Tragedy as Thailand’s infamous ‘Death Island’ claims yet another victim
This stunning island that Aussies flock to has a chilling reputation after a spate of tourist deaths – and now, it’s claimed yet another victim.
Thailand’s Koh Tao Island – which has earned the unfortunate moniker “Death Island” after a spate of deaths among holiday-makers in recent years – has claimed yet another victim.
The island was rocked by the sudden death of 21-year-old Irish tourist Robby Kinlan last month.
Mr Kinlan was tragically found dead on his bed on January 9 wearing a pair of earphones and holding his mobile phone, after apparently suffering from sudden cardiac failure following a diving trip.
While Thai police said they had ruled out foul play as Mr Kinlan’s door was locked from the inside and there were no signs of an intruder or struggle, the death of yet another young tourist on the island has done little to shake off its dangerous and shadowy reputation.
Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, some 800,000 Australians visited Thailand annually, and numbers are steadily returning to pre-pandemic levels, making it one of the most popular tourist destinations for Aussies after neighbouring Indonesia and New Zealand.
Yet questions remain whether Koh Tao is safe for tourists.
The island, which is part of a cluster in the Chumphon Archipelago, is known for its azure blue waters that offer unparalleled diving and snorkelling opportunities.
However, its reputation for limpid seas and sandy beaches has been marred in recent years due to the number of highly publicised deaths on the island, which some observers claim has occurred in disproportionate numbers considering the island’s size of just 21 kilometres squared and population of around 1000 residents.
The most high-profile deaths on the island occurred in 2014, when the bodies of British travellers Hannah Witheridge, 23, and David Miller, 24, were found on Sairee Beach in the early hours of September 15.
Ms Witheridge had reportedly been raped and beaten with a garden hoe while Mr Miller had been hit on the head and left to drown in the surf.
Two Burmese migrant workers, Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo, later admitted to raping and murdering the couple, although their lawyer maintained that they had been framed and forced to confess in prison.
The pair were handed the death penalty which was commuted to life in prison.
However, New Zealander Jim Donaldson, one of the owners of local diving school Big Blue Diving Koh Tao, told news.com.au the island was “very safe”.
“I’ve lived here 25 years and brought up my family here. I’ve never had any fear for me or my family or, as the owner of Big Blue, for any of my customers either,” he said.
“There were two brutal murders here in 2014, everything else is drunken mishaps, suicides or drownings. [There is a] massive bandwagon of conspiracy theorists.
“I know people here who’ve died from a heart attack or motorbike crash and still fall in the category of mysterious death. It’s all absolute BS.”
But others argue that, given the high number of deaths in recent years, something must be amiss on the island.
Two months after the deaths of Ms Witheridge and Mr Miller, Swiss national Hans Peter Suter, 44, was found dead on Talay Ngam Beach.
His death was ruled an accidental drowning by Thai authorities, although his friends and family said that he was an accomplished swimmer and regularly snorkelled.
In December 2014, the body of Nick Pearson from Derby in the UK was also found in the sea off Koh Tao, and his death was also ruled an accident after Thai police concluded that he fell 15 metres off a cliff and drowned.
However, the South Derbyshire Coroner’s Court found that Mr Pearson had injuries to his head, limbs and face, which could have meant that he was attacked before his death. The coroner was unable to establish how or where he died.
The next month, 23-year-old Christina Annesley, from Orpington in the UK, reportedly died of a drug overdose while taking medication for a lung infection mixed with alcohol.
Her family publicly criticised Thai authorities, saying that a formal toxicology report had not been ordered.
A UK coroner was also unable to establish an official cause of death.
Also in January 2015, a 29-year-old French tourist, Dmitri Povse, was found dead in his hotel room with his hands tied behind his back. Thai police ruled his death a suicide, although questions remained about how he would have been able to tie his hands before he died.
The 2017 death of 30-year-old Belgian backpacker Elise Dallemagne was also ruled a suicide by Thai authorities – although her body was found in an advanced state of decomposition after it had been eaten by jungle animals including lizards, and her family maintained that there had been foul play involved.
Other foreigners who have died on Koh Tao in recent years include Brit Luke Miller, who drowned in a swimming pool in 2016, and 47-year-old German Bernd Grotsch, who was found dead at his home on the island in 2018.
Also in 2018, Moldovan national Alexandr Bucspun, 33, drowned after going for a late night swim, while British diving instructor Neil Giblin was found dead at a bungalow in 2023.
However, Dr Oktavinda Safitry, a forensic doctor at Indonesia University Hospital (RSUI) in neighbouring Indonesia, told news.com.au that establishing cause of death was fraught with issues and that delays in finding remains or examining the bodies of foreigners once they were returned to their home countries meant that families may not be satisfied with the findings of the authorities.
“The way to determine cause of death is through an autopsy. An autopsy directly examines all the organs in the body, so that any abnormalities can be seen clearly,” she said.
“The decomposition process makes examination difficult, therefore, an autopsy should be carried out immediately.
“If there is already a process of decomposition, or if a body has been previously buried and exhumed, then the autopsy carried out may not be able to answer with certainty the cause of death.”
She added that there was often a misunderstanding around cause of death determined by the doctor and manner of death determined by the authorities responsible for investigating a case, which could also lead some people to regard deaths as suspicious without any supporting evidence.
“To determine manner of death, so whether it is a natural death or unnatural death or a murder, suicide or accident, requires an investigation process by the authorities by looking at the crime scene,” she said.
Dr Safitry gave the example of an autopsy by a doctor which found that someone died of blunt force trauma to the head, but said that this could mean that they died as a result of a number of different scenarios which needed supporting evidence, which only crime scene investigators could provide.
“They need to determine whether violence occurred due to the victim being hit by another person, hitting themselves, or falling. This additional data is needed and is usually obtained at the crime scene or from interviews or eyewitnesses,” she said.
“If the cause of death was blunt force trauma, as an example, the furthest thing forensic doctors can determine is whether the object approached the head, so the victim was hit on the head by someone, or if their head approached the object which would mean they fell onto it.
“Even then, an autopsy alone still can’t answer whether the victim fell by themselves and their death was an accident or were pushed to fall and were murdered.”
And despite the long list of young tourists who have died on Koh Tao over the years, Mr Donaldson maintained that the deaths were not disproportionate, given the fact that over 500,000 people visit Koh Tao annually and most visits are trouble-free.
“Koh Tao has become very hedonistic and young people throughout time have taken themselves to the limit and sadly some go too far,” he said.
“It’s not a disproportionate amount of incidents if you consider those suspicious deaths that are the result of drinks or drugs as a percentage of those that party here.
“When you get here, you will see this is a party island now sadly. But it’s still safe, just stay away from drunks and drugs, and you don’t need to come all the way to Koh Tao to preach that moral. I’m pretty sure that’s the world over.”
Aisyah Llewellyn is a freelance journalist based in Indonesia
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