News from U.K.-Drugged monk 'killed British tourist'
Ruttakarn Apiwatwaja
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Last night BBC and all U.K. TV channels have reported this news
And today this news appears on all U.K. newspapers.
Here is from THE TIMES,The Telegraph..
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The Times..
Drugged monk 'killed British tourist'
Monday 15 JAN 1996 Front Page ..
FROM ANDREW DRUMMOND IN KANCHANABURI, THAILAND AND RICHARD DUCE
A BUDDHIST monk murdered the missing British lawyer Johanne Masheder during a robbery close
to the site of the Bridge on the River Kwai, Thai police said yesterday.
The monk, a convicted rapist, is said to have confessed to killing Miss Masheder, 23, while high on
drugs. Her body was found in a ravine near a Buddhist temple in Kanchanburi, west of Bangkok.
Miss Masheder, of Wincle, Cheshire, who was on a three month round-the-world trip, was last seen
alive in early December. Her parents went to Thailand ten days after her last telephone call to them
on December 7 and yesterday Mr Masheder identified his daughter's body.
Police named the monk as Phra Yodchart Suaphoo, 21, who admitted pushing Miss Masheder down a
ravine. The monk, an amphetamine addict, had previously spent two years in jail for rape.
Tests showed that Miss Masheder, a law graduate from York University who was about to start work
as a trainee solicitor, had been raped but Suaphoo denied this. Three other monks were questioned but
later released.
The breakthrough in the search for Miss Masheder came when a local teacher recalled meeting her on
December 9 and introducing her to a 5pounds-a-night guest-house overlooking the River Kwai.
Next day Miss Masheder cycled three miles to the Allied War Cemetery at Chongkai and then to the
Buddhist Temple of Tham Kaopoon to see its famous caves.
At the entrance she met Suaphoo who told police: "I got up and offered to show her around. She was
alone. A very beautiful girl. I took her round the first cave and then offered to show her the other.
We were above a cave looking down and I suddenly said 'Look there'. She looked down and I pushed
her grabbing her bag and camera. She fell 30 feet. The cave was just full of rubbish. I pushed her to
the side so she could not be seen from above and then climbed out. She had very little, just 500 baht
(12 pounds) and a camera."
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Bitter end to couple's search for backpacking daughter
Monday 15 JAN 1996 Page
BY RICHARD DUCE
AN AGONISING two-week search by the parents of Johanne Masheder for their lost daughter ended
yesterday with the discovery of her body near a Buddhist temple in Thailand. Stuart and Jackie
Masheder had kept up their hopes that Johanne had simply decided to extend her three-month
round-the-world travel plans that had already taken her to Fiji, New Zealand and Canada.
Realistically, they knew that something untoward must have happened to a devoted daughter who
was looking forward to a legal career and would not intentionally miss the chance to spend
Christmas at home with her family in Cheshire. Mr Masheder, the business manager of a chemical
company, and his wife became alarmed after last hearing from their daughter on December 7 in a
call from Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, where she was elephant trekking. Rather than wait for
news, they flew to Thailand to help the search.
Mrs Masheder said soon after arriving: "I'm happier here. At least I feel I can do something." The
couple believed their daughter to be heading for the island of Ko Samui, a known haunt of
backpackers.
Mr Masheder, 49, was an incongruous figure on the island beaches, where, armed with a photograph
of his eldest daughter, he tackled people for information. He hired private investigators and placed
adverts in newspapers. However Miss Masheder at first appeared to have changed her plans by
buying a ticket to travel to the island of Ko Samet, much closer to Bangkok. A sighting of her on the
island on December 17 now seems to be mistaken. It now appears that she made straight for
Kanchanaburi from Bangkok, where she was seen on December 9.
She had left her rucksack in the storage room of a travel agency in Bangkok, planning to collect it for
her scheduled flight home on December 21. Photographs of Miss Masheder's trip to northern
Thailand have been developed from two rolls of film in the bag. There were fleeting hopes they
could help police trace her whereabouts but they have now become Mr and Mrs Masheder's final
pictures of their daughter.
Miss Masheder, a law graduate from York university, had planned to spend Christmas with her
family before starting work with the London firm of Cameron Markby Hewitt on December 28. The
likelihood is that, some two weeks before then, the independent young woman was killed by the
monk who has confessed to her murder.
Miss Masheder was one of hundreds of thousands of young Britons who seek adventure in exotic
corners of the globe. One in seven students takes time off, or a "gap year", to travel to exotic places
either before or after their university course and Thailand is generally considered to be one of the
safer destinations for backpackers. David Creffield, edi tor of Overseas Jobs Express,said yesterday:
"I don't believe that it is more dangerous to go abroad nowadays, but there are more young people
travelling every year, and they are searching out more remote destinations. These youngsters want to
go somewhere where no-one else goes, so they are among the first Westerners into former war zones
or newly opened tribal areas. They are idealistic and full of good feelings towards their fellow man.
They don't invest enough thought and preparation in their own safety."
It is not uncommon in Thailand for convicted criminals to become monks because it is often the only
way they can stay alive. In a land where Buddhist monks are revered, they live off the charity of
others. Many monks can be seen with full body tattoos - a sign of their previous lives in Thai Mafia
gangs. Drug addicts also join the monkhood in an effort to "dry out". One temple in the north of
Thailand specialises in treating heroin addicts.
Police Colonel Vorathep Mathwaj, head of the Investigation Division of the Thai Immigration Police
said: "We are pleased to have caught Jo's killer so quickly, but I cannot say I am happy with the
result. We had hoped to find the girl alive. This does not look good for Thailand and our monkhood."
Stephen Geers of Trailfinders, the London-based travel agency, said: "We will still recommend
Thailand to people. After all, will the French be telling people not to come to Britain because of
what happened to Celine Figard?"
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The Telegraph
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Missing girl 'killed by monk'
Monday 15 JAN 1996 Front Page
By Simon Midgley and Philip Sherwell, South East Asia Correspondent
A THAI monk addicted to amphetamines was charged last night with murdering and robbing a
23-year-old English woman solicitor missing for more than a month on a backpacking holiday.
The badly decomposed body of Johanne Masheder, from Wincle, near Macclesfield, Cheshire, was
found yesterday at the bottom of a ravine used by monks to dispose of rubbish a few miles from the
town of Kanchanaburi, 80 miles south-west of Bangkok.
Police believe that she had been raped.
The monk, Yodchart Suephoo, 25, who joined the Khao Poon temple eight months ago after serving
two years in jail for rape, admitted pushing Miss Masheder into the ravine when she tried to stop him
stealing her camera.
Miss Masheder's charred passport, credit card and an airline ticket were found in the temple grounds.
The monk denied raping her, but admitted raping another Western tourist last year. Police found
amphetamines in his room.
In Thailand it is not unusual for newly released prisoners to become monks to obtain free lodgings
and food, or for criminals to become monks to elude the police.
Miss Masheder's parents, Stuart and Jackie Masheder, both 49, who have been searching for her in
Thailand since Jan 5, were said to be "extremely distressed". Mr Masheder identified the body.
Miss Masheder, a Durham University graduate who studied law in York, had been due to start as a
trainee solicitor with Cameron Markby Hewitt in London on Jan 8.
She arrived in Thailand on Nov 28. On Dec 7 she telephoned home from the northern city of Chiang
Mai, chatting enthusiastically to her mother about her holiday and saying that she was planning to
head south to the island of Ko Samet in the Gulf of Thailand.
The last that was heard of her was when she sent a postcard to a friend next day. Her parents became
alarmed when she failed to return home for Christmas.
Miss Masheder's backpack was found at a Bangkok travel agency on Jan 12. She had been due to
collect it on Dec 17.
Inquiries showed that she left Ko Samet on Dec 17. Although she would probably have travelled
through Bangkok, she did not collect her pack on the way to Kanchanaburi. On Dec 13 an Austrian
woman tourist, Inge Holecek, wrote to the Bangkok Post, an English language newspaper, saying that
she had been raped in the temple grounds by a monk on Dec 7 When she reached the town she hired a
bicycle and apparently asked the monk directions to some caves and he offered to take her there.
When a nationwide search began for Miss Masheder, a villager reported that he had seen her talking
to a monk.
On Dec 13 an Austrian woman tourist, Inge Holecek, wrote to the Bangkok Post, an English language
newspaper, saying that she had been raped in the temple grounds by a monk on Dec 7. She said:
"Please take this seriously. Violence was involved and I am sure my life was endangered.
"I would not like anything like this to happen to anybody else." Lt Col Apichit Thianpermpool, of
the Thai tourist police, said in Kanchanaburi that Yodchart said he spent $25 he stole from Miss
Masheder on drugs.
The officer said that Miss Masheder, who was wearing a T-shirt and trousers appeared to have been
dead for about a month. He said she had been hidden under a pile of rubbish.
Kanchanaburi, set in some of Thailand's most beautiful countryside, is the home of the bridge over
the River Kwai.
It contains the graves of thousands of Commonwealth servicemen who died building the Death
Railway from Bangkok to Rangoon during the Second World War.
Buddhism in Thailand has been rocked by a series of scandals in recent months. A revered abbot was
charged with raping hill tribe girls in his care, a charismatic preacher was defrocked amid allegations
of sexual impropriety, a novice was arrested for roasting a still-born baby on a spit in a black magic
ritual and six monks were charged with the gruesome murder of a fellow monk. Ninety-five per cent
of the Thai population is Buddhist. Monks are supposed to live in austere, celibate and often silent
communities, relying solely on gifts of money and food collected on early morning begging,
sessions. They are allowed only nine possessions, including a water strainer to prevent them from
accidentally killing the tiniest of insects as they take a drink and a fan to guard their eyes from
"worldly sights". Last night David Creffield, editor of Overseas Jobs Express, said that one of the
golden rules of travelling in remote and exotic parts of the globe was: Don't go alone.
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http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/R.Apiwatwaja/News/times.html
Piyapong Vongkovit
>The Telegraph
>----------
>Missing girl 'killed by monk'
>Monday 15 JAN 1996 Front Page
>By Simon Midgley and Philip Sherwell, South East Asia Correspondent
>...In Thailand it is not unusual for newly released prisoners to become monks to obtain free lodgings
>and food, or for criminals to become monks to elude the police....
>...Buddhism in Thailand has been rocked by a series of scandals in recent months. A revered abbot was
>charged with raping hill tribe girls in his care, a charismatic preacher was defrocked amid allegations
>of sexual impropriety, a novice was arrested for roasting a still-born baby on a spit in a black magic
>ritual and six monks were charged with the gruesome murder of a fellow monk. Ninety-five per cent
>of the Thai population is Buddhist. Monks are supposed to live in austere, celibate and often silent
>communities, relying solely on gifts of money and food collected on early morning begging,
>sessions. They are allowed only nine possessions, including a water strainer to prevent them from
>accidentally killing the tiniest of insects as they take a drink and a fan to guard their eyes from
>"worldly sights". ...
My deepest sympathy to the family of the victim. The lost of their
loved one is tremendous and irreplaceable. Never theless, IMHO, the
lost of us Thai people is also enormous. We've lost Buddhism into the
dirty hands of crooks.
This is not the first time crooks use yellow robes as one of their
criminal tools. Monkhood has historically become widely used as
shelters and shields for criminals of all kinds and levels ranging
from student killers to rapists and womanizers.:( The major revamp
of our so called Buddhism has long been overdued. Is there any
better way to deal with this issue than to stop supporting the monks
until they get their acts together and clean their Wats up? We have
more people in yellow robe than we do monks anyway. Isn't it one the
most important duties of the monks to maintain good Buddhism? They
are not doing their job that they've pledged to by maintain the status
quo!
Depressed Buddhist.:(
Piyapong "Tui" Vongkovit
Email pvon...@uic.edu