of brings about a wider question, and that
is of the confusion that surrounded so much of what
went on on that island, and I think as a
journalist it was very frustrating because people didn't want to
(21:47):
talk to you. People did sort of lead you down
the wrong path to try and get you off the scent.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
a moment. There's questions about whether Sean was with David
and Hannah the night they were murdered. According to Sean,
(22:19):
David invited John to come and meet up that night,
but Sean says he ended up falling asleep and never
went out here again.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Sue Buchanan, Sean said he wasn't out that night. I've
got a photograph, a Timestown photograph that proves he was
at that night. I mean, Sean knew David, he knew
him when David was at University Elite. And he's got
the exact same wounds on him that David had, They're
very very similar, and he's got blood splashes all over
his guitar. And he fled the island after saying the
(22:47):
Matthew were trying to kill him after monchd chased him
into the supermarket. But I think, you know Sean is
the key to this. Sean knows what went on. Sean
has information. I truly believe Sean was there that night
because he's got the bloody injuries.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Here again, Andrew and Connor.
Speaker 7 (23:04):
If Sean was a suspect, why didn't the Thai authorities
investigate further? Sean had similar wounds to David's suspicious wounds,
but Sean was formally cleared by Thai police. If Sean
wasn't directly involved in Hannah and David's death, could he
have seen something the night Hannah and David were murdered
which made him flee Kotau? And what about Mantrawat that
he knew Sean had something to do with the murders
(23:27):
and wanted him off the island. Did Sean see something
when Hannah and David were murdered? There were a lot
of questions that should have been pursued. But the investigation
then takes a turn on September twenty fifth, twenty fourteen,
when Warapan Tavichian offered a one million bot to anyone
who could prove his family was involved in the murders.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Authorities doing about face. Around this time, Thailand's new Prime
minister also made a strange statement saying that no Tai
person could ever have committed a crime like this, and
he also had some odd takes about what life on
Kotao was like like.
Speaker 7 (24:00):
Thailand's Prime Minister then made a very disturbing comment saying
that good looking women in bikinis were not safe on
the country's beaches. After provoking outrage from the statement, he
was forced to apologize, saying he was sorry for the
comment about foreigners and bikinis. I'm not judging you, I
just want you to be careful.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
A tai police then began to focus their investigative efforts
on migrant workers and tourists as the possible suspects in
David and Hannah's murder. After the Prime Minister and the
military junta leaders said that it could not have been
a Tai person, the police began to focus on the
Burmese migrant workers on Kotel, and within about forty eight
hours of that statement, Police Lieutenant General Paiman Maymon was
(24:41):
taken off the case and he was replaced by another
commander and they only at that time start targeting the
Burmese workers on Kotel.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Police began collecting DNA for more than two hundred people
on Katu, mostly Bermese immigrants. To understand why the Thai
got was pointing the finger at the Burmese population, we
need to look into the history of the Burmese migrants
in Thailand. Connor spoke with Phil Robertson, the Deputy Asia
Director for Human Rights Watch.
Speaker 10 (25:13):
I live in Bangkok, and I wrote a report for
Human Rights Watch a number of years ago about mistreatment
of migrant workers from Burma, Laos and Cambodia who come
to Thailand. And there's been a very significant presence of
workers really since the nineteen nineties in Thailand from those
three major countries, and Burma by far away is the
(25:35):
largest contributor of migrant workers to Thailand. There's Burmese all
across the country. I mean, you know, the official figures
are like one point five million. It's probably closer to
three or four million who have come out of Burma
and gone to Thailand.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Here again, Sarah Yun.
Speaker 5 (25:53):
Many of them come across on legal contracts that many
others are brought across by agents on much less legal footing.
They take their passports when they come into the country,
they help them find somewhere to get a job illegally,
and they will work illegally while they're there, and then
they go back. They spend most of the time sending
(26:15):
all the money they've got home and they just save
a little bit for themselves. And the level of poverty
between Burma and Thailand is obviously hugely different. But even
those who are legal are very much concerned about their
status in the country. They are deemed illegal immigrants by
anyone who sees them, even if they're actually legal, and
they're often paid a lot less and they live in
(26:38):
very very rudimentary housing that live in camps where they
all live together, but literally in wooden tracts as far
as we're concerned, and therefore it's very unstable way of
life for those people. And they know that they're deemed
to be second class citizens, and they know that if
they're picked up by the police, they could end up
with quite a lot of trouble from the police, so
(26:58):
they avoid the police as much as possible, and they
will learn a lot less than the local ties, which
obviously is their attraction in the workforce.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Talk to me a little bit about the Bromese community,
because you also went in to that community. You saw
something that no backpacker that visits Cotel, no tourist who
visits Kotel ever sees, which is how the Burmese community lives.
And just described to me what you saw when you
went into their community.
Speaker 8 (27:24):
Here again, Tomstone, their life is in stark contrast to
that of well, not only the Westerners who are there
enjoying the nightlife, but indeed the Tie people as well.
Speaker 9 (27:35):
It's like going back in time. There's limited electricity, there's
limited running water. People are living in not much more
than sort of slightly souped up shacks. It's very very basic,
and it's very very striking when you're there that the
bars where you've been drinking in the evenings are served
by a community of people who don't enjoy any of
(27:56):
the luxuries that you do. All of the people who
are native to the island.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
And how did the Ties view and look at the Burmese.
Speaker 9 (28:04):
I think that they viewed them as a resource and
not much more than that. An uncomplaining resource, is how
I would summarize it.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
If the Thai government, Thai authorities, Tai families who are
on the island are trying to deflect away from a
possible tie individual who maybe attacked Hannah and David. Aren't
the Burmese the perfect people to, you know, to color
and to point the finger.
Speaker 9 (28:30):
At, Well, that's of you that you heard a lot,
and you heard it, in fact from a lot of
Westerners who had in fact, we're now living on the
not just coach Have, but the other islands dotted around there.
They felt overwhelmingly that the Burmese community was being unfairly targeted,
that the Burmese communities were a scapegoat for what happened,
and that it was always the Burmese who got accused
whenever anything went wrong on the island.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
That was one of the big things about the Burmese
migrants with Hannah and David. They were absolutely adamant to
many on the island that a tie person would never
be put up for this because it would look so
bad for Thailand. It was much easier to point the
finger blame at the Burmese migrant population, which has always
been looked down at. And I think that's about protecting
(29:15):
their tourism industry and the huge amount of money it
brings in.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Connor and Andrew at this point in the investigation and
to hand in David's murders. Authorities directly start looking at
the Burmese migrant community on Kotel based off of footprints
that they found at the crime scene. Police focused on
a suspect with a size forty shoe, which is the
equivalent of about a size seven. And here in the US,
remember this is all happening on a well trafficed beach
(29:41):
where the water and the tide are coming and going,
so realistically, there's not going to be any usable footprints
that would have survived the tide coming and going. And
investigators were also dealing with the fact that people were
coming and going in and out of this crime scene
from almost the very second that the bodies were found
in the very early hours of the investigation, so the
(30:02):
whole area was very chaotic.
Speaker 7 (30:04):
Once the investigation really kicked off, police decided that they
were going to go to an extremely well known area
on the island. It's a clearing towards the center of
the island where the Burmese community is located, and local
police have been accused of intimidating and attacking the Burmese.
You know, one person that we spoke to provided us
with photos of people that had been bruised and even
(30:27):
had boiling water poured on them. We saw lots of
photographs that were appalling. The overwhelming message from the Burmese
community and their supporters was that they were being scapegoaded
for these crimes as a convenient target for this investigation
so the Thai authorities could close it and get things
back to the usual as soon as possible.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Tay police interrogated a Burmese man who has gone by
the name of Malmo. He admits that he was on
the beach with Zelin and Wapo, drinking beer and playing
the guitar. He told police that he left sorry beach
around one am to see his girlfriend, but that Zaln
and Wapo wanted to keep on drinking, so they stayed
when he left, and he claimed when he talked to
(31:09):
police that he didn't see any evidence of a crime.
Speaker 7 (31:12):
CCTV footage shows three Burmese men riding a motorbike by
a convenience store where they apparently bought cigarettes and three
bottles of beer. It corroborates Malmoo's version of events, putting
Zaln and Waypo near the scene of the crime, but
this is circumstantial evidence At best.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
After Malmau was interrogated by police, Waypo and Zaln were
arrested and charged with killing Hannah and David on the
island of Koto.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Let's stop here for another break. On October two, twenty fourteen,
Waypo and Zaln were detained. Hired a food vendor working
(32:01):
on Katau as an official police interpreter during the interrogations.
On October third, twenty fourteen, Waypo and Zouln, both twenty one,
were arrested and charged with murder, rape, and theft.
Speaker 11 (32:14):
Police say the men were also identified by DNA evidence.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Please claim that Zooln and Waypo quickly confess to the murder.
They had apparently worked illegally on the island for a
number of years and were driven, say police, by a
desire to rape Hannah withrage after seeing the young couple
canodling on the beach.
Speaker 11 (32:34):
The arrests come amid mounting pressure on police to solve
the murders. Thai police have come under international and domestic
scrutiny for their hapisode handling of the case.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
This brings us back to the three young men being
walked down to the beach by Thai authorities. Waypo Xiaoln
and Mung Mung are taken down to the beach to
do a recreation of the crimes they have supposedly commit.
Speaker 11 (33:02):
The two burmes were taken to the scene on Friday
and made to reconstruct the crime. They were protective west
and helmets in case of attack by local onlookers.
Speaker 5 (33:12):
So there was a big crowd waiting on the beach, locals,
and then the police came down and they had three men,
young men, and they were wearing helmets and stab vests,
and they were being led by about five policemen each
down to the beach.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Sarah yun covered. When Wapo and zal Lyn were detained.
Speaker 5 (33:31):
They looked very very very nervous and very worried, and
the boy at the back was picking his lips as
he walked down towards where all these people stood. And
they had flown in the chief of Police from Bangkok,
the head of the police department, and there were more
police on the beach than there were spectators and defendants.
And they then took two of these men up onto
(33:53):
a kind of salah which was slightly raised off the ground,
and then said these two men carried out this crime.
With all the locals around looking at them, and the
other man they left him. He didn't take him up there,
but he was dressed exactly the same, so we were
quite interested curious as to why this guy was standing there.
And then the police chief said to the two men,
(34:14):
tell the people gathered that you carried out the crime,
and they then looked at the people and said we didn't,
which didn't go down very well at all, obviously, with
the police standing behind them, about eight officers standing behind them,
and they got a good swift knock in the back
at least, but they refused to admit they did it,
(34:34):
and I must admit a gasp went up from the
crowd wondering what would happen to them when they got
away from the onlookers. But they then proceeded to say
that they definitely did it and it is these two
people and they're going to be taken to the jail
and Kosami and we weren't allowed to interview them. And
then they took them and put them on a normal boat,
(34:55):
handcuffed to one police officer each and sped them back
to KOs Samoy, which is by far the bigger island,
and put them in a jail. So there was no
real communication with these boys. But what was interesting was
that the third person disappeared at this point, and he
wasn't taken on the boat, and he didn't go back
into nat On jail. And just third person was mentioned
(35:15):
that he was there with them, supposedly on the beach
the same night as David and Hannah died, but they
said they didn't know where he was. Maybe he'd gone
back to me and mar and they hadn't followed up
any investigation with him, even though this man apparently worked
in the bar where the two victims were last seen.
So we found that very strange.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
I always thought one of the interesting things was that
the police say Waypo and Zalen committed this murder, and
yet their third friend who was with him, didn't commit
the murder. Possibly he left, sure, but it strikes me
as like the group that arrived together, they didn't leave
together as well.
Speaker 9 (35:56):
We thought about it a lot, and we tried to
track him down and talk to him, but I think
he got off. Remember he'd got off the island, and
it wasn't possible to speak to him. As I remember
it now, and this just needs a fact check, I
think he peeled away from them when the two friends
Ypo and Zooeln were on the beach at the critical time.
I think that's why Malmong wasn't in the prime, so
(36:18):
to speak.
Speaker 8 (36:19):
Mam Mao.
Speaker 4 (36:20):
They let him go because miraculously he worked for Montreuatuchian,
so he got let go, and they tried to say
that Waypure was doing a runner from the island, which
is complete rubbish because he left the island to go
into a new job on the mainland and like two
weeks have passince the murders. I spoke to both way
Pure and Zorlan's bosses and they said they both turned
up to work the next day completely normal, nothing going on.
(36:42):
So two illiterate kids from a village in Burma with
no running water, no electric, no TV. They've never read
crime novels, they've never watched crime documentaries, they've never had
any previous criminal history. They're half the size of David.
They've brutally murdered tute tourists and then have the waywithal
to completely carry on as no next day, like nothing's happened.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
More on that this season. If you have any information
about Hannah Withridge and David Miller, please contact us at
producers at ktdashstudios dot com. For more information and relevant photos,
follow us on Instagram at KT Underscore Studios. Death Island
(37:23):
is produced by Stephanie Leidecker, Connor Powell, Andrew Arnow, Jeff Shane,
Chris Cacaro, Gabriel Chistillo and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and
sound designed by Jeff Tooi music by Vanicor Music. Death
Island is a production of iHeartRadio and KT Studios. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(37:47):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
On September fourteenth, twenty fourteen, twenty three year old Hannah
Witherich and twenty four year old David Miller, who'd only
just met by chance on Catau, were talking at the
Ac Bar. The pair, both from the UK, left the
bar together around one am. It was the last time
either of them was seen alive. Early the next morning,
(00:25):
on September fifteenth, a beach cleaner found their partially clad bodies.
David was floating in the water, Hannah was found on
the sand, the waves lapping over her. Near the crime
scene was a pile of clothes, cigarette butts, and a
used condom. Detectives discovered a garden hoe covered in blood
(00:48):
near their bodies, and autopsy revealed that David had scratches
on his back and water in his lungs, indicating he'd drowned.
Hannah's body was covered and bruising and scratches. Their death
sparked international outrage and questions about a lack of justice
on Katau. Welcome to Death Island, a production of Katie's
(01:13):
Studios and iHeartRadio episode four, The Case of Hannah Witherich
and David Miller Too.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I'm Connor Powell, an investigative journalist at KAT Studios with
Stephanie Lydecker, Courtney Armstrong, Andrew Arnow and Jeff Shane. We
left off last episode speaking with reporter Jonathan Samuels, who
was a foreign correspondent based in Australia at the time
for Sky News.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
We have an incident where one morning at breakfast in
the hotel where all the journalists were staying, one of
my colleagues was pretty shaken actually, and he said that
he'd had a knock on his door in the middle
of the night and it answered the door and there
was a local guy on the other side basically warning
him off, telling him it was time to leave the
(02:00):
island and not to ask any more questions. And he'd
been pretty shaken up by that. I don't think he'd
ever sort of had that experience before where someone had
actually threatened him for simply doing his job.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
The investigation was under scrutiny around the world.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Within days, more than sixty police were sent to Kotel,
including Police Lieutenant General Panya Maymon, who was sent from
the mainland and was brought in to oversee the investigation.
It was a real show of force.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Authur Sue Buchanan lived on Thailand for years and wrote
the book The Curse of the Turtle, the true story
of Thailand's backpacker murders. She shares her thoughts on this development.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
And then completely mind blew me when a few days later,
Montreu Atiuichian is then taken in for questioning and he
goes to Panya Maimon goes to the TAYPBS newspaper and says,
we've identified this guy. It's Montreu Atiuichian and his nephew,
Nonsa Juchian. He said, we've got video footage implicates them.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Suddenly it felt like perhaps the police were putting things together.
You know, would this guy Nono be arrested, And if
he was arrested, well, that would prove that the police
were actually independent, that they weren't being bribed by the
big family on the island. That perhaps this investigation was
(03:25):
going to be thorough and fair and proper.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
But not only has Panyu implicated him in his murders,
he's doing press conferences or press statements to say that
he's got the right people and he's not going to
use scapegoats. And we were all like, holy shit, it's like,
what the hell like, this family is going to be
brought down and we're like god that everyone was saying,
Panya Mayman must have the biggest death wish on the planet.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Well, some reporters had been on Katu from the Dayhannah
Witheredge and David Miller's bodies were found. More continued coming
to the island. Connor spoke with veteran international journalist Sarah Yun,
who lived in Thailand for eight years.
Speaker 5 (04:13):
So I arrived back from America just as they announced
that they had found two people who they believed were
the killers of these particular two victims. And when I
arrived back, I literally just took the boat over to
Kotoo and arrived just in time for the re enactment.
I was aware that two days before the police had
(04:35):
said that they now think they knew who carried out
the killing, and they believed it was either the headman
or someone related to the head man on the island,
and they were going to arrest them. So when I
arrived for the reenactment, I was expecting that somebody from
Kotao was going to be paraded as having been arrested
(04:56):
for this crime.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
The big deal that the Thai government, a few months
fresh off a military coup, were willing to take down
a member of this powerful family.
Speaker 5 (05:07):
And we were waiting for the people to come down
to the beach for this reenactment. It's very strange what
Thailand does. They literally take the suspect to the site
and basically before they've had any trial or there's been
any discussion in courts whether they're guilty or not, they
make them reenact what they did during the course of
the crime, which to a westerner watching is like, this
(05:30):
is outrageous because this person hasn't even been tried yet.
But they say that they've got a confession and therefore
they can now reenact it. So there was a big
crowd waiting on the beach, locals, and then the police
came down and they had three men, very small men,
young boys really in my mind, but young men, and
they were wearing helmets and stab vests and they were
(05:53):
being led by about five policemen each down to the beach.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Here's a quote from a Thai police officer from Tomstone's
documentary Murder and Paradise.
Speaker 6 (06:02):
We are not the best police in the world, but
we tried to do our best. We tried to bring
the justice to the victims family.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Here's Connor and Andrew.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
The police were leading the suspects down to the beach,
but they weren't Manchuwat or Nam sad Duvician.
Speaker 7 (06:27):
The two suspects that were led to the crime scene
were Burmese workers Zalin and Wapo. We're going to get
more into them later, but there's more that we found
out about the investigation into the Tuvichians.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
As a reminder, police Lieutenant General Panya Maymon had come
in from Bangkok and had taken over the investigation into
Hannah in David's deaths. Soon the police were closing in.
They said they had CCTV footage, they had DNA results,
and they brought in Manchawat Davichian for questioning, and they
also had Namsad in their sights. But then things changed.
(07:00):
Around September twenty fifth, I spoke with Subiu Kannan about this.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Well in because he ran off to Bangkok and there
was a lot of talk that he had fled the
island on the first boat after the murder.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Remember that police had CCTV footage of the running man
and multiple people said the running man looked like Namsad.
It also seems like investigators had additional CCTV footage in
their possession which connected Namsad and Montrea Davician to the
murders of Hannah and David.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
So things were developing very quickly.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Jonathan Samuel Wills was a reporter from Sky News. He
covered Hannah and David's deaths.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
And then it turned out that Nom Sorb actually had
a perfect alibi, and his alibi was that he was
studying at university in Bangkok and he managed to get
hold of evidence that he was there, some CCTV footage
which was time and date stamped, which had him on
it coming out of a lecture theater. I think it
was so even though this guy looked very like him
(08:04):
on the CCTV, it turned out he had an alibi.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Connor spoke with the man were calling David a a
Thai anti corruption activist who lives in the US. He
led a crowdsource web effort to expose high corruption and
investigated some of the murders on Katau. He had his
doubts about the alibi.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
That was kind of alibi right.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
Everyone on the island said that Nomshad was there, on
that weekend, and then the next morning he took a
speed boat and then left the island.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
So when did Namsad leave Katau ahead to Bangkok. Was
it before the murders happened, or was it the following morning.
There were also questions about the authenticity of the CCTV
footage from Bangkok, which allegedly proved that Namsat was not
on the island during the murders. According to David's social
media group, the video had the wrong timestamp and the
(08:57):
images in the lobby shifted.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
How much credience do you give to the people who
say that there is at least a reasonable doubt that
the video of him in Bangkok was doctor or not real.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
I think that as a journalist, it's not necessarily my
place to speculate or suppose anything. I base everything I
report on as you do. You know on facts and
what you've seen to be the truth, and you speak
to lots of sources, and I try and ignore rumor
and speculation that might be on the internet. And I
(09:30):
actually went to the start of the trial and listened
to the evidence, and certainly it didn't feel like there
was a huge amount of evidence against non sood and
in fact he had, you know, a very credible alibi.
It could have been faked. I don't know, but that's
not for me to say. That was for the defense
to say, and certainly they didn't have any proof that
(09:50):
it was.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
But what about Mantra Davician.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Montrowatt went to a police station, he was questioned an
interviewed for three hours by a senior police officer, but
then he was released. There was no further questioning, no
further action against him. He and Nonsod were both DNA
tested and were both cleared of any involvement, which I
(10:16):
think many people felt was suspicious. But what made people
even more suspicious was that the senior police officer who'd
taken those DNA samples was let go. He was told
he was no longer on the investigation.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Lieutenant General Panya Maman was the officer brought in to
take charge of the investigation and find the killers of
Hannah and David. It appeared he was actually making progress,
So why was he taken off the case.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
And of course all the conspiracy theorists were saying, well,
that's because he tried to finger the chief of the island,
and this is exactly what has happened. The police are
so corrupt they've taken him off the case. Actually, others
say he was always due for promotion anyway, that had
been agreed well before David Hannah's murders, and that he
was simply leaving because he had to take up his
(11:07):
new post. I don't know which of those two scenarios
is the truth.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
It does seem a little bit crazy that in a
very high profile media ship storm, essentially that this guy
who's been promoted is already a top commander in the
police force in Thailand gets yanks from it though.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Right Yeah. And you'd think, wouldn't you, that even if
he has got a new job or a promotion, that
they would leave it a few weeks until he cleared
up what was one of the biggest crimes in Thailand
at the time. I mean, you know, is it conspiracy
or is it cock up?
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Before he was promoted and taken off the case, the
Lieutenant General ruled out Warapan Davichian is a suspect. It's
worth noting that Warapan is not only the chief of
the island of Katao, but an important businessman with ties
to the island's Elite. Connor spoke with Jonathan Samuels.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Can you describe what you know about the island in
terms of the way it's organized and the families and
just sort of how it operates as a small little island.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Certainly, I got to know pretty quickly how the island works,
and I think if you just go on holiday there,
if you're just there for a week or for two weeks,
you probably wouldn't have any clue as to how the
island operate and what the deal is. But basically it's
run by families who've lived on the island forever, and
the main family is the Twitchean family. Warripan Twitchian is
(12:28):
the island's chief. He was elected the chief of the island.
His brother is Montrat Twitchian, and the two of them
pretty much own and run everything. Well, certainly have their
finger in most of the businesses there, particularly along Sari Beach,
which is the main sort of resort drag. They either
own the bars or certainly rent from those that run them.
(12:53):
So it's very much an ordered system in the sense
that if you want to get anything done, it has
to be agreed much by the twitching family. And as
I discovered, it's not only the businesses that work like that,
but also potentially the police as well.
Speaker 8 (13:11):
And I haven't.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Got direct evidence of this, but certainly the suspicion was
that the police would turn a blind eye to certain things.
If that's what the sort of the hierarchy on the
family demanded.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Tavician family seems to be the king among all the
families there, and they own the most important or they
control the most important land on this small little island.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Right, Yeah, that's pretty much how it works. You know,
all the bars, all the businesses, all the shops, all
the hotels that are all sort of rented or leased,
and Twitchian family pretty much control most of them.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
You talk to people on the Davichian family mantra, and
you were there and you interacted with them. You know
they have been accused of being part of the murder,
covering up the murder. What do they strike you as
a family, as a group of people, the ones you talk.
Speaker 9 (13:59):
To, well, well, what I will say for Montrerosuician is
that he fronted up, and people don't always do that.
In these circumstances. He could easily have said no to
an interview with me. He could easily have refused to
answer my questions.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Tomstone produced and directed a documentary on the suspicious death
some Catau. He interviewed Mantua Davician for the documentary and.
Speaker 9 (14:20):
He took on every single question. I answered head on,
and I put it to him squarely and asked him
if he killed them. Now he doesn't have to take
kindly to some snotty nosed British journalist turning up on
his land putting these questions to him. But he fronted up,
and I think that is ultimately very much to his credit.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
What was his response when he was asked, did you
or were you part of the effort to kill or
cover up their deaths?
Speaker 8 (14:47):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Or no?
Speaker 9 (14:48):
Did you kill Hannah? He denied it entirely. And I
think that, in fairness to Montreroucian, what he might have
seen on the beach when he got there that morning
might have shocked him so badly that he might necessarily
have considered that this is now a live crime scene
that needs to be kept clear. I think that he
(15:09):
denied doing anything at all to the crime scene at all,
And besides, the crime scene itself was pretty difficult to
keep sanitized. You've got you know, seawater all over the place.
You've obviously got the tide coming in and out, You've
got waves. You know, he always insisted that he did
his best. But as far as I'm concerned, I can't
say with any confidence whatsoever whether the Tuitian family have
(15:31):
any responsibility for what happened to Hannah, whether Edge or
David Miller. But what I could see was that he
was willing to take responsibility for dealing with the international
media and you know, address what happened.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
You also meet Sean mccanna. Can you tell me how
you met him, where you found him, and how you
were sort of first introduced to him.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
You remember that I went straight to the crime scene
when we arrived on the island, and I was chatting
to backpackge trying to find people who spoke English, trying
to find other English backpackers who may have known David
or Hannah, And quite quickly I came across Sean, and
Sean said that he had been friends with David. They'd
actually been at university together. They weren't traveling together, but
(16:15):
purely by chance, they'd bumped into each other on Kotau
because Sean had been pretty much living there had been
playing his guitar, making a little bit of money, and
basically had spent quite a long time on the island,
and he was happy to talk to me. Well, I
say he was happy, he was actually quite nervous and
quite twitchy. And when I finally persuaded him to speak
(16:37):
to me, and I just wanted him to say a
few nice things about David, what sort of ladie was,
he wanted to do it sort of around the corner
from where this vigil was going on. He said he
didn't really want anyone to see that he was speaking
to the press, which I thought was a bit weird.
And even when I was interviewing him, he kept looking
over my shoulder. He was looking around. It was almost
as if he was keeping an eye out for people
(16:58):
who might see him speaking to me. And after I
did the interview, I said to him, Sean, why are
you Why are you so nervous? You seem really anxious
and I know it's desperately sad what's happened, But is
there anything wrong anything we can help with? And he said,
you'll find out, And it was a very strange thing.
He said, you'll find out there are darker forces at play. Here,
(17:19):
and I wasn't quite sure what he meant, but of
course I found out a bit later because a few
days later, I was fast asleep back in the hotel
and my phone rang and it was the early hours
of the morning, and I woke up with a start,
grabbed the phone, answered it, and it was Sean on
the other end, and he was in a hell of
a state. He was really stressed, really anxious, and he
(17:41):
started sort of rambling and talking about how he was
hiding in the seven to eleven supermarket. He was in
the store behind the counter with the shop assistant and
he said, they're trying to kill me. They're trying to
kill me. And I was like, calm down, Sean, what
are you talking about? And he said, the mafia are
outside staring at me through the whins, telling me I'm going
(18:02):
to die if I don't leave the island, I'm going
to die. And I'm like, oh my god, that's going on.
And he'd been posting similar stuff on his Facebook page
as well, appealing for help. And one of the guys
who was banging on the window was montrat Twitchian and
it was as a result of that that police spoke
(18:22):
to him because obviously it was very public. Sean had
made it very public. It put it on Facebook, the
fact that he was being intimidated.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
We saw the Facebook post that Sean made. He posted
time Afia trying to kill me with the photo of
montrot da Vician and another man. We were told this
other man was a police officer on the island. One
of his posts said guy on the left is the leader.
The guy on the left is montrot da Vician.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
And that was the reason in the end that the
police had to make their first sort of investigations into
the chief family on the island. So anyway, I said
to Sean, look, stay where you are, don't leave the shop.
I'll try and get some help. And I phoned up
the woman I've met in the band's diving store and
her boss, and he went down, calmed everything down, and
(19:10):
and then and then the next day Sean left because
he was absolutely terrified and the whole episode was was
very disturbing.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Sean took the three pm ferry to Ko Samui. Well
he was on the ferry, Sean did an interview with
the news organization recounting what had happened to him on Catau.
Speaker 9 (19:29):
They just said to me, monsieur. He Carol Donald, you've
got two people's.
Speaker 8 (19:35):
Deaths in your arms. You know what, I was sure.
Speaker 9 (19:44):
Got to hang yourself today. You've got yourself today.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
We're gonna watch.
Speaker 9 (19:49):
Your mind that you your day tonight.
Speaker 8 (19:52):
I just ran.
Speaker 9 (19:53):
I just left.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
I know it's a little hard to hear, but essentially
Sean is saying it was you who can them. We
knows you. You're going to hang yourself tonight, and we're
gonna watch you hang. You're going stide tonight. I just
left and ran.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
But that's how I got to know Sean. And I
think Sean has a passed himself. He clearly perhaps upsets
various people on the island for whatever reason, and he
believes they were trying to make him into a scapegoat
for the murders.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
I want to unpack something a little bit because I've
heard this scene at the seven to eleven described as
he's hiding behind the counter with this person. They're on
the outside banging to say, you know, we're going to
get you and stuff like that. It strikes me as
a little bit of an insane description, because if these
guys are the stone called killers and the mafia that
everyone describes them to be. Wouldn't they just go inside,
(20:44):
grab them and take them to somewhere. I mean, I've
heard of assassinations in the street and kotow, you know,
people roughing people up left and right just for looking
or talking to the wrong woman. And it strikes me
as if, like they wanted to get Sean mccnna going
inside the seven eleven where they can, that seems a
very likely possibility that they would just go grab them
if they needed to.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Yeah, yeah, it's a good question, and I you know,
I don't know the answer to that. I mean, I've
thought about that too. Is it a case that there
was no CCTV outside the store, but inside the store
there was and they knew that they'd be caught on
CCTV if they try and grab him and drag him out.
I mean, that would look incredibly suspicious, wouldn't it. But also,
if if you're going to jump on somebody, why would
(21:26):
you do it, you know, on the main drag? Why
not just go quietly to his room or whatever. I
don't know the answers to that, and I think, you know,
it sort of brings about a wider question, and that
is of the confusion that surrounded so much of what
went on on that island, and I think as a
journalist it was very frustrating because people didn't want to
(21:47):
talk to you. People did sort of lead you down
the wrong path to try and get you off the scent.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
a moment. There's questions about whether Sean was with David
and Hannah the night they were murdered. According to Sean,
(22:19):
David invited John to come and meet up that night,
but Sean says he ended up falling asleep and never
went out here again.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Sue Buchanan, Sean said he wasn't out that night. I've
got a photograph, a Timestown photograph that proves he was
at that night. I mean, Sean knew David, he knew
him when David was at University Elite. And he's got
the exact same wounds on him that David had, They're
very very similar, and he's got blood splashes all over
his guitar. And he fled the island after saying the
(22:47):
Matthew were trying to kill him after monchd chased him
into the supermarket. But I think, you know Sean is
the key to this. Sean knows what went on. Sean
has information. I truly believe Sean was there that night
because he's got the bloody injuries.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Here again, Andrew and Connor.
Speaker 7 (23:04):
If Sean was a suspect, why didn't the Thai authorities
investigate further? Sean had similar wounds to David's suspicious wounds,
but Sean was formally cleared by Thai police. If Sean
wasn't directly involved in Hannah and David's death, could he
have seen something the night Hannah and David were murdered
which made him flee Kotau? And what about Mantrawat that
he knew Sean had something to do with the murders
(23:27):
and wanted him off the island. Did Sean see something
when Hannah and David were murdered? There were a lot
of questions that should have been pursued. But the investigation
then takes a turn on September twenty fifth, twenty fourteen,
when Warapan Tavichian offered a one million bot to anyone
who could prove his family was involved in the murders.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Authorities doing about face. Around this time, Thailand's new Prime
minister also made a strange statement saying that no Tai
person could ever have committed a crime like this, and
he also had some odd takes about what life on
Kotao was like like.
Speaker 7 (24:00):
Thailand's Prime Minister then made a very disturbing comment saying
that good looking women in bikinis were not safe on
the country's beaches. After provoking outrage from the statement, he
was forced to apologize, saying he was sorry for the
comment about foreigners and bikinis. I'm not judging you, I
just want you to be careful.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
A tai police then began to focus their investigative efforts
on migrant workers and tourists as the possible suspects in
David and Hannah's murder. After the Prime Minister and the
military junta leaders said that it could not have been
a Tai person, the police began to focus on the
Burmese migrant workers on Kotel, and within about forty eight
hours of that statement, Police Lieutenant General Paiman Maymon was
(24:41):
taken off the case and he was replaced by another
commander and they only at that time start targeting the
Burmese workers on Kotel.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Police began collecting DNA for more than two hundred people
on Katu, mostly Bermese immigrants. To understand why the Thai
got was pointing the finger at the Burmese population, we
need to look into the history of the Burmese migrants
in Thailand. Connor spoke with Phil Robertson, the Deputy Asia
Director for Human Rights Watch.
Speaker 10 (25:13):
I live in Bangkok, and I wrote a report for
Human Rights Watch a number of years ago about mistreatment
of migrant workers from Burma, Laos and Cambodia who come
to Thailand. And there's been a very significant presence of
workers really since the nineteen nineties in Thailand from those
three major countries, and Burma by far away is the
(25:35):
largest contributor of migrant workers to Thailand. There's Burmese all
across the country. I mean, you know, the official figures
are like one point five million. It's probably closer to
three or four million who have come out of Burma
and gone to Thailand.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Here again, Sarah Yun.
Speaker 5 (25:53):
Many of them come across on legal contracts that many
others are brought across by agents on much less legal footing.
They take their passports when they come into the country,
they help them find somewhere to get a job illegally,
and they will work illegally while they're there, and then
they go back. They spend most of the time sending
(26:15):
all the money they've got home and they just save
a little bit for themselves. And the level of poverty
between Burma and Thailand is obviously hugely different. But even
those who are legal are very much concerned about their
status in the country. They are deemed illegal immigrants by
anyone who sees them, even if they're actually legal, and
they're often paid a lot less and they live in
(26:38):
very very rudimentary housing that live in camps where they
all live together, but literally in wooden tracts as far
as we're concerned, and therefore it's very unstable way of
life for those people. And they know that they're deemed
to be second class citizens, and they know that if
they're picked up by the police, they could end up
with quite a lot of trouble from the police, so
(26:58):
they avoid the police as much as possible, and they
will learn a lot less than the local ties, which
obviously is their attraction in the workforce.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Talk to me a little bit about the Bromese community,
because you also went in to that community. You saw
something that no backpacker that visits Cotel, no tourist who
visits Kotel ever sees, which is how the Burmese community lives.
And just described to me what you saw when you
went into their community.
Speaker 8 (27:24):
Here again, Tomstone, their life is in stark contrast to
that of well, not only the Westerners who are there
enjoying the nightlife, but indeed the Tie people as well.
Speaker 9 (27:35):
It's like going back in time. There's limited electricity, there's
limited running water. People are living in not much more
than sort of slightly souped up shacks. It's very very basic,
and it's very very striking when you're there that the
bars where you've been drinking in the evenings are served
by a community of people who don't enjoy any of
(27:56):
the luxuries that you do. All of the people who
are native to the island.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
And how did the Ties view and look at the Burmese.
Speaker 9 (28:04):
I think that they viewed them as a resource and
not much more than that. An uncomplaining resource, is how
I would summarize it.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
If the Thai government, Thai authorities, Tai families who are
on the island are trying to deflect away from a
possible tie individual who maybe attacked Hannah and David. Aren't
the Burmese the perfect people to, you know, to color
and to point the finger.
Speaker 9 (28:30):
At, Well, that's of you that you heard a lot,
and you heard it, in fact from a lot of
Westerners who had in fact, we're now living on the
not just coach Have, but the other islands dotted around there.
They felt overwhelmingly that the Burmese community was being unfairly targeted,
that the Burmese communities were a scapegoat for what happened,
and that it was always the Burmese who got accused
whenever anything went wrong on the island.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
That was one of the big things about the Burmese
migrants with Hannah and David. They were absolutely adamant to
many on the island that a tie person would never
be put up for this because it would look so
bad for Thailand. It was much easier to point the
finger blame at the Burmese migrant population, which has always
been looked down at. And I think that's about protecting
(29:15):
their tourism industry and the huge amount of money it
brings in.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Connor and Andrew at this point in the investigation and
to hand in David's murders. Authorities directly start looking at
the Burmese migrant community on Kotel based off of footprints
that they found at the crime scene. Police focused on
a suspect with a size forty shoe, which is the
equivalent of about a size seven. And here in the US,
remember this is all happening on a well trafficed beach
(29:41):
where the water and the tide are coming and going,
so realistically, there's not going to be any usable footprints
that would have survived the tide coming and going. And
investigators were also dealing with the fact that people were
coming and going in and out of this crime scene
from almost the very second that the bodies were found
in the very early hours of the investigation, so the
(30:02):
whole area was very chaotic.
Speaker 7 (30:04):
Once the investigation really kicked off, police decided that they
were going to go to an extremely well known area
on the island. It's a clearing towards the center of
the island where the Burmese community is located, and local
police have been accused of intimidating and attacking the Burmese.
You know, one person that we spoke to provided us
with photos of people that had been bruised and even
(30:27):
had boiling water poured on them. We saw lots of
photographs that were appalling. The overwhelming message from the Burmese
community and their supporters was that they were being scapegoaded
for these crimes as a convenient target for this investigation
so the Thai authorities could close it and get things
back to the usual as soon as possible.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Tay police interrogated a Burmese man who has gone by
the name of Malmo. He admits that he was on
the beach with Zelin and Wapo, drinking beer and playing
the guitar. He told police that he left sorry beach
around one am to see his girlfriend, but that Zaln
and Wapo wanted to keep on drinking, so they stayed
when he left, and he claimed when he talked to
(31:09):
police that he didn't see any evidence of a crime.
Speaker 7 (31:12):
CCTV footage shows three Burmese men riding a motorbike by
a convenience store where they apparently bought cigarettes and three
bottles of beer. It corroborates Malmoo's version of events, putting
Zaln and Waypo near the scene of the crime, but
this is circumstantial evidence At best.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
After Malmau was interrogated by police, Waypo and Zaln were
arrested and charged with killing Hannah and David on the
island of Koto.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Let's stop here for another break. On October two, twenty fourteen,
Waypo and Zaln were detained. Hired a food vendor working
(32:01):
on Katau as an official police interpreter during the interrogations.
On October third, twenty fourteen, Waypo and Zouln, both twenty one,
were arrested and charged with murder, rape, and theft.
Speaker 11 (32:14):
Police say the men were also identified by DNA evidence.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Please claim that Zooln and Waypo quickly confess to the murder.
They had apparently worked illegally on the island for a
number of years and were driven, say police, by a
desire to rape Hannah withrage after seeing the young couple
canodling on the beach.
Speaker 11 (32:34):
The arrests come amid mounting pressure on police to solve
the murders. Thai police have come under international and domestic
scrutiny for their hapisode handling of the case.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
This brings us back to the three young men being
walked down to the beach by Thai authorities. Waypo Xiaoln
and Mung Mung are taken down to the beach to
do a recreation of the crimes they have supposedly commit.
Speaker 11 (33:02):
The two burmes were taken to the scene on Friday
and made to reconstruct the crime. They were protective west
and helmets in case of attack by local onlookers.
Speaker 5 (33:12):
So there was a big crowd waiting on the beach, locals,
and then the police came down and they had three men,
young men, and they were wearing helmets and stab vests,
and they were being led by about five policemen each
down to the beach.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Sarah yun covered. When Wapo and zal Lyn were detained.
Speaker 5 (33:31):
They looked very very very nervous and very worried, and
the boy at the back was picking his lips as
he walked down towards where all these people stood. And
they had flown in the chief of Police from Bangkok,
the head of the police department, and there were more
police on the beach than there were spectators and defendants.
And they then took two of these men up onto
(33:53):
a kind of salah which was slightly raised off the ground,
and then said these two men carried out this crime.
With all the locals around looking at them, and the
other man they left him. He didn't take him up there,
but he was dressed exactly the same, so we were
quite interested curious as to why this guy was standing there.
And then the police chief said to the two men,
(34:14):
tell the people gathered that you carried out the crime,
and they then looked at the people and said we didn't,
which didn't go down very well at all, obviously, with
the police standing behind them, about eight officers standing behind them,
and they got a good swift knock in the back
at least, but they refused to admit they did it,
(34:34):
and I must admit a gasp went up from the
crowd wondering what would happen to them when they got
away from the onlookers. But they then proceeded to say
that they definitely did it and it is these two
people and they're going to be taken to the jail
and Kosami and we weren't allowed to interview them. And
then they took them and put them on a normal boat,
(34:55):
handcuffed to one police officer each and sped them back
to KOs Samoy, which is by far the bigger island,
and put them in a jail. So there was no
real communication with these boys. But what was interesting was
that the third person disappeared at this point, and he
wasn't taken on the boat, and he didn't go back
into nat On jail. And just third person was mentioned
(35:15):
that he was there with them, supposedly on the beach
the same night as David and Hannah died, but they
said they didn't know where he was. Maybe he'd gone
back to me and mar and they hadn't followed up
any investigation with him, even though this man apparently worked
in the bar where the two victims were last seen.
So we found that very strange.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
I always thought one of the interesting things was that
the police say Waypo and Zalen committed this murder, and
yet their third friend who was with him, didn't commit
the murder. Possibly he left, sure, but it strikes me
as like the group that arrived together, they didn't leave
together as well.
Speaker 9 (35:56):
We thought about it a lot, and we tried to
track him down and talk to him, but I think
he got off. Remember he'd got off the island, and
it wasn't possible to speak to him. As I remember
it now, and this just needs a fact check, I
think he peeled away from them when the two friends
Ypo and Zooeln were on the beach at the critical time.
I think that's why Malmong wasn't in the prime, so
(36:18):
to speak.
Speaker 8 (36:19):
Mam Mao.
Speaker 4 (36:20):
They let him go because miraculously he worked for Montreuatuchian,
so he got let go, and they tried to say
that Waypure was doing a runner from the island, which
is complete rubbish because he left the island to go
into a new job on the mainland and like two
weeks have passince the murders. I spoke to both way
Pure and Zorlan's bosses and they said they both turned
up to work the next day completely normal, nothing going on.
(36:42):
So two illiterate kids from a village in Burma with
no running water, no electric, no TV. They've never read
crime novels, they've never watched crime documentaries, they've never had
any previous criminal history. They're half the size of David.
They've brutally murdered tute tourists and then have the waywithal
to completely carry on as no next day, like nothing's happened.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
More on that this season. If you have any information
about Hannah Withridge and David Miller, please contact us at
producers at ktdashstudios dot com. For more information and relevant photos,
follow us on Instagram at KT Underscore Studios. Death Island
(37:23):
is produced by Stephanie Leidecker, Connor Powell, Andrew Arnow, Jeff Shane,
Chris Cacaro, Gabriel Chistillo and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and
sound designed by Jeff Tooi music by Vanicor Music. Death
Island is a production of iHeartRadio and KT Studios. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(37:47):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Stephanie Lydecker
Courtney Armstrong
Jeff Shane
Conor Powell
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