It was well after midnight and Wyn, Saw and Mau were smoking, drinking and playing music near a line of pine trees on the edge of Koh Tao’s Sairee beach as David Miller and Hannah Witherridge headed toward a secluded spot of ocean where they could be alone.
Hundreds of tourists, Koh Tao residents and police surround the scene on Sairee beach where two Myanmar suspects in the killing of David Miller and Hannah Witheridge re-enact their alleged attacks. (Photo by Tawatchai Khemgumnerd)
Mau, like his friends, a migrant worker from Myanmar, said he got up from the log where they sat and staggered back to his bungalow. His two 21-year-old friends lagged behind and, a moment later, attractive blonde Witheridge, 23, and 24-year-old Miller strolled by. The two men allegedly got up and followed them.
The events claimed to have transpired in the following minutes — played out in gruesome detail Friday on the Surat Thani province tourist island — would leave the British backpackers molested and brutally murdered, Koh Tao's close-knit island population horrified and Thailand's international reputation badly tarnished.
- Earlier: DNA 'matches' confessed suspects
- The capture: Myanmar man 'admits to killings'
- Closing in: 3 Myanmar men questioned
Police said Wyn and Saw — no surnames have yet been disclosed — confessed after hours of interrogation Thursday to raping Witheridge and bludgeoning her and Miller to death in the early morning hours of Sept 15.
Investigators pushed through DNA tests in record time, obtaining results in just hours, instead of the usual days. Even before the official 10am press conference, police "sources" began leaking news that the tests were positive; the DNA matched; they finally had wrapped up an investigation that critics at home and abroad had lambasted as bungled.
"Two Myanmar suspects have confessed to killing the pair," national police chief Somyot Pumpunmuang told the AFP news service even before the press conference. "DNA test results confirmed that the same DNA was found in the body of the (female) victim."
Koh Tao murder suspects Wyn, left, and Saw re-enact their alleged killing of two British backpackers Friday. (Photo by Tawatchai Khemgumnerd)
"Together with other evidence and (testimony from witnesses) that we have collected thoroughly throughout the investigation, we are convinced that these two migrant workers were the killers,'' Pol Lt Gen Decha Butrnamphech, commissioner of the Provincial Police Region 8, echoed to The Associated Press, again before any official announcement or charges were made.
Pol Gen Somyot trotted out the two Myanmar suspects before hundreds of onlookers and police on Sairee Beach on Friday, making both play out how they allegedly raped and murdered the couple.
A foreign tourist was recruited to play David while a television reporter from the UK's Sky TV jumped into her own story to portray Hannah. With throngs standing from the roadside down to the waterline, the re-enactment had all the markings of a full-blown media circus.
Saw showed how, seeing the couple together behind some large rocks, he allegedly grabbed a hoe from a nearby vegetable garden and brought it down on the back of Miller's head before dragging the young man into the sea, where autopsy findings showed he inhaled considerable amounts of water before dying.
With her partner incapacitated, both men are accused of then setting upon Witheridge, taking turns raping her while alternately smoking a cigarette. When they were through, Wyn allegedly smashed her head repeatedly with the hoe.
Police said earlier the hoe had only Witheridge's DNA on it. So it was the L&M cigarette butt, casually tossed away, that became police's key piece of evidence tying the two men to the killings.
Wyn — previously identified as both "Soe" and "Cho" — was supposedly seen on security-camera video at a nearby convenience store buying the same brand of cigarettes just hours before the killings.
The DNA found on the butt matched the semen recovered from Witheridge, police said. Pol Gen Somyot later told the media Friday that police had gathered additional CCTV and eyewitness evidence to support the case.
Pol Gen Somyot said Friday that investigators Thursday night found Witheridge's mobile phone near Wyn's living quarters.
Having named — and cleared — a long succession of "suspects" and "persons of interest" including Myanmar nationals, Thai bar owners, relatives of local village chiefs and even Miller's own friends, police have drawn the scorn of families and media worldwide. With no solid leads, investigators resorted to mass DNA testing of Koh Tao's population, taking more than 200 samples.
They spent 6-10 hours reviewing footage from each of the island's 366 closed-circuit television cameras, twice pushing out to the media clips of "suspicious" Asian men seen running through the streets or walking toward the beach. Finally, it was CCTV footage from the convenience store that broke open the case.
A police source said investigators on Sept 30 began paying special attention to Wyn after claiming to have spotted him on video at the convenience store at 11.12pm Sept 14 and on other cameras acting "suspiciously".
They already knew that three migrants, believed to be close friends, liked to hang out on the beach playing guitar. They also knew Saw and Mau worked at a resort hotel owned by a village leader on Koh Tao while Wyn worked at a restaurant near the crime scene.
Yet despite the intense police heat on the island, none of the three supposed suspects left Koh Tao in the days after the killings, though one did reportedly dye his hair from fair to black. Then, finally, at 9pm Wednesday, Wyn decided to flee, police claimed. He was captured at the main wharf in Nakhon Surat Thani at 6am Thursday.
Wyn was taken to the Provincial Police Region 8 investigation centre where he was questioned for five hours.
Members of the press were barred from approaching the centre and prohibited from taking pictures. Saw and Mau then were picked up around 9pm on Koh Tao. By that time, news of Wyn's confession had been leaking out of police offices in Surat Thani and Bangkok for more than three hours.
Myanmar national Saw, one of two suspects in the murders of two British backpackers on Koh Tao, re-enacts his alleged attack on David Miller, as portrayed by a tourist on the island Friday. (Photo by Supapong Chaolan)
While Thai authorities frequently are accused of framing migrants from Myanmar and Cambodia for crimes in the kingdom, police insist they are not scapegoating anyone for the murders. Both public officials and Koh Tao residents seem anxious to put the sordid scenes of the past 19 days behind them.
Koh Tao mayor Chaiyant Thurasakul said locals were relieved that police made the arrests. He also wanted all foreign workers on the island be registered.
Wannee Thaipanit, president of the tourism association on neighbouring Koh Phangan, said she thinks the island will bounce back, but authorities must improve lighting, add more surveillance cameras and launch a promotion campaign to restore tourist confidence.
"I think the tourist confidence will improve," Tourism and Sports Minister Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul told AFP hours after the news of the confession broke on Thursday night. "The issue of tourist security is very important to us."
Ms Kobkarn made headlines of her own Tuesday when she suggested giving holidaymakers wristbands — which might eventually include GPS tracking — to keep them safe, setting off incredulous guffaws and ridicule worldwide.