May 3, 2023 • 29 mins
When a family vacation turns into a nightmare, one family is left with the sinking feeling that justice may never be found. We also investigate if tourist attacks could be related.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
On January first, twenty fourteen, scuba divers were exploring the
waters off kataw. They were just off the coast near
the Hillside Resort when they came upon a body floating
in the water. It was a young adult male who
had appeared had not been in the water long. It
(00:22):
looked like he had dried blood on his face and
a large gash on his head. That young man was
twenty five year old Nick Pearson. He was on a
family vacation with his mother Tracy, his father Graham, and
his older brother Matt, who taught English on Katao. The
island police ruled that Nick Pearson had fallen fifty feet
(00:44):
into the bay and drowned. Despite claims of a fall,
Nick had no broken bones. While police rolled out foul play,
Nick's family believes he was murdered. Welcome to Death Island
production of Kati's Studios and iHeartRadio, Episode seven, The Case
(01:05):
of Nick Pearson.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I'm Connor Powell, an investigative journalist at kat Studios with
Stephanie Leidecker, Courtney Armstrong, Andrew Arnow, and Jeff Shane. Just
a note about our process. In this episode, you're going
to hear Andrew and I tell the story of Nick
Pearson Now. We spent months attempting to contact countless people
for this podcast. We tried to reach out to all
(01:32):
the families of the victims and as many people connected
to our stories as we could find. Many families simply
remove social media accounts due to harassment or simply don't
want to talk about Kotao and the loved ones they lost. Still,
we spoke to many people, both on and off the
record to get a full account of Kotao, not only
(01:52):
for this podcast episode, but for the entire series as
we could. In December of two thousand and fifteen, Nick
came to the island of koto with his family to
celebrate the holidays. It was the seventh time the twenty
five year old had visited Kotoo, and Nick was out
and joining himself. The family spent New Year's Eve having
dinner and drinks and stopped off at Chopper's Bar and
(02:15):
Grill for a cocktail. Nick's mother, Tracy, said that after
their meal and drinks, they headed out to Sarre Beach
for the New Year's Eve countdown and fireworks.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
At about one am, the family headed back to the
Hillside resort, where they were staying. They were sleeping in
bungalows on a steep hillside that overlooked the sea. Nick's father, Graham,
and his brother Matt walked him back to his room
and put him to bed. According to Matt, Nick had
an infection in his knee from a few days earlier
and was having trouble walking. Nick's father remembered putting Nick
(02:45):
into bed, pulling up the sheets, and Nick saying good night.
The next morning, on New Year's Day, the family began
to worry because they hadn't seen or heard from Nick
for hours.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
They knocked on the door of his room, but there
was no answer. Nick's parents alerted hotel officials and with
a master key, they opened the hotel door, but he
wasn't inside, so the question was where was Nick. After
several hours, friends came to Tracy's room with news. Hotel
staff had told them that Nick had been found dead
floating in the sea. Scuba divers found Nick's body at
(03:20):
the base of a fifty foot cliff just off the
shore of the resort.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Nick's parents were taken to a temple to identify the body.
Upon seeing their son, they noticed that his head had
a large gash. The police ruled Nick's death as an accident,
that Nick, possibly still intoxicated, had fallen fifty feet down
into the water and died. But Nick's family had questions.
Why would the twenty five year old, who was having
trouble walking because of his injury go for a walk
(03:49):
after the family had put him to bed. Nick's brother, Matt,
wondered if Nick could have been sleep walking and fallen
into the water. But with the layout of the resort,
the rewinding stairs turned at sharp corners that would have
prevented someone from falling into the sea, and even if
someone did fall down the stairs, they would stop as
soon as they hit one of the corners. There's no
direct fall into the ocean.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
And even if Nick had somehow managed to fall down
all of the hundreds of winding stairs, eventually he would
have been stopped by the massive rocks blocking the path
to the sea. Both Tracy and Matt don't think it
was physically possible that Nick could have fallen into the
ocean from his bungalow at the resort. With their questions mounting,
the family had an autopsy don in the UK.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
The autopsy showed that Nick had no broken bones. How
could he have fallen fifty feet as the police suggested,
without breaking a single bone in his body. The pathologists
noted that there were many injuries on Nick's body, including
to the head, limbs, and face. He said that most
of these would have been present prior to his death.
He could not rule out the possibility that Nick had
(04:57):
been attacked, but.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
The questions of Nick's parents fell on deaf ears in hotel.
Tracy also questioned the thoroughness of the investigation done by
ty police. The police didn't even look at his room
or the area where he was found for clues, and
there was another troubling detail. Nick's hotel room key was
still in his room.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
The hotel room key could point to Nick being forcibly
taken out of the room, possibly by someone who had
access to a master key like staff or maybe the
owner of the resort, but there was no follow up
from local investigators. The question remains who on the island
would want to harm Nick Pearson. Nick's mother, Tracy remembered
(05:41):
something that happened the night of her son's death. He
met a tig girl that he liked and he was
chatting with her and they seemed to be getting on.
Tracy wondered if that had caused offense on the island.
Did a jealous boyfriend follow Nick back to his bungalow
and do him harm.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Connor spoke with journalists and author Sue Buchanan, who wrote
the book The Curse of the Turtle, the true story
of Thailand's backpacker murders. At the time of Nick Pearson's death,
she was editor of The Samui Times, a local paper
on Katao.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
I was told that he'd been schmoozing one of the
Tuwichian family's girlfriends in the bar.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
The Davision, who we've spoken about before, are one of
the handfuls of families who own most of the land
and businesses on Katao.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
And is that something they could get you killed?
Speaker 4 (06:28):
Yeah, in Thailand doesn't take much. Now, that to me,
that was completely plausible.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Based on everything you had seen on the island.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Yeah, based on I mean I've been living there for
quite a long time by then, so yeah, that was
what I was told. I mean, I knew quite a
lot of the police on Kosamui, and they knew the
police on Kotoo, so they just said, yeah, he'd been
trying to cop off with girl's girlfriend and she was
making buying noises. She was really interested in him, and
that made her boyfriend's face like if she'd have not responded,
he probably would have been alright.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
One of the things that Ian said was that the
police on Kotao, Thailand in general, they're really there to
make sure that Thailand doesn't look bad, and so that
it's easier to either not investigate, or if you're going
to investigate, blame it on a foreigner. Is that your
experience as well.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
I think you've got to remember that the north of
Thailand and the South of Thailand is completely different. Like
southern Thailand, the police are not paid enough, right, so
the police are on a very very very low salary.
They have to buy their own weapons, they have to
buy their own ammunition. So the only way they can
make enough money is to take tea money and take
bribes because they can't feasibly live on their salaries.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
When you say tea money, you essentially mean like bribes.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Yeah. The other thing you have to remember in Southern
Thailand is if you want to be the chief of police,
you buy that role. You don't go to police training
school and learn how to be a policeman and then
get promoted every year. You buy your position. So if
your families say, right, well we need someone in our
family to be in the police, then they're all club
together and they buy their position. So if you're a
(07:58):
poor family, you're just going to be a really lowly
policemen who doesn't have a lot of power. If you
can borrow money and rock up some money, you can
buy a position much further up. And then the further
up you are the bigger cut of the tea money
you get, right, but you're only getting tea money from
you know, businesses that are looked after by the mafia.
So your boss is not you know, the police in Bangkok.
Your boss is whoever's patch you're on.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
These patches who as referring to are ones owned by
the ruling families on katao.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
On kotel, I mean the police work for the families rights.
That's their role is to make sure the families are
getting paid.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Yeah, well, their role is to do whatever the family
is tell them to do cover stuff up. Basically, they
just lose evidence. Say for example, I was a big
mafia family there and I just decided to kill someone.
The first thing I do is call in the police
that are on my payroll and tell them to get
rid of all the evidence.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
We should take a moment to acknowledge that it's very
difficult to verify what soup you can in the saying,
we're not on the ground in Katao, We're ten thousand
miles away. But if even part of what she's saying
is accurate, then that's worth investigating further.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
In any case, it appears that Tay police didn't do
much of an investigation into Nick's death. Tracy believes the
police didn't want to investigate Nick's death because they wanted
to protect their tourism industry. They ruled it an accident
to save face for Kotau and for Thailand.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Now, it's important to remember, as many people have told us,
a big thing in the Thai community is saving face,
and one thing that foreigners are often warned of is
don't talk to local women. To give context to the
time of Nick's death, nine months later, the brutal murder
of Hannah Witheridge and David Miller would occur not far
(09:42):
from where Nick's body was found. We're continuing to try
to track down more documents and information relating to the case,
and we'll return to it in future episodes.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Let's stop here for a break, We'll be back in
a moment. Just six months prior to Nick Pearson's death,
an alarming incident happened to another traveler on Katao. In
(10:16):
July of twenty thirteen. Carla Batel, her sister, and her
friend Ashley, arrived in Thailand.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
A friend of mine and I were in university and
you know, we just were sick of studying. One day
we were just like, let's get the hell out of here.
And we looked at places and I've always wanted to
go to Thailand. It looked like a really fun place,
especially when you're a young early twenties university student. It's
a good destination to choose. And yeah, we got some
(10:48):
pretty decent flights, so it all worked out.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
What was it about Thailand that attracted you?
Speaker 5 (10:55):
It just looked so fun, like just the scenery, the beaches,
the blue waters, and it just seemed like such a
beautiful place. And it also had that aspect of you
can go out at night and it's just like a
big party. And also specifically on Koto, we went there
(11:16):
for our diving certifications, So that was a huge thing
for us. We always wanted to go diving.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
And do you remember what the ferry ride the boat
right over to Kotow was, Like, it's.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
Pretty exciting, laid back, like everybody is taking in the view.
There's a lot of people on the boat, people are
having drinks. You're just kind of soaking up the sun
and listening to the water. Like pretty nice ride over
to the island.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
And then once you get there and you disboard from
the boat, do you remember what your sort of first
impressions of the island.
Speaker 5 (11:51):
Were just gorgeous, breathtaking. There was so much to look
at all around you. There was some hills to one
side and you could see all the palm trees and
the ocean. And then as you're walking to accommodations, there's
all kinds of bars and restaurants and all kinds of
things that you want to go check out, Like as
(12:14):
soon as you get there, there's so much to see.
So it's almost like a little village paradise.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
When you went there, how long were you planning on stay?
Speaker 5 (12:22):
I know we were planning on staying a lot longer
than we were there, planning on staying there for a
couple nights for sure.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
That first day, Carla, her sister, and her friend Ashley
go diving a band's diving school.
Speaker 5 (12:38):
We had a great time diving. We all got certified.
Nothing about the diving itself was sketchy to me, but
we came back and I just remember we were like, oh,
we got to celebrate. We got our diving certifications. And
we were at the bar right across from bands like
front office, so the front office would be on one
side of the main path and the bar is literally
(13:00):
like right across the path. It was just like laid
back fun. We were probably watching some fire shows in
the back, having drinks and like meeting all kinds of
new people and people from different countries. That's part of
the fun of traveling. And Sam, who I had met
there in another location in Thailand. I was there with
(13:24):
my sister and my good friend Ashley, and we had
all hung out with him and another couple people in Bangkok.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Sam is Sam Venning, a British traveler who was in
Bangkok and Katao at the same time as Carla. While
Sam did not want to be interviewed for the podcast,
Connor spoke with him and Sam confirmed Carla's story, and.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
So anyways, he happened to be on our diving boat,
which was like, oh, we ran into you on this island.
That's pretty cool. So he was part of our group
and we were hanging out, and him and I just
decided to go like walk around because there's so much
to see there, especially at night, and we just wanted
to like go explore a bit, and we like went
(14:07):
walking probably all over Hell's have figure down the path
one way, looking around at everything. Probably had a few
drinks in our system as well.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
It sounds to me like this is the type of
environment where you feel safe going walking around at night
with a few drinks, right, Like you didn't feel uncomfortable
or to be dangerous or anything, right Like hotel felt
safe for sure.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
And I would compare it to I haven't been to
Vegas yet, but I imagine you're walking on the strip.
Everything so lively, there's people all around. That's the main
places people go. It's not like we were walking down
some shady like back alley. It was like we're on
the strip, and like maybe this little area was a
(14:54):
part that was a bit quieter like on that main strip.
We didn't go off the main path or anything.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Carla and Sam were walking along sorry beach, So.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
We're walking around talking, like being probably kind of drunk
and dumb, just being goose walking around and just it's
like it's exciting. You've never seen this place, so just
walking around and seeing what there is to look at
is fun. We made it to what I remember as
(15:34):
like a park area, and it was dark by this time,
and I think things were starting to quiet down. By
the time we got to this park area. Him and
I were literally just sitting side by side talking the
whole time.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
And then what happened.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
We were sitting side by side and things were pretty
quiet around the area by then, and I remember getting
just like a little bit of a bad feeling. But
I'm already scared of the dark to begin with, so
I don't know, I kind of brushed it off. I said, oh, well,
I'm with a male. I'm probably fine whatever. And I
(16:14):
remember saying to him though, like maybe we should go back,
it's getting late, and he's like, oh, no, it's fine,
We're good. And I think he maybe was like a
little bit more drunk than I was at that point,
like we were chatting side by side and just had
our feet dangling on the edge of that little ocean runoff,
and all of a sudden, I heard the scuffle of
(16:36):
flip flops from behind us, like literally, like a couple
seconds of the flip flops. I jumped down, like that
was my reaction. And I jumped down and looked back
at the same time, and there was two men in masks.
I jumped down at the same time, saw these two
men in masks and ran towards the main path, I
(16:59):
like under the bridge and just booked it. And I
was screaming and hysterical and crying, and I didn't know
what was going on. I assumed somebody was chasing me,
so I felt like I didn't have time to look back.
So I crawled out of that little ocean runoff, and
I remember seeing a guy like walking on the main path.
(17:21):
I think he was a white guy, like he looked
like a tourist, and I just remember begging him please
help me, like I don't know what's going on. I
don't know what happened to my friend Sam, Like I
did not have any idea what was going on. I
wasn't processing anything. I was just in a panic. As
Sam ran up like a couple minutes later, and he
(17:41):
had blood like rushing down his head, and this guy
on the path like kept walking. It was probably like, oh,
there's some like drunk girl crying or something.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
As Sam ran up, two people took off on a
motorbike pretty much at that exact exact same time, back
down the path towards vance. That's when Sam and I
were like, holy shit, and we just started walking back
to where I was staying off the.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Path and what was Sam's condition?
Speaker 5 (18:15):
It was dark. I just remember he was bleeding and
he said that they hit him with a rock. And
I don't remember how we even got back, and it's
probably because we were in shock, but I don't remember
anything that was said. I just remember once we got
back to where I was staying, Sam had like a
(18:35):
wound on his head.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
So you go home, you're with your sister and a friend.
You're not bleeding, but Sam is bleeding. What do you
tell your sister and friend?
Speaker 5 (18:45):
Actually, my sister was already really upset we were gone,
and she was worried and in a panic, and she
was kind of like mad at us for being back
so late. So we didn't really she never knew what happened.
She's quite a bit older than me, so she never
really knew. I told my friend Ashley right away what happens,
(19:07):
and she consoled me. It was just scary too, because
once we got back to where we are staying in
that little cabin thing, it was also off the main path,
so I just couldn't help but think, like, as Sam
and I were walking back, I'm like, are they like
out here somewhere like hiding? Are they watching where we go?
Because they literally took off in the same direction where
(19:30):
we eventually followed, So it's like, are they going to
ambush us again? And I remember not sleeping that night.
Every time I heard a motorbike, I was just like,
are they coming to get us? I didn't feel safe
at that point, and the next morning we knew we
had to get the hell off that islands, like the
first boat off. So oh, that's just what we did.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
So you cut your trip short Kotel after that incident.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, Yeah. It's just it's such a
small area that I wouldn't feel safe going out that night.
I would think, for sure, looking into the crowd, they're
in here somewhere they'll recognize me, maybe they want to
get us again. It's just that small of an area
that if there's two assailants out there, they're gonna be
(20:19):
somewhere in the crowd. And Kotow's a small island, but
that strips even smaller. It's like think of an average street,
but like there's an ocean behind it. In bars, it's
like you're gonna run into people that you've seen, Like,
no matter what, that really sort of shit out of me.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Did you get a look at the two assailants.
Speaker 5 (20:42):
I saw the mask for a split second. I remember
saying to myself and like telling other people it was
like those anonymous masks, because I had never seen be
for Vendetta at that point, so I just described it
as like, oh, it's like an anonymous mask. I googled
Guy Fawkes mask and Thailand, and turns out in Thailand
(21:07):
there was a lot of protests. I'm not sure the
politics of it, but a lot of those masks were
used in the protests.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
A side note about the political situation in Thailand. From
November twenty thirteen through May twenty fourteen, there were several
anti government protests in Thailand. The crisis eventually resulted in
the removal of the incumbent Prime Minister Akudreta and the
establishment of a military hunta. Could one of the protesters
from that time have been involved with Karla and Sam's
(21:40):
assault or could it have been someone posing as a protester.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
When the two men took off, I definitely saw brown
Asian looking men. I can't really describe anything else, but
it all happened so quickly.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
You got as you heard the sound and looked behind
you was there were two people with masks walking up
on you and they were definitely locals.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Do you even contemplate filing a police report?
Speaker 5 (22:16):
I remember I seriously contemplated filing a police report. It
wasn't like, oh, well, I'm just gonna move on, Like
I was like, holy shit, what can I do about this?
And I know I explored my options, and I don't
know if it was because the police station was closed
(22:37):
or if I googled like Thailand police, like can you
trust them? When I ultimately came to the decision of like, no,
it's better for me to get off this island as
soon as possible. So yeah, that's what we did.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Let's stop here for another break. Connor continued to speak
with Carla about her traumatic experience on katal What happens.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
A year later.
Speaker 5 (23:14):
I had told this story to like a lot of
people just because it was crazy, and I think I
was also dealing with some like PTSD. Like literally, like
the night we came home to Canada, I remember going
out with my friends and somebody snuck up on us
and like scared the shit up out of me. I
started crying and like going into like a full blown
(23:36):
panic attack. But anyways, so a friend of mine from
high school, I think I like told this story at
like a party or something, and he sent me a
news article saying I just remember he said, I think
you should see this, and it it was about Hannah
and David, and I remember like opening the article and
(23:59):
like seeing that spot. I was like, holy shit, this
is too crazy to be real. Because I saw the
spot and I was like, that's literally where Sam and
I were sitting. There's the little like walkway bridge, and
I ran under that walkway bridge, and there's pictures of
(24:19):
like two body bigs in that area where we were attacked.
And once I was sure that was the same place,
I just remember I started violently shaking. I couldn't stop
moving my body. I think I went into shock again.
The realization of what happened to me and Sam, that
(24:43):
they probably would have tried to murder us really set in.
Once I saw the two body bigs in that area,
I was like, holy shit. And Sam and I got
in touch. We just talked about how close to death
we were without really realizing it. We never really talked
(25:03):
about it. We didn't see each other again since that night.
He eventually left back to where he was staying, and
we never like truly talked about what happened until the
deaths of Hannah and David.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
When you hear people talk about Kotel Now and the strange, bizarre,
unexplained deaths and people express skepticism about one, some all
of them, what goes through your mind.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
It's a story that sounds too crazy to be real.
I'm sure a lot of skepticism comes from a lack
of understanding of all the details and all the puzzle pieces.
But I think some people write it off just because
it's too crazy to be real. It doesn't sound like
it's likely, especially with the term mafia being used. I
(25:55):
think people have a lot of skepticism towards that because
mafia is owned around like there's some sort of like
organized serial killer crime group on that island, when really
the term mafia is just like used to describe the
fact that there's a very powerful family on that island,
(26:15):
which is factual. And I'm not saying I know all
the ins and outs of like what's going on there,
but there's definitely something strange with that family. And if
one of them wanted to be like a murderer or
like get away with whatever they wanted to like rape
(26:37):
Westerners or locals, their position in the family really sets
them up to get away with it.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
It sounds to me like these deaths that you think
it's entirely plausible and likely that some of them are
the result of a really powerful group of people who
run the island committing murders or turning a blind eye
to people committing murders in protecting essentially their own tarth.
Speaker 5 (27:06):
Yes, it's definitely changed the way I travel. I love
to travel, but I I'll say I'm scared like a
lot of places, Like I'm in the midst of trying
to plan a destination wedding and I'm i don't know
a little bit, a little bit worried about certain places.
(27:27):
I want to have a balance of being safe and
also like not letting it hinder my ability to travel.
But it does worry me. That will never leave the
back of my mind.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Listen, what you had happened to you is frightening and tragic.
To see the exact location where two people a year
later were murdered in the exact same spot where you
had that incident is another layer of trauma on the
trauma that you already experienced personally.
Speaker 5 (27:57):
Yeah, for sure, and definitely have wrote off what happened
to me within that year. It was like, Wow, that
was scary, but you know, I'm moving on with my life.
But once Hannah and David died, it was like a
whole rush of new trauma.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Oh.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
I just feel very much like I literally could have
been Hannah, and I've because of the Internet, I've accidentally
seen crime scene photos and they're just horrific, and I'm
thankful every day that I'm still here. But I was
a close call.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
More on that next time. If you have any information
about Nick Pearson, please contact us at producers at katidash
Studios dot com for more information and relevant photos, follow
us on Instagram at kat Underscore Studios. Death Island is
(28:55):
produced by Stephanie Leidecker, Connor Powell, Andrew Arnow, Jeff Shane,
Chris Cacaro, Gabriel Castillo and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and
sound designed by Jeff Toois. 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,
(29:18):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
On January first, twenty fourteen, scuba divers were exploring the
waters off kataw. They were just off the coast near
the Hillside Resort when they came upon a body floating
in the water. It was a young adult male who
had appeared had not been in the water long. It
(00:22):
looked like he had dried blood on his face and
a large gash on his head. That young man was
twenty five year old Nick Pearson. He was on a
family vacation with his mother Tracy, his father Graham, and
his older brother Matt, who taught English on Katao. The
island police ruled that Nick Pearson had fallen fifty feet
(00:44):
into the bay and drowned. Despite claims of a fall,
Nick had no broken bones. While police rolled out foul play,
Nick's family believes he was murdered. Welcome to Death Island
production of Kati's Studios and iHeartRadio, Episode seven, The Case
(01:05):
of Nick Pearson.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I'm Connor Powell, an investigative journalist at kat Studios with
Stephanie Leidecker, Courtney Armstrong, Andrew Arnow, and Jeff Shane. Just
a note about our process. In this episode, you're going
to hear Andrew and I tell the story of Nick
Pearson Now. We spent months attempting to contact countless people
for this podcast. We tried to reach out to all
(01:32):
the families of the victims and as many people connected
to our stories as we could find. Many families simply
remove social media accounts due to harassment or simply don't
want to talk about Kotao and the loved ones they lost. Still,
we spoke to many people, both on and off the
record to get a full account of Kotao, not only
(01:52):
for this podcast episode, but for the entire series as
we could. In December of two thousand and fifteen, Nick
came to the island of koto with his family to
celebrate the holidays. It was the seventh time the twenty
five year old had visited Kotoo, and Nick was out
and joining himself. The family spent New Year's Eve having
dinner and drinks and stopped off at Chopper's Bar and
(02:15):
Grill for a cocktail. Nick's mother, Tracy, said that after
their meal and drinks, they headed out to Sarre Beach
for the New Year's Eve countdown and fireworks.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
At about one am, the family headed back to the
Hillside resort, where they were staying. They were sleeping in
bungalows on a steep hillside that overlooked the sea. Nick's father, Graham,
and his brother Matt walked him back to his room
and put him to bed. According to Matt, Nick had
an infection in his knee from a few days earlier
and was having trouble walking. Nick's father remembered putting Nick
(02:45):
into bed, pulling up the sheets, and Nick saying good night.
The next morning, on New Year's Day, the family began
to worry because they hadn't seen or heard from Nick
for hours.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
They knocked on the door of his room, but there
was no answer. Nick's parents alerted hotel officials and with
a master key, they opened the hotel door, but he
wasn't inside, so the question was where was Nick. After
several hours, friends came to Tracy's room with news. Hotel
staff had told them that Nick had been found dead
floating in the sea. Scuba divers found Nick's body at
(03:20):
the base of a fifty foot cliff just off the
shore of the resort.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Nick's parents were taken to a temple to identify the body.
Upon seeing their son, they noticed that his head had
a large gash. The police ruled Nick's death as an accident,
that Nick, possibly still intoxicated, had fallen fifty feet down
into the water and died. But Nick's family had questions.
Why would the twenty five year old, who was having
trouble walking because of his injury go for a walk
(03:49):
after the family had put him to bed. Nick's brother, Matt,
wondered if Nick could have been sleep walking and fallen
into the water. But with the layout of the resort,
the rewinding stairs turned at sharp corners that would have
prevented someone from falling into the sea, and even if
someone did fall down the stairs, they would stop as
soon as they hit one of the corners. There's no
direct fall into the ocean.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
And even if Nick had somehow managed to fall down
all of the hundreds of winding stairs, eventually he would
have been stopped by the massive rocks blocking the path
to the sea. Both Tracy and Matt don't think it
was physically possible that Nick could have fallen into the
ocean from his bungalow at the resort. With their questions mounting,
the family had an autopsy don in the UK.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
The autopsy showed that Nick had no broken bones. How
could he have fallen fifty feet as the police suggested,
without breaking a single bone in his body. The pathologists
noted that there were many injuries on Nick's body, including
to the head, limbs, and face. He said that most
of these would have been present prior to his death.
He could not rule out the possibility that Nick had
(04:57):
been attacked, but.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
The questions of Nick's parents fell on deaf ears in hotel.
Tracy also questioned the thoroughness of the investigation done by
ty police. The police didn't even look at his room
or the area where he was found for clues, and
there was another troubling detail. Nick's hotel room key was
still in his room.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
The hotel room key could point to Nick being forcibly
taken out of the room, possibly by someone who had
access to a master key like staff or maybe the
owner of the resort, but there was no follow up
from local investigators. The question remains who on the island
would want to harm Nick Pearson. Nick's mother, Tracy remembered
(05:41):
something that happened the night of her son's death. He
met a tig girl that he liked and he was
chatting with her and they seemed to be getting on.
Tracy wondered if that had caused offense on the island.
Did a jealous boyfriend follow Nick back to his bungalow
and do him harm.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Connor spoke with journalists and author Sue Buchanan, who wrote
the book The Curse of the Turtle, the true story
of Thailand's backpacker murders. At the time of Nick Pearson's death,
she was editor of The Samui Times, a local paper
on Katao.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
I was told that he'd been schmoozing one of the
Tuwichian family's girlfriends in the bar.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
The Davision, who we've spoken about before, are one of
the handfuls of families who own most of the land
and businesses on Katao.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
And is that something they could get you killed?
Speaker 4 (06:28):
Yeah, in Thailand doesn't take much. Now, that to me,
that was completely plausible.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Based on everything you had seen on the island.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Yeah, based on I mean I've been living there for
quite a long time by then, so yeah, that was
what I was told. I mean, I knew quite a
lot of the police on Kosamui, and they knew the
police on Kotoo, so they just said, yeah, he'd been
trying to cop off with girl's girlfriend and she was
making buying noises. She was really interested in him, and
that made her boyfriend's face like if she'd have not responded,
he probably would have been alright.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
One of the things that Ian said was that the
police on Kotao, Thailand in general, they're really there to
make sure that Thailand doesn't look bad, and so that
it's easier to either not investigate, or if you're going
to investigate, blame it on a foreigner. Is that your
experience as well.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
I think you've got to remember that the north of
Thailand and the South of Thailand is completely different. Like
southern Thailand, the police are not paid enough, right, so
the police are on a very very very low salary.
They have to buy their own weapons, they have to
buy their own ammunition. So the only way they can
make enough money is to take tea money and take
bribes because they can't feasibly live on their salaries.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
When you say tea money, you essentially mean like bribes.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Yeah. The other thing you have to remember in Southern
Thailand is if you want to be the chief of police,
you buy that role. You don't go to police training
school and learn how to be a policeman and then
get promoted every year. You buy your position. So if
your families say, right, well we need someone in our
family to be in the police, then they're all club
together and they buy their position. So if you're a
(07:58):
poor family, you're just going to be a really lowly
policemen who doesn't have a lot of power. If you
can borrow money and rock up some money, you can
buy a position much further up. And then the further
up you are the bigger cut of the tea money
you get, right, but you're only getting tea money from
you know, businesses that are looked after by the mafia.
So your boss is not you know, the police in Bangkok.
Your boss is whoever's patch you're on.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
These patches who as referring to are ones owned by
the ruling families on katao.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
On kotel, I mean the police work for the families rights.
That's their role is to make sure the families are
getting paid.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Yeah, well, their role is to do whatever the family
is tell them to do cover stuff up. Basically, they
just lose evidence. Say for example, I was a big
mafia family there and I just decided to kill someone.
The first thing I do is call in the police
that are on my payroll and tell them to get
rid of all the evidence.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
We should take a moment to acknowledge that it's very
difficult to verify what soup you can in the saying,
we're not on the ground in Katao, We're ten thousand
miles away. But if even part of what she's saying
is accurate, then that's worth investigating further.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
In any case, it appears that Tay police didn't do
much of an investigation into Nick's death. Tracy believes the
police didn't want to investigate Nick's death because they wanted
to protect their tourism industry. They ruled it an accident
to save face for Kotau and for Thailand.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Now, it's important to remember, as many people have told us,
a big thing in the Thai community is saving face,
and one thing that foreigners are often warned of is
don't talk to local women. To give context to the
time of Nick's death, nine months later, the brutal murder
of Hannah Witheridge and David Miller would occur not far
(09:42):
from where Nick's body was found. We're continuing to try
to track down more documents and information relating to the case,
and we'll return to it in future episodes.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Let's stop here for a break, We'll be back in
a moment. Just six months prior to Nick Pearson's death,
an alarming incident happened to another traveler on Katao. In
(10:16):
July of twenty thirteen. Carla Batel, her sister, and her
friend Ashley, arrived in Thailand.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
A friend of mine and I were in university and
you know, we just were sick of studying. One day
we were just like, let's get the hell out of here.
And we looked at places and I've always wanted to
go to Thailand. It looked like a really fun place,
especially when you're a young early twenties university student. It's
a good destination to choose. And yeah, we got some
(10:48):
pretty decent flights, so it all worked out.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
What was it about Thailand that attracted you?
Speaker 5 (10:55):
It just looked so fun, like just the scenery, the beaches,
the blue waters, and it just seemed like such a
beautiful place. And it also had that aspect of you
can go out at night and it's just like a
big party. And also specifically on Koto, we went there
(11:16):
for our diving certifications, So that was a huge thing
for us. We always wanted to go diving.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
And do you remember what the ferry ride the boat
right over to Kotow was, Like, it's.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
Pretty exciting, laid back, like everybody is taking in the view.
There's a lot of people on the boat, people are
having drinks. You're just kind of soaking up the sun
and listening to the water. Like pretty nice ride over
to the island.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
And then once you get there and you disboard from
the boat, do you remember what your sort of first
impressions of the island.
Speaker 5 (11:51):
Were just gorgeous, breathtaking. There was so much to look
at all around you. There was some hills to one
side and you could see all the palm trees and
the ocean. And then as you're walking to accommodations, there's
all kinds of bars and restaurants and all kinds of
things that you want to go check out, Like as
(12:14):
soon as you get there, there's so much to see.
So it's almost like a little village paradise.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
When you went there, how long were you planning on stay?
Speaker 5 (12:22):
I know we were planning on staying a lot longer
than we were there, planning on staying there for a
couple nights for sure.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
That first day, Carla, her sister, and her friend Ashley
go diving a band's diving school.
Speaker 5 (12:38):
We had a great time diving. We all got certified.
Nothing about the diving itself was sketchy to me, but
we came back and I just remember we were like, oh,
we got to celebrate. We got our diving certifications. And
we were at the bar right across from bands like
front office, so the front office would be on one
side of the main path and the bar is literally
(13:00):
like right across the path. It was just like laid
back fun. We were probably watching some fire shows in
the back, having drinks and like meeting all kinds of
new people and people from different countries. That's part of
the fun of traveling. And Sam, who I had met
there in another location in Thailand. I was there with
(13:24):
my sister and my good friend Ashley, and we had
all hung out with him and another couple people in Bangkok.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Sam is Sam Venning, a British traveler who was in
Bangkok and Katao at the same time as Carla. While
Sam did not want to be interviewed for the podcast,
Connor spoke with him and Sam confirmed Carla's story, and.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
So anyways, he happened to be on our diving boat,
which was like, oh, we ran into you on this island.
That's pretty cool. So he was part of our group
and we were hanging out, and him and I just
decided to go like walk around because there's so much
to see there, especially at night, and we just wanted
to like go explore a bit, and we like went
(14:07):
walking probably all over Hell's have figure down the path
one way, looking around at everything. Probably had a few
drinks in our system as well.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
It sounds to me like this is the type of
environment where you feel safe going walking around at night
with a few drinks, right, Like you didn't feel uncomfortable
or to be dangerous or anything, right Like hotel felt
safe for sure.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
And I would compare it to I haven't been to
Vegas yet, but I imagine you're walking on the strip.
Everything so lively, there's people all around. That's the main
places people go. It's not like we were walking down
some shady like back alley. It was like we're on
the strip, and like maybe this little area was a
(14:54):
part that was a bit quieter like on that main strip.
We didn't go off the main path or anything.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Carla and Sam were walking along sorry beach, So.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
We're walking around talking, like being probably kind of drunk
and dumb, just being goose walking around and just it's
like it's exciting. You've never seen this place, so just
walking around and seeing what there is to look at
is fun. We made it to what I remember as
(15:34):
like a park area, and it was dark by this time,
and I think things were starting to quiet down. By
the time we got to this park area. Him and
I were literally just sitting side by side talking the
whole time.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
And then what happened.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
We were sitting side by side and things were pretty
quiet around the area by then, and I remember getting
just like a little bit of a bad feeling. But
I'm already scared of the dark to begin with, so
I don't know, I kind of brushed it off. I said, oh, well,
I'm with a male. I'm probably fine whatever. And I
(16:14):
remember saying to him though, like maybe we should go back,
it's getting late, and he's like, oh, no, it's fine,
We're good. And I think he maybe was like a
little bit more drunk than I was at that point,
like we were chatting side by side and just had
our feet dangling on the edge of that little ocean runoff,
and all of a sudden, I heard the scuffle of
(16:36):
flip flops from behind us, like literally, like a couple
seconds of the flip flops. I jumped down, like that
was my reaction. And I jumped down and looked back
at the same time, and there was two men in masks.
I jumped down at the same time, saw these two
men in masks and ran towards the main path, I
(16:59):
like under the bridge and just booked it. And I
was screaming and hysterical and crying, and I didn't know
what was going on. I assumed somebody was chasing me,
so I felt like I didn't have time to look back.
So I crawled out of that little ocean runoff, and
I remember seeing a guy like walking on the main path.
(17:21):
I think he was a white guy, like he looked
like a tourist, and I just remember begging him please
help me, like I don't know what's going on. I
don't know what happened to my friend Sam, Like I
did not have any idea what was going on. I
wasn't processing anything. I was just in a panic. As
Sam ran up like a couple minutes later, and he
(17:41):
had blood like rushing down his head, and this guy
on the path like kept walking. It was probably like, oh,
there's some like drunk girl crying or something.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
As Sam ran up, two people took off on a
motorbike pretty much at that exact exact same time, back
down the path towards vance. That's when Sam and I
were like, holy shit, and we just started walking back
to where I was staying off the.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Path and what was Sam's condition?
Speaker 5 (18:15):
It was dark. I just remember he was bleeding and
he said that they hit him with a rock. And
I don't remember how we even got back, and it's
probably because we were in shock, but I don't remember
anything that was said. I just remember once we got
back to where I was staying, Sam had like a
(18:35):
wound on his head.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
So you go home, you're with your sister and a friend.
You're not bleeding, but Sam is bleeding. What do you
tell your sister and friend?
Speaker 5 (18:45):
Actually, my sister was already really upset we were gone,
and she was worried and in a panic, and she
was kind of like mad at us for being back
so late. So we didn't really she never knew what happened.
She's quite a bit older than me, so she never
really knew. I told my friend Ashley right away what happens,
(19:07):
and she consoled me. It was just scary too, because
once we got back to where we are staying in
that little cabin thing, it was also off the main path,
so I just couldn't help but think, like, as Sam
and I were walking back, I'm like, are they like
out here somewhere like hiding? Are they watching where we go?
Because they literally took off in the same direction where
(19:30):
we eventually followed, So it's like, are they going to
ambush us again? And I remember not sleeping that night.
Every time I heard a motorbike, I was just like,
are they coming to get us? I didn't feel safe
at that point, and the next morning we knew we
had to get the hell off that islands, like the
first boat off. So oh, that's just what we did.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
So you cut your trip short Kotel after that incident.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, Yeah. It's just it's such a
small area that I wouldn't feel safe going out that night.
I would think, for sure, looking into the crowd, they're
in here somewhere they'll recognize me, maybe they want to
get us again. It's just that small of an area
that if there's two assailants out there, they're gonna be
(20:19):
somewhere in the crowd. And Kotow's a small island, but
that strips even smaller. It's like think of an average street,
but like there's an ocean behind it. In bars, it's
like you're gonna run into people that you've seen, Like,
no matter what, that really sort of shit out of me.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Did you get a look at the two assailants.
Speaker 5 (20:42):
I saw the mask for a split second. I remember
saying to myself and like telling other people it was
like those anonymous masks, because I had never seen be
for Vendetta at that point, so I just described it
as like, oh, it's like an anonymous mask. I googled
Guy Fawkes mask and Thailand, and turns out in Thailand
(21:07):
there was a lot of protests. I'm not sure the
politics of it, but a lot of those masks were
used in the protests.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
A side note about the political situation in Thailand. From
November twenty thirteen through May twenty fourteen, there were several
anti government protests in Thailand. The crisis eventually resulted in
the removal of the incumbent Prime Minister Akudreta and the
establishment of a military hunta. Could one of the protesters
from that time have been involved with Karla and Sam's
(21:40):
assault or could it have been someone posing as a protester.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
When the two men took off, I definitely saw brown
Asian looking men. I can't really describe anything else, but
it all happened so quickly.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
You got as you heard the sound and looked behind
you was there were two people with masks walking up
on you and they were definitely locals.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Do you even contemplate filing a police report?
Speaker 5 (22:16):
I remember I seriously contemplated filing a police report. It
wasn't like, oh, well, I'm just gonna move on, Like
I was like, holy shit, what can I do about this?
And I know I explored my options, and I don't
know if it was because the police station was closed
(22:37):
or if I googled like Thailand police, like can you
trust them? When I ultimately came to the decision of like, no,
it's better for me to get off this island as
soon as possible. So yeah, that's what we did.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Let's stop here for another break. Connor continued to speak
with Carla about her traumatic experience on katal What happens.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
A year later.
Speaker 5 (23:14):
I had told this story to like a lot of
people just because it was crazy, and I think I
was also dealing with some like PTSD. Like literally, like
the night we came home to Canada, I remember going
out with my friends and somebody snuck up on us
and like scared the shit up out of me. I
started crying and like going into like a full blown
(23:36):
panic attack. But anyways, so a friend of mine from
high school, I think I like told this story at
like a party or something, and he sent me a
news article saying I just remember he said, I think
you should see this, and it it was about Hannah
and David, and I remember like opening the article and
(23:59):
like seeing that spot. I was like, holy shit, this
is too crazy to be real. Because I saw the
spot and I was like, that's literally where Sam and
I were sitting. There's the little like walkway bridge, and
I ran under that walkway bridge, and there's pictures of
(24:19):
like two body bigs in that area where we were attacked.
And once I was sure that was the same place,
I just remember I started violently shaking. I couldn't stop
moving my body. I think I went into shock again.
The realization of what happened to me and Sam, that
(24:43):
they probably would have tried to murder us really set in.
Once I saw the two body bigs in that area,
I was like, holy shit. And Sam and I got
in touch. We just talked about how close to death
we were without really realizing it. We never really talked
(25:03):
about it. We didn't see each other again since that night.
He eventually left back to where he was staying, and
we never like truly talked about what happened until the
deaths of Hannah and David.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
When you hear people talk about Kotel Now and the strange, bizarre,
unexplained deaths and people express skepticism about one, some all
of them, what goes through your mind.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
It's a story that sounds too crazy to be real.
I'm sure a lot of skepticism comes from a lack
of understanding of all the details and all the puzzle pieces.
But I think some people write it off just because
it's too crazy to be real. It doesn't sound like
it's likely, especially with the term mafia being used. I
(25:55):
think people have a lot of skepticism towards that because
mafia is owned around like there's some sort of like
organized serial killer crime group on that island, when really
the term mafia is just like used to describe the
fact that there's a very powerful family on that island,
(26:15):
which is factual. And I'm not saying I know all
the ins and outs of like what's going on there,
but there's definitely something strange with that family. And if
one of them wanted to be like a murderer or
like get away with whatever they wanted to like rape
(26:37):
Westerners or locals, their position in the family really sets
them up to get away with it.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
It sounds to me like these deaths that you think
it's entirely plausible and likely that some of them are
the result of a really powerful group of people who
run the island committing murders or turning a blind eye
to people committing murders in protecting essentially their own tarth.
Speaker 5 (27:06):
Yes, it's definitely changed the way I travel. I love
to travel, but I I'll say I'm scared like a
lot of places, Like I'm in the midst of trying
to plan a destination wedding and I'm i don't know
a little bit, a little bit worried about certain places.
(27:27):
I want to have a balance of being safe and
also like not letting it hinder my ability to travel.
But it does worry me. That will never leave the
back of my mind.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Listen, what you had happened to you is frightening and tragic.
To see the exact location where two people a year
later were murdered in the exact same spot where you
had that incident is another layer of trauma on the
trauma that you already experienced personally.
Speaker 5 (27:57):
Yeah, for sure, and definitely have wrote off what happened
to me within that year. It was like, Wow, that
was scary, but you know, I'm moving on with my life.
But once Hannah and David died, it was like a
whole rush of new trauma.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Oh.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
I just feel very much like I literally could have
been Hannah, and I've because of the Internet, I've accidentally
seen crime scene photos and they're just horrific, and I'm
thankful every day that I'm still here. But I was
a close call.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
More on that next time. If you have any information
about Nick Pearson, please contact us at producers at katidash
Studios dot com for more information and relevant photos, follow
us on Instagram at kat Underscore Studios. Death Island is
(28:55):
produced by Stephanie Leidecker, Connor Powell, Andrew Arnow, Jeff Shane,
Chris Cacaro, Gabriel Castillo and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and
sound designed by Jeff Toois. 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,
(29:18):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Stephanie Lydecker
Courtney Armstrong
Jeff Shane
Conor Powell
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