A Japanese man returned to Thailand to continue a 17-year quest to find the murderer of his daughter, killed in Sukhothai in the north of the country.
Yasuaki Kawashita, a Japanese from Osaka, returned to Thailand on Sunday, February 11, to demand answers from the Thai police regarding the unsolved murder of his daughter.
Tomoko, then 27 years old, was killed during the Loy Krathong festival, the festival of lights, at the historic site of Sukhothai, 17 years ago.
It is planned that he will return to the site of the Sukhothai Historical Park where his daughter was killed, which he did almost every time he returned to Thailand.
Thai police said Tomoko had been slit her throat and her body showed signs of stab wounds.
Her body was found near the Saphan Hin temple, next to the bicycle she had rented for sightseeing.
Some of her personal belongings were missing, leading the police to believe it was a robbery that had gone wrong.
“She was stabbed when the attacker tried to rob her.”
She resisted and ran away, but he caught up with her and slit her throat with a knife », a police officer said at the time.
Tomoko had arrived in Thailand as a solo tourist.
She had saved money for her trip to Thailand by taking on extra jobs and was particularly drawn to the Loy Krathong festival, her parents said.
Sukhothai authorities had reported a decline in the number of Japanese tourists after the murder.
Tomoko's murder had made headlines in the Japanese media at the time.
Similarly, many Chinese have canceled their trips to Thailand after a Chinese tourist was murdered and another injured in a shooting at a Bangkok shopping center on October 3, 2023.
See: 60,000 Chinese canceled their trip to Thailand after the shooting
Over the years following his daughter's death, her father, now 75, returned to Thailand almost every year to demand justice.
He suspended these trips a few years ago due to COVID-19 and this visit is the first he has made since the pandemic.
During his previous visits, he met with Justice Ministers and senior officials of the Ministry of Justice, demanding progress in the investigation.
This time, Yasuaki plans to return to the crime scene and meet with the current Justice Minister, Tawee Sodsong, on February 15, to learn about the latest developments in the investigation.
He will also request an extension of the 20-year statute of limitations for his daughter's case, which will be reached in 2027.
A Japanese tourist as the main suspect
In 2013, as the Sukhothai police had not made any progress in their investigation, the Special Investigation Department reopened the case.
He expanded the investigation, questioned more people, and conducted new DNA analyses to compare them to the DNA found on the victim's clothing.
379 Thai men were subjected to a massive DNA collection, but no match was found.
A Japanese tourist, who had been seen with Tomoko at the time, refused to provide a DNA sample and left the country.
In 2020, Thai authorities announced a breakthrough in the case, after applying more advanced DNA analysis methods to the sample found on Tomoko.
Wannapong Kotcharak, then director of the Central Institute of Forensic Sciences, stated that with the new method, they were able to conclude that the DNA found on the victim's clothing did not match that of Thai men.
He matched East Asian men on the global genetic database, accessible to Thai geneticists », he said.
The Minister of Justice, Somsak Thepsuthin, then stated his intention to ask the Japanese authorities to take the DNA of the Japanese man seen with Tomoko.
At the time, he had refused to cooperate by providing tissue samples for laboratory analysis and had left Thailand the day after the woman's body was discovered.
We will be able to start verifying his DNA during the next phase of the investigation, which will involve collaboration between the two countries, said Mr. Somsak.
The discovery, four years ago, is the latest information provided by Thai authorities.
Yasuaki will seek to know more during his visit this week.
See also:
A Swiss man confesses to murdering his wife in Thailand
Investigation into a strange murder case involving the son of a police officer in Thailand
Two foreigners arrested after murdering a tourist in Thailand
A mother confesses to having ordered the murder of her drug-addicted son in Thailand
Source: Thai PBS World
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2 comments
There must be justice worthy of the name so that the family can finally mourn their beloved daughter and have peace in their soul…
OM Mani Padmé Hum.????????
Interesting to follow the progress (very slow, I would even say abnormally slow) of this investigation…
Indeed, why did the Thai investigators wait so many years to request a DNA sample from the Japanese police for the person of this Japanese person close to the victim at the time of the events and who refused at the time to provide a DNA sample to the Thai authorities and who, moreover, seemed very eager to leave Thailand…
There is clearly an attitude that makes him the prime suspect in this case, all the more so as several hundred Thais who may have had physical contact with the victim have been checked and none of the DNA matches the one found on the victim.
One cannot say in this specific case that the police did not do their job of authenticating biological evidence to find the perpetrator of this murder…
Let's hope that the father of this young woman, murdered again in Thailand under unexplained circumstances so far, will be able to get explanations on the progress of the investigation, which could be closed in 2027 without having a culprit behind bars!!!