Rachelle Childs’ suspected killer swept up with Thai girls in club district before shock death
The alleged killer jumped off a plane in Phuket and headed straight to the notorious club district with local girls – before he wound up dead in a hotel room.
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An alleged mass rapist accused of killing Rachelle Childs jumped off a plane in Phuket and headed straight to the notorious club district with local girls – before he wound up dead on a bathroom floor, draped in wet towels.
Kevin Steven Correll, 69, arrived at The Expat Hotel in Patong on July 15 and swiftly asked to change rooms because he wanted a balcony where he could sit and smoke all day with a view of the pool, before heading out for a night out with Thai women on sleazy Bangla Road.
Hotel staff told this masthead Mr Correll wasn’t interested in drinking at the sports bar attached to the hotel, which was open until 2am every night – he preferred to go out to local pubs and clubs on the infamous red-light strip.
He met up with at least two of the women again the following night, on July 16, and they partied until about 2am before he vanished into the bar’s bathroom and emerged complaining about chest pain.
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They asked if he wanted to see a doctor, but he declined, so they took him back to his hotel. They were the last people to see Mr Correll alive.
One of the women tried repeatedly to get in touch with him the next day, and eventually grew so worried that she arrived in the lobby of The Expat Hotel just before 10am on Friday, July 18, and asked staff to check on him.
Three staffers used a spare key to open his door and found him facedown on the bathroom floor with no pulse and floppy limbs.
Another Australian guest was at the hotel when police arrived to investigate and they told this masthead that he saw Mr Correll’s body on the bathroom floor, draped in wet towels with bruises on his back.
A towel soaked in warm water can help alleviate chest tightness and pain. The bruising was likely skin discolouration due to pooling blood.
Once police conclude their investigation, Thai monks will be asked to perform a short ceremony at the hotel.
An autopsy was performed on Monday but his official cause of death is yet to be released.
It’s unclear if Mr Correll had travel insurance. If he didn’t, his family will have to fork out tens of thousands of dollars to repatriate his body to Australia.
Mr Correll was the prime suspect in the murder of Rachelle, a 23-year-old woman from Bargo who was killed, set alight, and dumped by the side of a road in June 2001.
He was her boss at a used car yard in Camden, south-west Sydney, and his alibi couldn’t be corroborated.
He featured in News Corp’s multimedia podcast Dear Rachelle, which aimed to reinvestigate the cold case and help bring her killer to justice.
Throughout the course of the podcast, a number of women came forward and accused Mr Correll of domestic violence, rape, stalking, and assault.
He consistently denied the claims, and insisted he had nothing to do with Rachelle’s death.
Final hours of Rachelle Childs’ suspect before hotel death
The prime suspect in the cold case murder of Rachelle Childs went to a bar with an unidentified woman, before he was found dead in his Thailand hotel. See hotel photos.
Shock way Rachelle Childs’ family found out prime suspect was dead
Despite the decades-long investigation to find Rachelle Childs’ killer, her family was not contacted by the police to say the chief suspect in her murder had died in a hotel room in Thailand.