No gift articles left<\/p>\n
You’ve used all of your gift articles. 3 more will become available on the 1st of every month.<\/p>\n
Close<\/p>\n
AAA<\/p>\n
Warning: Graphic content<\/p>\n
Singapore\/Pattaya: The father of Thai teenager Thanchanok Donhomla has come face to face for the first time with the Australian accused of her murder, sitting just metres away in court as Simon Peter Carman again insisted the girl had come at him with a knife.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel angry, and got angrier listening to Simon denying the charges, not admitting to the crime, even daring to claim self-defence, saying he was threatened,\u201d Tongchai Donhomla said outside the court in Pattaya, Thailand. \u201cI want to punch him.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Thanchanok](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/2b73ba98079eaae502d8ecf94f61c8785535a24ec7f2ed236e214d5ff98aed47.jpeg\")
Thanchanok Donhomla\u2019s father, Tongchai Donhomla, and her aunt, Miruntree Thanachai, arrive at court in Pattaya on Monday.<\/p>\n
The family is seeking the death penalty and, in a separate civil claim, about $70,000 in compensation. Carman indicated he would consider offering this money if released on bail.<\/p>\n
Carman, 45, previously pleaded not guilty to intentional murder and two charges related to indecent acts with a minor, but on Monday pleaded guilty to concealing a body.<\/p>\n
Donhomla was accompanied inside the small and crowded courtroom by his sister, Miruntree Thanachai, while other family members waited outside.<\/p>\n
![\"Simon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/75ba8fe27fa49ae0340b935ddc7d0209dfbd9fe7.png\")
Simon Carman and Thanchanok Donhomla.<\/p>\n
They had travelled close to 600 kilometres from their town of Ban Bo, in the north-east province of Kalasin. \u201cWe want to see [his] face,\u201d Thanachai said as they arrived.<\/p>\n
Carman arrived from Pattaya\u2019s remand prison, dressed in brown and shackled at the ankles and wrists.<\/p>\n
He is accused of murdering Thanchanok<\/a>, known as \u201cCake\u201d to those close to her, in the early hours of June 25 at his condominium on the outskirts of coastal Pattaya, about 150 kilometres south of Bangkok, before allegedly stuffing the 17-year-old\u2019s body inside a suitcase and dumping it in long grass near a railway line.<\/p>\n Related Article At his first court appearance last month<\/a>, he pleaded not guilty to all charges, including concealing her body.<\/p>\n But the judge on Monday successfully advised him through a translator to change his plea on concealing the body because of the plethora of evidence on that point.<\/p>\n Security footage at the condominium captured Carman and Thanchanok arriving hand in hand at about 3.30am. Hours later, Carman is seen wheeling out a suitcase alone, travelling on a motorbike with the suitcase attached, and returning without it.<\/p>\n The judge also advised Carman to plead guilty to murder and later argue self-defence, but he declined. He says he feared for his own life when she produced the knife.<\/p>\n He claims he never had sex with the teenager, and only reluctantly let her accompany him home from the beach, where she had been hanging out with two friends.<\/p>\n When Thanchanok was about to leave, Carman says she asked for money. He offered 500 baht ($21) but she demanded more and grabbed a knife from the kitchen, he claims. He says she died in an ensuing struggle, and in his panic, he decided to hide her body.<\/p>\n Carman, a long-term Thailand resident, was arrested at Bangkok\u2019s Suvarnabhumi Airport on June 27, shortly before he was to board a flight back to Australia.<\/p>\n Thanchanok had been in Pattaya for only a few days before her death. Her family says she was not a sex worker and went there on a holiday to see friends and the beach.<\/p>\n Pattaya Police Colonel Anek Srathongyoo said the autopsy showed she had died by asphyxiation and an internal brain injury. He previously said no injuries were found on her body, but the court heard on Monday that she had a broken jaw.<\/p>\n Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what\u2019s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n No gift articles left<\/p>\n You’ve used all of your gift articles. 3 more will become available on the 1st of every month.<\/p>\n Close![\"Friends](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/a482104af724d377c7777e0beb0d839aa9b58c7a.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Zach](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/415ab732af75b6e38d828c13ac2c1a8d78b406fd.png\")
Zach Hope<\/a> is South-East Asia correspondent. He is a former reporter at the Brisbane Times.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"October 12, 2026 \u2014 7:54pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":925650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-925649","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\/925649","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=925649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/925650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=925649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=925649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=925649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}