{"id":896710,"date":"2026-09-18T16:06:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T16:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/896710\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T16:06:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T16:06:14","slug":"australian-man-accused-of-murdering-thai-teenager-and-putting-body-in-suitcase-pleads-not-guilty-thailand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/896710\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian man accused of murdering Thai teenager and putting body in suitcase pleads not guilty | Thailand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">An Australian man accused of murdering a Thai teenager and putting her body in a suitcase pleaded not guilty on Friday in a hearing in the seaside resort city of Pattaya, a court official said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Simon Peter Carman, 45, was arrested in June after 17-year-old Tunchanok Donhomla was reported missing in Pattaya City, about 150km south-east of Bangkok. A suitcase containing her body was found shortly after.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Police said she died of suffocation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Carman appeared on Friday at Pattaya provincial court, where he pleaded not guilty to all charges, a court spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">He had been charged with murder, concealing a body and taking a minor for indecent purposes. The next court date was set for 12 October.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Police previously said CCTV footage showed him entering a condominium in Pattaya with the girl in the early hours of 25 June, and leaving that evening carrying a large black suitcase.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">In a police interrogation video shared online by Thai media, Carman has said he was acting in self-defence because the girl was threatening him with a knife.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">The case put the spotlight on Pattaya, which is popular with foreign tourists for its beaches and nightlife, but also has a reputation for sex tourism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Australian man accused of murdering a Thai teenager and putting her body in a suitcase pleaded not&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":896711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-896710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=896710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/896711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}