Koh Tao Murders
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To get this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, check us out at patreon.com/forensictales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. Two European backpackers met at Turtle Island in September 2014, in Island Paradise off the coast of Thailand. They were both young, recent graduates and visiting from the UK.

But just days into their stay on the island, tragedy arrives. Their bodies are discovered floating near the ocean's edge, just feet away from their hotel. They had been badly beaten to death, and the female victim had been assaulted. But they aren't the only ones who have turned up dead on the island. In fact, their deaths are just more names to add to the growing list of foreigners who have mysteriously turned up dead.

This is Forensic Tales, episode number 117, The Koh Tao Murders. ♪♪ ♪♪

Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola. Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.

Sharing true crime stories isn't just about the story themselves. It's about getting justice for the victims and their families.

As a one-woman show, your support helps me find new exciting cases to cover, conduct in-depth fact-based research, produce and edit this weekly show. And for supporting the show, you'll get early ad-free access to weekly episodes, exclusive merchandise not available anywhere else, bonus content, shout-outs and episodes, and priority on case suggestions.

To learn about supporting Forensic Tales, consider visiting our Patreon page at patreon.com slash Forensic Tales, or by simply clicking the support link in the show notes. You can also help support the show by leaving us a positive rating with a review. Now, let's jump right into this week's case. With its crystal clear beaches and booming nightlife, the Thai island of Koh Tao is internationally known as a tourist hotspot.

Koh Tao, which means "Turtle Island," is a remote island off Thailand's mainland. It got its name by becoming a breeding ground for green turtles. The only way to get out to the 21-square-kilometer island is by boat. For many tourists, it's known as one of the world's most popular diving destinations. With a relatively small population consisting of Thai locals and Burmese immigrants, the island relies almost exclusively on tourism.

Over a half million tourists visit the island each year. Besides scuba diving, Koh Tao is a popular spot among backpackers because of its enormous green mountains. But sometimes, outward appearances can be deceiving.

Foreign tourists are almost entirely unaware of the island's subculture, where drugs play a crucial role. The most commonly sold drug on the island are marijuana, cocaine, and crystal meth, locally known as yaba, or crazy drug. But there's another subculture, the so-called Kotow Mafia culture.

When I say mafia, I don't use it in the same way that we might hear in the States. The Koh Tao Mafia is made up of wealthy families on the island. These families are basically the ones who run the island. They say who comes and who goes. They're in control. Not the Thai government, not the police. On top of drugs and mafia rumors, there's another subculture, murder.

In late August 2014, two British tourists visited the island. They were 23-year-old Hannah Withridge and 24-year-old David Miller. Although they didn't know each other previously, Hannah and David became friends after meeting on the boat ride over to the island together. And they grew even closer during their trip when they realized that they were staying at the same hotel.

Hannah was visiting Thailand with three of her friends, but getting to the island wasn't easy. Before leaving her home in England, Hannah's mom was worried about her daughter traveling so far away from home. She told her daughter that she didn't want her to go, but being a young adult, Hannah didn't follow her mom's advice and went on the backpacking trip anyway.

Before she left home, she made a deal with her mom. She told her mom that she would call home every single day to check in. And with this deal, Hannah's mom reluctantly agreed. This was a trip of a lifetime for Hannah. She had just recently completed an undergraduate degree in education at the University of East Anglia and was about to start a master's degree program in speech and language therapy.

so the trip would serve as just a fun break between her studies. 24-year-old David Miller also visited Kotal with a small group of friends. Originally from Jersey, one of the UK's Channel Islands, he had just recently finished studying civil and structural engineer at the University of Leeds, and he was also starting a master's degree program.

Before booking his trip to the island, he had just finished a six-week work placement in Australia with a mining company. A few days after arriving in Thailand, David called home to Jersey saying, quote, I've never been happier than here, end quote. Just like Hannah, this trip was a much-needed break from school and work.

At around 7 p.m. on September 14, 2014, Hannah and David met at a beachside bar to drink with some friends. The beachfront bars and nightclubs were among the island's many lures for young tourists. Slightly after midnight, the group split up. Hannah and her three friends decided to walk across the street to another bar known as the A.C. Bar. David walked across the street to a local supermarket.

At around 2 o'clock a.m., David met up with Hannah and her friends at the A.C. bar. Sometime after 2.15 a.m., both Hannah and David leave the bar and walk along the beach. By this point in the night, it's only Hannah and David. The rest of their friends either stayed at the bar or returned back to the hotel room. The beach they walked, Surrey Beach, was only a few feet away from their hotel rooms.

The following morning, a Burmese beach cleaner made a horrific discovery on the water's edge. The normally white sand was painted a bright red color, blood. A few feet closer to the water, she discovered the brutally murdered bodies of Hannah and David. Hannah's body was found on the beach a few feet away from the water's edge. She'd suffered fatal blunt force trauma to her neck and head.

A rape kit also determined she'd been sexually assaulted before being beaten to death. Approximately two meters away from Hannah was David's body floating in the water. Like Hannah, he suffered blunt force trauma to the neck and head. He had also substantial water in his lungs, indicating drowning. Their bodies were found on a stretch of beach only 30 meters away from their hotel, the Ocean View Bungalows.

The Thai police were called to the scene. The police force on the island only consisted of six police officers. And when they got to the beach, the officers had trouble securing the scene. Other tourists were allowed to walk on the beach. Locals were allowed to take photographs of the scene and post them to social media. People walked right up to Hannah and David's bodies without the police stopping them.

Now, it's unclear why the Thai police didn't control the scene better. Maybe it was a lack of proper training. Maybe it was the simple lack of resources. But again, we're only talking about a police department of six officers. So whatever the case, the immediate area surrounding Hannah and David's bodies were compromised right from the get-go.

Despite their initial fumble of the crime scene, Thailand's mainland sent more than 60 police officers to help the six officers stationed on the island. Once they arrived, the first thing they attempted to do was find and collect forensic evidence.

Next to Hannah and David's bodies, the police found what they believed to be the murder weapon, a bloody garden hoe. It was found lying in the sand only a few feet away. They also found a wooden club, three cigarette butts, and a used condom.

Forensic testing was done on the cigarette butts found on the beach, the bloody garden hoe, and the victims' bodies. When the results came back, the Thailand police got their first big lead. According to Thai officials, the test pulled two DNA profiles from the items that belonged to two unknown Asian men.

With this new information, the police started taking DNA swabs from all Asian men on the island. The swabs were then compared to the DNA profile from the cigarette butts to see if they were a match. While the Thai police looked for a DNA match, news about the murders quickly spread to the UK and the US.

Everyone around the world began hearing the story about how two innocent European backpackers were brutally murdered just steps away from their hotel. The growing media attention surrounding the murders quickly began casting a shadow over Thailand's image as a safe and adventurous destination for over 20 million foreign visitors a year.

The news about how the local police on the island were handling the crime scene was a massive threat to Thailand's worldwide reputation. People no longer felt safe. What would happen to their economy that almost solely relied on tourism? But it wasn't merely the crime's brutality that caught the world's attention. It was also the prime minister's public statements about the murders that sparked controversy.

Two days after discovering David and Hannah's bodies, Thailand's prime minister at the time publicly criticized female foreign tourists. He said that how females dress while on the island impacts their safety. He also suggested how Hannah dressed could have led to her sexual assault and murder.

In a public statement, the prime minister said, quote, they think our country is beautiful and safe and they can do whatever they want, wear bikinis wherever they like. I'm asking if they wear bikinis in Thailand, will they be safe only if they are not beautiful? End quote.

As concerns grew that the murders might affect foreign tourism in Thailand, so did the government's pressure on the local police to identify a suspect and make an arrest. While the police continued to identify the two male DNA profiles, they focused their search for a suspect in the Burmese immigrant community. Burmese migrants make up a significant portion of the population on Koh Tao.

Most of them worked in the island's hotels and bars. They also did a lot of manual labor jobs on the island. However, because of their immigration status, these people were treated very, very poorly by the Thai people. Most of them didn't have Thai citizenship and had come to the island illegally.

Thirteen days after the murders, the police zeroed in on the Burmese immigrant community. They focused on immigrants because, according to a spokesperson for the police, quote, ties wouldn't do this, end quote.

Allegations emerged that the Burmese people were being tortured and abused by the Thai police. People from the community came forward, accusing the police of targeting them and blaming them for the murders simply because they were immigrants. One individual claimed that the police poured boiling water on him during an interrogation about the murders.

But despite the countless claims, the Thai police adamantly denied any wrongdoing and adamantly denied any abuse on Burmese community. Days later, there was a turning point in the investigation. The Thai police got their hands on CCTV footage near the beach where Hannah and David were murdered.

On the video were three Burmese immigrants. When the police brought them in for questioning, they admitted to being on the same beach on the same night of the murders, but they said they had nothing to do with it. After further police questioning, one of the men was released while the other two were arrested on immigration charges. The two arrested were 22-year-old Zhao Lin and 22-year-old Wei Fou.

Both were illegal migrant workers with no prior criminal records. According to Time magazine, these two men were two of the estimated 2 million Burmese migrants, alongside smaller numbers from neighboring Cambodia and Laos, who worked low-paying jobs in Thailand.

After the two men were arrested, the police interrogated them about the murders. Since neither one of them spoke Thai, the entire interview was conducted through interpreters. Through these interpreters, they were both questioned for hours about what they did on the night of the murders and why they were on the beach.

Initially, Wei and Zhao denied anything about the murders. They admitted to being on the beach that night, but they said they had nothing to do with it. They said they were only out there playing guitar and drinking beers together. But the more they denied it, the more the Thai police pressed them. Finally, after hours of intense questioning, the two men cracked. They ultimately confessed to the murders and sexual assault of Hannah.

When asked why they did it, they simply said that they had become sexually aroused after seeing Hannah and David kissing on the beach that night. After swabbing over 200 Asian males on the island, the Thai police announced that they had identified the two male DNA profiles collected at the crime scene.

According to the police, the DNA matched Wei and Zhao. So not only did Thai authorities have a confession, but they also had DNA evidence linking them to the murders. So on October 2nd, the police arrested the two men and charged them with capital murder.

Besides the confessions and DNA evidence, the police claimed that Wei stole David's cell phone. According to them, the cell phone was found inside of Wei's house. Following their arrest, the Thai police took Wei and Zhao to the beach where the murders took place. Then, in front of dozens of people, they made the two men publicly reconstruct the murders.

They made them show everyone exactly how they murdered Hannah and David. Hannah and David's murders weren't the first time or the last time foreign tourists have mysteriously died on Koh Tao. In fact, Hannah and David had simply become another pair of victims on the island.

Before them was 25-year-old Nick Pearson. Nick disappeared after a night out with his family on New Year's Eve 2013. His body was found floating on the beach at the Hillside Resort the next day, January 1, 2014. After a speedy investigation, the Thai police concluded that Nick died from an accidental fall.

His family disagreed, though, citing that Nick didn't have any broken bones or any physical injuries that supported this accidental fall theory. Although the police ruled out any foul play, Nick's family argues that the police didn't do enough investigating and quickly wrote this one off as an accident without even interviewing a single witness. Then there was Hines Peter Sutter.

44-year-old Hines' body was found 10 days after he went missing from Surrey Beach on Tuesday, November 18, 2014. He went missing from the same beach where Hannah and David were murdered. Hines left his hotel on November 8 to go snorkeling alone. Despite being an experienced snorkeler, the Thai police ruled his death as an accidental drowning.

29-year-old Dimitri Povs was found hanging from the beam of a rented house on January 1, 2015. Although both of his hands were tied behind his back, the Thai police described his death as a suicide. The police also said they found a suicide note next to his body.

However, Dimitri's friends and family remain suspicious and are insistent that he wouldn't commit suicide, especially with his hands tied behind his back. A 23-year-old British woman, Christina Ansley, was found dead inside her InTouch Resort hotel room on January 31, 2015.

Since the police didn't find any signs of a struggle or human DNA at the scene, her death was ruled as an accidental overdose. According to the Thai police, she must have died from natural causes after mixing antibiotics and alcohol. However, no toxicology report was ever conducted to either confirm or deny this claim by the Thai police. And the list? The list doesn't stop there.

From February 2015 to October 2018, five more foreign tourists mysteriously died on the island of Kotow. One was a Russian tourist who disappeared from her hotel on Kotow. Another was found at the bottom of a swimming pool at the Sunset Bar at Surrey Beach. A Belgian backpacker was found hanging from a tree on the island in 2017.

According to the Thai police, all of the deaths can either be attributed to an accident or suicide. But if you ask these victims' family and friends, they suspect something else happened to their loved ones while on the island. It's not just the island of Koh Tao that has seen its fair share of suspicious deaths.

According to Time magazine, there were 362 UK citizens who died in Thailand in 2014 alone. This figure is much higher than tourist deaths in France, attracting almost 20 times more British visitors than Thailand.

Two weeks after Hannah and David's murders, the Thai police had their suspects, two 22-year-old Burmese immigrants, Wei and Zhao. Once they were arrested, they were sent to jail and shackled in chains 24 hours a day. Shortly after being thrown in jail, people worldwide began talking about the Thai police's conduct in the investigation.

Not only were there allegations of police brutality and torture towards the Burmese immigrant community, but there were also rumors that the police had tortured Wei and Zhao to get a confession.

Allegations emerged that the police had physically tortured the two men for hours during their initial interrogation. They were left naked in a dark room without any food or water for hours. They were told their bodies would be dumped in the ocean if they didn't confess. One of them even alleged he'd been sexually abused by one of the Thai police officers.

One of the organizations that caught wind of these serious allegations was the Human Rights and Development Foundation. This organization dedicated to put a team together to investigate these claims of abuse and torture by the Thai police. And they even went to jail where Wei and Zhao were housed.

Then 18 days after their arrest, both men recanted their confessions. They said they had only confessed to the murders because they were tortured and threatened by the police.

The trial for Hannah and David's murders began on July 8, 2015. Thai prosecutors charged Wei and Zhao with five counts each. Premeditated murder, killing to conceal a criminal offense, rape, illegal entry into Thailand, and staying in the country without permission. On top of those charges, prosecutors also charged Wei for stealing David's cell phone after the murders.

If convicted of all these counts, Wei and Zhao were facing the death penalty. The victims, Hannah and David, were represented by Thailand's prosecution, and Wei and Zhao were represented pro bono by two defense lawyers from the Lawyers' Council of Thailand, the state's public defender's organization. Instead of presenting the case to a jury like you would here in the States, the case was heard by a three-judge panel.

The courtroom was filled with journalists and reporters alongside the families of Hannah and David. The prosecution's case relied heavily on forensic evidence and DNA. According to the prosecution's narrative, Wei and Zhao were out on Surrey Beach when they saw Hannah and David around 2.30 a.m. on September 15, 2014.

After seeing the couple kiss, they became sexually aroused with a desire to sexually assault Hannah. But in order to get to Hannah, they needed to kill David first. The prosecution alleged that Wei and Zhao came across the garden hoe on the beach and decided that that would make the perfect murder weapon. They used the garden hoe to hit David multiple times over his head and neck.

Once he was out, they took turns sexually assaulting Hannah. Once they were done with her, they took the same garden hoe and struck her over the head and neck repeatedly until she was dead too.

The forensic expert for the prosecution testified that they tested several items collected from the crime scene for DNA. The items tested included the bloody garden hoe, three cigarette butts, and a used condom. They also collected DNA from Hannah's rape kit. According to the test results, they found Wei and Zhao's DNA on the samples.

This proves not only that they were on the beach, but they are the ones responsible for the murders and sexual assault. They told the court that these two men were a 100% match to the samples. Obviously, this testimony doesn't sound very good for the defense.

Anytime there's expert testimony about someone's DNA being found at a crime scene, that will be a pretty convincing piece of evidence. But the defense presented its own narrative about what happened that night. The defense said that Wei and Zhao went swimming at the beach earlier that night. When they got out of the water, they couldn't find some of their clothes.

So after not finding them, they left the beach and walked towards their friend's house, which was captured on the CCTV footage the police found. According to them, Way found David's cell phone on the beach, so he decided to keep it. He said he saw the cell phone, but he didn't see the bodies.

According to the defense, the DNA can't be trusted because of concerns that the crime scene was contaminated right after discovering the bodies.

Remember, when the Thai police arrived at the beach, they did remarkably little to secure the scene. Locals were allowed to take pictures of the body, photos that unfortunately ended up on the Internet. Other tourists were allowed to walk on the beach while investigators collected evidence.

So the crime scene itself wasn't officially secured until hours after discovering the bodies. So because the scene wasn't properly contained from the get-go, the defense argued that, well, the DNA evidence simply can't be trusted. The defense also called into question the integrity of the DNA evidence.

Forensic evidence is independently tested in the U.S., U.K., and many other countries around the world. This testing happens outside the police department to preserve the integrity of the testing and properly safeguards the chain of custody. But in Thailand, the process is a little bit different. The police are in charge of performing the entire process.

So you've got the police collecting the evidence, testing it, and then using it against a suspect. During the prosecution's testimony, their expert said that the DNA sample was a 100% match to Wei and Zhao. But the defense disagreed. They said, you can't say it's 100% a match when the sample has multiple contributors of DNA.

In the samples tested by the Thailand police, there were four DNA profiles within a single sample. Two of the DNA profiles belonged to Hannah and David. So is the defense right? Is it impossible to say that someone's DNA is 100% a match if the sample came from multiple contributors?

According to an article published in 2019 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the number of contributors may affect how the DNA sample is interpreted. Generally speaking, more contributors make a sample more complex and therefore harder to interpret. But then you've got to ask yourself, how much DNA did each person contribute?

Some people may have contributed a lot of DNA while others didn't. The lower the amounts, the more complex the sample becomes to interpret. So when does a sample become too complex to reliably interpret at all?

This question is essentially the heart of the defense's argument. They argued that the prosecution cannot say that a mixed sample of DNA is a 100% match to their client's.

Well, forensic scientists don't look at the entire genetic sequence when creating a DNA profile. Instead, they look at about 40 short segments of DNA that vary from one person to the next. Those variations are known as alleles. Getting someone's DNA profile is knowing which alleles they carry.

For scientists, to identify the alleles, they run them through an instrument that sorts them in a very similar way that a coin counter would sort coins. But instead of ending up with different coins in different slots, the alleles end up as peaks on a graph. Where these peaks are located on the graph indicate which alleles are present. In other words, they determine a person's DNA profile.

When a piece of evidence has a lot of DNA, the peaks are relatively easiest for scientists to read. When there's not a lot of DNA, or if the DNA is mixed with multiple people, these peaks might be harder to identify. When the amount of DNA is low, scientists might ask themselves, when is a peak a peak?

Or when a sample has mixed DNA for multiple people, they might ask themselves, whose peak is it anyway? So back to the original question, when does a sample become too complex to reliably interpret at all? The answer to that depends on the lab testing the sample. There are no universally accepted standards. Different labs have different protocols and therefore different standards.

And in this case, the prosecution's lab said that the DNA sample was a 100% match to the suspect, the two suspects. Well, on the other hand, the defense argued that they couldn't say that it was 100% a match because it was mixed and improperly tested. Now, let's talk about that.

First, the defense said the samples were improperly tested by the Thai police, which didn't follow basic forensic testing standards. One argument by the defense was that the samples weren't subject to independent oversight or independent verification. Second, the defense argued that the police tested the samples too quickly to generate an accurate and reliable DNA profile.

According to the police report, DNA profiles matching the two suspects were generated in less than 12 hours. This implies that scientists analyzed the mixed samples and were able to create a DNA profile within just a few hours.

According to an Australian defense expert, Jane Tapin, she said, quote, extracting DNA from mixed samples are difficult and time consuming, end quote. What she's saying here, what this expert for the defense is saying is that this isn't something that can be done in less than 12 hours, at least not according to the defense.

Two days into the trial, on July 10th, the court ordered the DNA obtained from Hannah's body to be retested. But the sample couldn't be retested because it was destroyed after the initial testing. The defense had an expert from Thailand's Central Institute of Forensic Science to testify about the DNA evidence collected from the assumed murder weapon, the bloody garden hoe found on the beach.

This expert testified that they found two male DNA profiles when they tested the garden hoe. One of the profiles was David's DNA, but the other DNA profile belonged to an unknown male that didn't match either Wei or Zhao. According to this expert, no DNA belonging to either Wei or Zhao was found on the garden hoe.

Besides the claim of mishandling valuable forensic evidence, the defense also argued that the case should be dropped due to the lack of legal representation during the interrogations and the use of threats and torture to get a confession.

At the time of their arrest, neither one was provided with an attorney, and throughout the entire interrogation process, they were continuously tortured and threatened until they confessed to the murders. After 18 long days of testimony, the case was left up to a three-judge panel to decide Zhao and Wei's fate.

The two waited in jail for the next several months, not knowing if they would be executed, spend the rest of their lives in jail, or be set free. Finally, on December 24th, Christmas Eve, the court returned its decision. The three panel of judges found Zhao and Wei guilty of capital murder and sentenced them both to death. After delivering the verdict, the court said this about their decision.

Their ruling on the case was based primarily on the DNA evidence, and they didn't consider their confessions to the murders in making their decision. It was the forensic evidence that ultimately swayed their decision. Wei was also convicted of stealing David's cell phone and entering Thailand illegally. Zhao was acquitted of illegally entering the country because he had a work permit he legally obtained two years before the murders.

The court's decision in the case was met with heavy criticism from media outlets, human rights organizations, and legal experts from around the world. The decision even resulted in widespread protests throughout the men's home country. People took to the streets, claiming that the Thailand government used these two innocent men as scapegoats for the murders and that their conviction should be overturned.

David's family publicly spoke about the court's decision following the guilty verdict. They called the verdict justice, and they believed the two men responsible for their son's murder were where they should be, behind bars. Two years later, in 2017, the case was heard by Thailand's appellate court.

But their attempt at an appeal was unsuccessful and the convictions were upheld. And in 2019, two years after that, Thailand's Supreme Court did the same. The high court also agreed to uphold the criminal convictions. In their decision, they said that the forensic evidence that convicted the men in the case was, quote, clear, credible, and detailed, end quote.

In August 2020, Zhao and Wei received a small break. However, it wasn't entirely what they hoped for. In 2020, the two men had their death sentences commuted to life in prison. However, even when the court commuted their sentence, they maintained their innocence. Today, officials in both Thailand and Koh Tao work diligently to erase the memories of the murders.

Koh Tao's mayor was quoted in Time magazine as saying, The island built a new police station with over 40 full-time police officers, making it a much different police department than the six-officer team. Some people who visit Koh Tao are entirely unaware the murders even took place.

When Time magazine caught up with a 21-year-old tourist on the same beach the murders happened, she told reporters that she had never heard about it. But if she had, she would have thought twice about coming to the island. The murders of Hannah and David, along with the other unexplained and suspicious deaths on the island, led a British tabloid to label Koh Tao as Death Island.

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