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And with all that said let's begin.
Thailand is a country famed for its beauty.
Its white beaches, crystal clear waters, and lush jungles
make it look many of us would consider a paradise.
As such, the Thai mainland and neighboring islands
are a hotbed for tourists,
whether as a stop for backpackers exploring Asia,
a place for holiday makers to relax in the sun,
or as a spot for spring breakers to enjoy the nightlife.
At times however fantasy can be at odds with reality
and such was the case for the Island of Koh Tao in 2014,
which gained sudden international infamy
following a gruesome double murder.
On September 12th, 2014, 23 year old Hannah Witheridge
arrived at Koh Tao with three female friends.
The UK native was on break from her postgraduate degree.
And while her parents were resistant to the idea
of their daughter going to Thailand,
Hannah chose to book her ticket anyway.
Not long into her stay at Koh Tao,
Hannah met a fellow Brit, 24 year old David Miller.
Now David and his friends had come to the island
as part of a journey across Thailand
and happened to cross paths with Hannah
because the pair were staying at the same hotel.
Though they were strangers, the two of them
and their companions decided to spend time together.
But unfortunately it wasn't long
before events took a tragic turn.
September 14th, 2014, at around 7:00 PM Hannah, David,
and a few others all had drinks at a bar
on nearby Sairee Beach.
CCTV footage from that evening indicates
that the group stayed together until shortly
after midnight on September 15th,
at which point Hannah and three friends
split off from the pack.
At 2:00 AM, David met back up with Hannah,
and sometime after 2:15 AM,
they left the bar together to walk back to their hotel.
Unbeknownst to anyone then, this would be the last time
anyone would see these two alive.
Later that same morning,
David and Hannah's semi-naked bodies were found
on the beach by horrified hotel staff who quickly
informed their boss of the gruesome discovery.
David was found floating in the shallows,
his head bludgeoned.
Hannah too had been bludgeoned
and was found laying on the sand.
It was quickly confirmed that she'd been sexually assaulted
during the attack.
Though Thai police arrived quickly,
it was immediately obvious that they were ill-equipped
to deal with the situation.
At the time of the incident,
there were only six officers total on the Island
and these officers struggled to control the crime scene
in any meaningful way.
As a result, unauthorized individuals were able to walk
freely throughout the area and spectators
even managed to take pictures of the victims
which circulated widely on social media.
This would have been bad enough had the victims been local,
but because these were tourists from the UK,
news outlets from around the world
picked up on the story and ran with it.
This of course led to far greater scrutiny
of the Thai police.
And due to this pressure, authority seemed to be in a hurry
to close the case rather than to actually solve it.
As such, the truth of the story is very hard to separate
from the deliberately misleading, the accidentally inept
and outright guesswork.
Based on the evidence on the beach,
investigators quickly came to a few conclusions.
They discovered a bloody garden hoe believed to come
from a nearby vegetable garden and suspected
that this was the murder weapon, but went on to say
that the blood on it only belong to Hannah Witheridge,
which suggested the use of a second blunt metal object
against David Miller.
Also found was a cigarette butt 30 to 50 meters
from the crime scene which held the DNA of quote,
"Two Asian men".
They claimed to have recovered more DNA
from the body of Hannah Witheridge,
which matched the DNA on said cigarette.
This suggested that the offenders had shared it
before the assault.
In a place known for nightlife and tons of people
coming and going on a whim, pinning down these two suspects
was not going to be easy.
But Thai police felt by pure intuition
that they could be certain about one thing,
the people who did this could not have been Thai.
This of course was completely unfounded
and entirely premature, but nonetheless
it set the course for this case going forward.
Police presence on Koh Tao was increased tenfold
and they immediately began targeting the Island's main
immigrant population, as potential suspects.
Before we dig any deeper, it's important to understand
a few things about the islands populace.
On Koh Tao, migrants from Burma now known as Myanmar,
make up a greater percentage of the population
than Thai natives do.
However, they're majority affords them neither opportunity
nor safety.
In a documentary called "Murder In Paradise,"
migrant rights campaigner, Andy hall States, quote,
"They're very much unrespected, unwelcome and unwanted.
"So people take from them what they need
"in terms of their physical labor, their manual labor
"but they don't give them the rights.
"And they're at a very high risk
"of exploitation and abuse, whether by brokers,
"by their employers or by corrupt officials."
So it should be noted that tourists
were not left out of this investigation,
but it was so heavily one-sided that around 200 people,
all Burmese workers were swab for DNA
in an attempt to find the culprit.
And sure enough, all of this led to the conclusion
that you might expect.
In late September of 2014,
around two weeks after the bodies were found,
three Burmese immigrants who've been spotted on CCTV
in the Sairee beach area were questioned by police.
At the stage, they were apparently considered
potential witnesses rather than suspects.
And all three admitted to being on Sairee beach
on the night the crimes took place.
While one was released, the other two,
Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo were arrested on immigration offenses
and confessed to the murders while in custody.
But just a couple of weeks after their arrest,
both of the accused would retract their confessions,
and later go on to explain
a very different version of events.
Their trial began on October 14th of 2014
and almost immediately migrant rights activist Andy hall,
found himself having to fight on behalf of the defendants.
"This case is really being hurried.
"It's hurting the rights of the accused,"
Hall set at the time explaining that to defense's request
to postpone pretrial witness testimony was declined.
And that prior to this testimony,
the defense were only allowed to meet with their lawyers
for around half an hour,
which wasn't nearly enough time to prepare.
The prosecution's case relied heavily
on several pieces of evidence.
One was a DNA police allegedly recovered
from the body of Hannah Witheridge
and from the cigarette with matching DNA.
They use this to paint Lin and Phyo as sex crazed,
suggesting that the pair had seen Hannah and David
having sex on the beach, and simply witnessing this,
was enough to make them resort to rape and murder.
They said this in spite of the fact that David Miller's DNA
was not recovered from Hannah's body,
which they explained away by mentioning a used condom
at the scene, which was a match for Hannah
but was quote "too contaminated to recover male DNA."
When the defense asked to retest the incriminating DNA
due to doubts about the results,
the opposition told them that that wouldn't be possible,
either because of the samples being quote "used up,"
or because they were no longer viable for testing,
depending on who's recording read.
The Thai authorities were also claiming
to have recovered David Miller's phone,
at an address linked to the Burmese men.
When questioned, Wai Phyo allegedly told the police
that he'd found the phone on the beach,
though this claim may not be particularly relevant
for reasons we'll get into shortly.
Probably the strongest part of the prosecution's case,
were the confessions obtained from the accused
while in custody.
The police went so far as to film Wai Phyo,
reenacting the killings.
The video only viewable to the public several years
after the trial seemed to have no mention of the second
murder weapon law enforcement expected was used early on
and includes a bizarre moment in which an officer asks Phyo
how many times he struck a victim then strokes Phyo's head
in a way that some observers believed to be leading.
So this video and the accused confession in general,
really take on a new light if we're to believe
their versions of events.
As Wai Phyo claims that he was tortured
prior to police filming this.
According to Phyo, in the hours before his confession,
he was abused, beaten, strip, naked, photographed
and sexually assaulted.
To make things worse, he also claims police had threatened
to torture and murder him,
if he did not give them a confession.
Zaw Lin even relayed a similar experience
saying that he was physically assaulted
and that threats on his life were also made.
The two also stated that they were coerced by promises
of light sentences of one to two years,
if they admitted to the crimes.
In 2015, as a trial rolled on,
the court called the accusations of torture crown lists
and said the defendant showed no evidence,
but this was far from the only time the Thai police
were accused of such behavior.
According to hall, as soon as 13 days after the murder
of Hannah and David, quote,
"We started getting calls from workers
"who said they were being tortured and abused
"as part of the investigation into the case."
His organization set out to investigate and photograph
several injuries reportedly inflicted by the Thai police.
Now, given all of this, it's safe to say that David's phone
was most likely planted by the cops
to help pin down to two men.
And in case that somehow still seems like a stretch,
consider this police also tried to claim
they found Hannah's phone in an incriminating location
but that statement was later retracted,
when the public notice that said phone was actually present
at the crime scene based on available photos.
The prosecution's case only seemed to further deteriorate
at this point and especially so on September 11th of 2015,
when Dr. Ponthip Rojanasunand, the head
of the Thai forensics Institute, gave her testimony.
She stated that having retested the alleged murder weapon,
she found no DNA that was a match for Lin or Phyo.
She did however, find DNA of David Miller
and one other unknown male on the handle of the weapon.
Dr. Ponthip also poked holes in the methodology used
at the crime scene, telling the judges
that there was no forensics expert on the scene
and that the person who did fulfill the role,
had no formal forensics training.
The defense also accused investigators of failing to test
some of the evidence such as Hannah's own clothing
and blood on the rocks and sand.
All of this is of course infinitely frustrating.
And in spite of the mess of investigation,
Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo, were convicted of murder,
rape and unlawful entry into Thailand, in December of 2015.
Their sentence was death.
Well, David Miller's family praised the Thai authorities
and were pleased with the outcome,
the public response was less favorable.
Many felt that Lin and Phyo were simply scapegoats,
including Anonymous who targeted the Thai police website
in response and Hannah Witheridge sister,
who endorsed the actions of Anonymous in a Facebook post
about the verdict.
It should be noted that if you choose to look upset posts,
she made sweeping generalizations about the Thai people,
as if the actions of a single police department
justify painting an entire group with one brush.
In the end, it seems like everyone is aware that this case
is most likely nowhere close to solved.
And while the King of Thailand commuted the Phyo sentence
to life imprisonment in 2020, that's still far from ideal
considering the complete lack of evidence against them.
Zao Lin and Wai Phyo were almost executed for a crime
they most likely did not to commit.
And now there'll be spending the rest of their lives
behind bars instead.
This was obviously not about doing the right thing.
To many, this was much more about keeping up appearances
rather than actually serving justice.
If the efforts seem desperate,
that might be because they were.
The tourism industry is important to the country's income.
The death of foreigners would only make things worse
if left unsolved.
This is of course the simplest explanation for all this
but others believe the coverup is more sinister than that,
with connections to powerful families and organized crime.
One thing is for sure though, David and Hannah
weren't the first to die mysteriously in Koh Tao,
and they were far from the last.
In fact, Koh Tao international reputation is so dubious,
that it earned itself the moniker, Death Island.
But that might be a story suited for another time.
This video was edited by Dark Fire Productions,
research and written by Luxnoctis
with additional writing by yours truly.
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