In this handout photo taken in Pattaya on June 27, 2026 and provided by Pattaya City Police Station on June 29, police officers measure a suitcase after the suspected murder of a 17-year-old Thai girl. (Photo by Handout / Pattaya City Police Station / AFP)
Pattaya, Thailand: The family of a 17-year-old Thai girl whose body was found in a suitcase in a resort city are "devastated", her stepmother said Monday, as authorities charged an Australian man for her murder.
"I never imagined she would be gone this quickly," Orradee Bussarakham told AFP by phone. "We didn't get to say goodbye."
Orradee and the girl's father, Thongchai Donhomla, were in Bangkok on Monday to collect the body, which was found near a railway track in the seaside resort city of Pattaya early on Saturday.
"Like her dad, I'm devastated. Although I'm her stepmother, I feel like I just lost a child of my own," Orradee said.
Thai police officers at Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok with Australian man Simon Peter Carman (C)
A 45-year-old Australian, Simon Peter Carman, has been charged with premeditated murder in the case, Police Lieutenant Colonel Kosala Ngampong told AFP.
Carman was arrested at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport on Friday night as he prepared to board a flight back to Australia, after the victim's friend had reported her missing.
He faces charges of premeditated murder, "taking a minor (for sexual purposes)" and concealment of a body -- all of which he has denied, Kosala said.
He is held at a Pattaya jail while the case is referred to prosecutors.
Under the Thai Criminal Code, premeditated murder carries a penalty of life imprisonment or death, the latter rarely enforced.
CCTV footage showed Carman entering a condominium in Pattaya with the girl in the early hours of Thursday, and leaving that evening carrying a large black suitcase, police said.
Kosala said Carman had loaded the suitcase onto a motorcycle and rode to a grassy area near a railway line in the city.
Police found the suitcase early Saturday near a railway track, discovering inside the victim's body which bore signs of violence.
The girl had left her home in Kalasin province, in Thailand's northeast, for Pattaya on June 16, Orradee said.
She described her stepdaughter as a cheerful, sociable girl with a wide circle of friends.
The teen would help Orradee sell garlands and fruits at a roadside stall, she recalled, adding: "She would always bring the family together for mookata (Thai barbecue)."
Her body will be returned home for funeral rites.
