This wasn’t the first suitcase case to shock Thailand As Australian man Simon Peter Carman faces allegations over the death of a Thai teenage girl, chilling details of two eerily similar suitcase murder cases have resurfaced. But the image tying all three cases together is impossible to ignore — three abandoned suitcases, each becoming the centre of a nationwide investigation… 👇🧳
The legal proceedings against 45-year-old Perth resident Simon Carman in Thailand have brought a series of previous unresolved criminal cases back into the public spotlight. Carman currently faces the death penalty following formal charges over the death of 17-year-old Tunchanok Donhomla, whose body was discovered hidden inside a suitcase abandoned near railway tracks just outside Pattaya. While authorities allege that Carman engaged the teenager for sexual purposes before committing the murder, the defendant has denied the homicide charge, asserting that he acted strictly in self-defense during a physical altercation stemming from a payment dispute.
The grim methodology of the crime has drawn immediate comparisons to two other eerily similar, unresolved homicides that occurred in the same geographic region over the last three years. Local media records indicate that in September of last year, members of Thailand’s national rowing team discovered a suitcase floating in a local reservoir during a training session. Upon inspection, authorities recovered the half-naked body of an unidentified woman who had been bound, with the suitcase itself heavily secured using industrial chains, padlocks, and plastic cable ties. Forensic pathologists estimated the victim to be a foreign national in her early 30s who ultimately died from asphyxiation.
This discovery followed an almost identical incident that occurred just months earlier in February 2025. In that case, a local fisherman operating in Ban Chang—located roughly forty-three minutes away from Pattaya city—snagged his fishing line on a floating suitcase. Law enforcement personnel subsequently retrieved the container and discovered the naked body of a second unidentified female victim inside. Investigators noted that, much like the subsequent reservoir case, this specific suitcase had been intentionally weighed down with heavy dumbbells to keep the remains submerged.
While the striking structural patterns of these three discoveries have generated significant discussion regarding the safety of vulnerable individuals in the region, law enforcement and legal correspondents emphasize that there is currently absolutely no evidence linking Simon Carman to the two earlier cases. Investigations into the true identities of the two previous victims remain entirely open as forensic teams continue to cross-reference missing person databases across Southeast Asia.
