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South African Woman Found Dead In Bangkok


george

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I am sorry, but I did not see these 3 paragraphs in any of the above posts. This is from the storyline today in The Nation Newspaper....

......Police detectives said Walker was found on top of her boyfriend in the bathroom of her hotel room. Both were naked. Her wrist was slashed and her main vein was torn. Her boyfriend also had a slight wound on the wrist and was sent to hospital. A cutter knife was found at the scene.

Walker had stayed in the hotel about four days to attend a World Bank meeting.

Witnesses said her boyfriend came to see her in her room a few hours before the meeting. When the meeting started and she did not turn up, World Bank officials were sent to fetch her but found her dead.

Police suspected that her boyfriend was involved in her death and detained him for investigation.......

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Update:

Man held for SA woman's death

Bangkok: -- Thai police said on Friday they have arrested a Filipino man for the slashing murder of a South African woman at one of Bangkok's most prominent five-star hotels.

Laura Walker, 35, a dual British-South African national who was employed by the World Bank, had been in the Thai capital on a training course, and was found dead in her room at the Shangri-La Hotel on Wednesday.

"At the scene we found a box cutter, which we believe was the weapon that (the suspect) used to slash Laura's throat," said Police Major General Wachanont Tirawat.

Police identified the suspect as a male Filipino friend of Walker, and charged him with murder, which is punishable by death.

"Police have sufficient solid evidence on this case," Wachanont said.

Walker's throat was slashed and the main vein on her wrist cut by a sharp object, said police Major General Vichit Smativat, commander of the police institute of forensic medicine.

Police contacted by The Associated Press were reluctant to provide further details, saying the case was sensitive because it involved a foreign visitor.

However, the Thai-language newspaper Thai Rath quoted police Lieutenant Colonel Wacharat Moonwong as saying the suspect was found beside the victim's body in her room. His wrist was slit and he appeared drunk.

Walker had been on leave from the Asian Development Bank since August to work for the World Bank as a public sector specialist until July 2006.

--News24.com 2004-12-10

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Afer reading this thread it strikes me that there are morefarang ninnies here worried about their personal safety than I ever thought possible. I have lived in the Bangkok area for 15 +years in the period 1980 to date. When I first came here there was the occasional crime against foreigners just like now. There was an AUA teacher shot dead by a student in a bank, a DJ at an early club (Cartier?) shot dead on Asoke, a farang girl who was pushed or fell off a train, I could go on. One of the reasons I learned how to read Thai was to find out who all those dead people were on the cover of Thai Rath. Sure, there may be more crimes against foreignersnow, but there are many, many more farangs here, so even if the rate stayed the same the number would be higher. Don't forget too that for Thais this is a much more dangerous place than for farangs. Just pick up a Thai newspaper! This is not, nor has it ever been, the peaceful Buddhist Kingdom that some deluded foreigners think it is/was. That being said, I don't think you could find many countries where the people are more hospitable to foreigners as a whole. I don't think anyone from the US or the UK should be at all worried as they are much safer here than back home. I still can't think of any place here that I would feel particularly worried about visiting, and I cannot say the same for just about any city I have visited or lived in in the US. It also pays to use some common sense. If you get involved in drugs, hang around with low-lifes, etc. in any country than you are asking for trouble. If some of you are so scared maybe you are better off going back to the safety of your home country?

Someone mentioned the slasher. That was in the early 80s because I was here when that happened. I had a friend who was going up some stairs in a building when a Thai man came rushing down and threw a chair at him. A few weeks later the slashing started. Didn't last long and if I recall correctly nobody was severely hurt. When they caught him my friend saw his picture in the paper and it was the guy who threw the chair!

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I just read the story that a Philippino has been arrested for the S.A. woman's death, and we have also just learned that the Shangri-La death appears to be a murder-suicide attempt, since a man was found alive with slashed wrists under her body. So this whole thread about how foreigners were in mortal danger and what is happening to Thailand were based on two murders that likely were not even committed by Thais. I rest my case.

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Update:

Police expand investigation into World Bank murder

BANGKOK: -- Police in Bangkok said today that they were investigating the involvement of a third party in the murder of a South African World Bank official, who was found dead in her Bangkok hotel room on Wednesday.

Laura Walker, whose body was found in the Shangri-La Hotel, is thought to have been brutally murdered by her Philippine boyfriend.

Today Pol. Maj. Gen. Wachanon Thirawat, a commander with the Metropolitan Police force, said that following the arrest of the Philippine man, police were now looking into the possibility that a third person had been involved.

He promised that the case would be investigated as a matter of urgency, while refusing to disclose further details of the case file.

Mr. Caesar, the Philippino arrested in connection with the case, has been charged with intentional homicide, and could face the death penalty.

--TNA 2004-12-11

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Woman's Bangkok death probed

Authorities were investigating the death of a South African woman found in her hotel room in Bangkok, the World Bank said on Thursday.

Laura Walker was employed by the bank at the time of her death, said spokesperson Cristina Mejia.

She said the bank's security team was working with the Thai authorities to unravel the circumstances around the tragedy.

Apparently she was robbed in her hotel - the five-star Shangri-La - before being found dead on Wednesday, one of her friends told the Associated Press.

Walker, who was married, completed an master's degree in economics at the University of Cape Town and then worked in the budget division of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa.

The 34-year-old economist is the author of a number of academic and policy documents, and has been associated with the ministry of finance.

Mejia would not say how long Walker had been in the employment of the bank.

"Out of consideration for the staff member's family, we're not in a position to comment further at this time," she said.

--News24.com 2004-12-09

ORIGINAL STORY:

South African woman found dead in Bangkok

Bangkok - A South African World Bank official has been found dead in a five-star hotel in Bangkok, sources said on Thursday.

A spokesperson for the bank, Cristina Mejia, confirmed that a staff member had died at a Bangkok hotel and that an investigation was continuing but declined to give further details.

Thai police investigators also declined to comment but police at the department's forensic division said the body of Laura Walker arrived from the Shangri-La Hotel on Wednesday afternoon. The police officials, who declined to be named, said an autopsy was being carried out.

An e-mail from one of Walker's friends, made available to The Associated Press, said: "Our friend Laura Walker died yesterday in Bangkok while in training. Details are still sketchy. All we know at this time is that she was robbed in her hotel and that's where she died."

"The authorities are looking into the circumstances surrounding this tragedy and our own security team is working closely with them," Mejia said.

Earlier this week, an elderly Swiss tourist was found dead in a hotel room on the resort island of Phuket. According to police accounts, she was robbed and beaten to death, possibly by a hotel employee.

--News24.com 2004-12-09

For the latest info on this see today's (11 December) The Nation newspaper. According to their story her boyfriend is implicated.

:o

Hmmm....I see someone has already got this info into this forum. :D

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if you studytourism from an anthropological perspective, you will learn that societies 'react' to tourism in many ways. These reactions are wide and varied in range and may be planned deliberate reactions or may be reactions that just naturally occur over time, due to patterns of development or whatever.

An example is a concept called 'boundary maintenance' inwhich a society will either deliberately or not, ste up 'boundaries' to control what tourists get to see or not. For example - Khao San Road grew naturally at first from demand for cheap backpacker accommodation and now is a raging nightspot and seriously lucrative business area. The htings we see at Khao San road are more or less tolerated there but to a lesser extent in other areas of Thailand. Th e full moon party beach on Koh Phangan is another example.

It is possible to look at these two examples and argue that Thai society has set it's boundaries by allowing farang to be farnag in those areas (within reason) but outside those areas to control tings a bit more.

Anyway my point is that now Thailand has many many tourists each year and the number is growing. Not all tourists are gleaming examples of quality behaviour. So in my opinion it is a natural occurence to see a 'rise' in crime given the sheer numbers and also given the daily reporting we now see through a well set up Tourist police division and othe channels such as the Expat Forum.

We are all concerned for our safety but personally I feel safer here than any western country I have travelled. We should put more effort into putting something back into Thai society such as helping out any of the poor or homeless people. Every farang should go and see the conditions in some up country villages, that people live in before whining about safety. If we all put more back into the lives of these real people then maybe the 'reaction' against us would be different. If the all to common images impressions of farang continue to be presented to Thai society then what do we expect ?

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Boyfriend confesses to murdering WB official

Published on Dec 11 , 2004

The boyfriend of a World Bank official who was found dead in her hotel room earlier this week has confessed that he murdered the woman because of relationship problems, police said yesterday.

Cesar Kabatik, 33, a Filipino singer who works at night venues and hotels in Pattaya, has been charged with murder.

The body of Laura Walker, 35, was found Wednesday in the bathroom of the five-star hotel room she was staying at in Bangkok. Her wrist had been slashed.

She was found lying on top of a naked Kabatik, who also had a slight cut on his wrist. Police also found a mark on her neck suggesting strangulation.

While under investigation, Kabatik became agitated and made an attempt to injure himself.

Police requested that the Criminal Court of Southern Bangkok detain him as they feared they might have difficulty keeping watch over the unstable suspect, said Maj-General Chatchawal Suksomjit, deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Bureau.

Chatchawal said police did not suspect robbery was a motive in the murder and that the case itself was straightforward.

Only Kabatik was in the hotel room with Walker, he said, and both of them knew one another and had checked into the hotel together.

------------------------------------

Hmmmm.... slashed throat in earlier post... this one says strangulation??

Also, still no other mention of husband... only filipino boyfriend...

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eljeque

Did you work at DMC?

I have many friends who worked there when the Aussie nurse was murdered?

There does seem to be an awful lot of murders of farangs in strange circumstances in Thailand.

Falling off balconies seems to more popular in Thailand than most countries!

From the Thais that i know the majority think dangerous and violent crime is a lot worse these days.

They always tell me to be very careful in Thailand as in their words

"thailand not same anymore , very dangerous...

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A lot of wealthy, not seriously rich, people in London are selling up their pukka homes and moving into gated estates, because of the rising amount of crime being committed against them. People wealthy by local standards congregating together and becoming prey for the locals. I can see a parallel here.

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Update:

Brother of SA woman killed in Thailand speaks

Johannesburg, South Africa: -- The brother of Laura Walker, the South African found dead in a Thailand hotel this week, said his sister was "a highly talented, intelligent, compassionate and loyal person".

"It is especially tragic that someone who had so much to live for could have been the victim of such a tragedy as this, " he said in a statement on Saturday.

"On behalf of my family, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the people -- family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances -- from around the world who have expressed condolences and share in our grief and our tragic loss."

She had achieved so much in her life, said Halton.

Walker was working for the World Bank at the time of her death, and the bank's security team is working with Thai authorities in the investigation, said World Bank spokesperson Cristina Mejia.

Halton said inaccurate articles have appeared in the press.

"In view of the ongoing investigation, it is not appropriate to comment any further on this matter."

He also said his family have enjoyed "absolute and full cooperation from the Royal Thai government and Thai police" and have full confidence in the Thai judicial system. They expect the legal process to be resolved in a speedy and judicious manner.

-- Sapa 2004-12-12

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Hmmm... her brother makes public statements, but not her husband?? Does that have anything to do with her "boyfriend" confessing to the murder?

If this indeed the case, one would question her brother's statements about how "loyal" his sister was.

:o What a sad comment to make about a man who's sister has just been the victim of a murder, and to make it in such a faceless manner.

I just hope you never have the unfortunate luck to be reading comments about your family under simillar circumstances.

Condolences to all concerned.

Sally.

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If I am ever in a similiar circumstance, I would chose my words much more carefully... but most likely, I would not make public comments at all and thus avoid the potential for others to respond to what I had said, particularly when the situation has rather scandalous implications. "Silence is Golden" seems most appropriate at that time.

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