American Arrested For Murder Of Phuket Bargirl

[PigDogg]

PHUKET: -- Phuket Police last night arrested an American man for last month€™s brutal stabbing murder of bar hostess Wanphen Pienjai.

Phuket City Police Superintendent Wanchai Ekpornpit this afternoon confirmed the identity of the suspect as 36-year-old Donald Fanelli, a US citizen.

Mr Fanelli was arrested at his home in the Thanthong Village housing estate in Chalong at about 6pm last night.

Col Wanchai said police would hold a press conference at Phuket City Police Station tomorrow morning to announce the arrest and provide more details.

The arrest followed a lengthy and painstaking investigation that involved many hours of tracking the suspect€™s movements.

Col Wanchai declined to go into detail about the motive, but said it appeared to have been related to the fact that Mr Fanelli's sexual preference was for ladyboys and that Ms Wanphen may have been €˜tracking€™ his efforts to find partners.

Mr Fanelli, described as a long-term tourist, had lived at a home in Chalong with a Thai woman until the woman and her son returned to her home in the northeastern province of Mahasarakham, Col Wanchai said.

The victim€™s mother, 59-year-old Sa-ard Maliwan, told the Gazette from her home in Petchaboon province that she was informed of the arrest at about 9am today.

Ms Maliwan said she was overcome with rage when informed of the arrest and said she hoped the American gets capital punishment for his crime, if found guilty.

She said she was not requested by Phuket Police to come to the island and has no plans to do so.

[deepthroat]

Interesting. Why would she be "tracking" his efforts to find partners? Is this supposed to hint that she was going to blackmail him in some fashion? What else could it mean?

TIT. This guy is fucked, whether he deserved it or not.

[Jake_Sully]

Hopefully its not one of our BM's.

DT I agree, sounds like a blackmail plot by a jilted ex lover maybe.

[PigDogg]

PHUKET: -- Retired US Navy serviceman Ronald Fanelli, who confessed to stabbing to death bar hostess Wanphen Pienjai last month, described the killing as a €œterrible accident€, saying he never intended to harm her.

Clean-shaven and appearing somewhat disoriented, Ronald Fanelli, 37, was presented in handcuffs to the media at a press conference chaired by Phuket Provincial Police Commander Pekad Tantipong at 9am today.

On the table in front of him were a pair of camouflage shorts he was wearing at the time of the murder, the switchblade used to kill Wanphen and a small bag belonging her, as well as a mobile phone and SIM card.

Other evidence seized by police, but not presented today, included a foam mattress and the motorbike used to dispose of Wanphen€™s body, which was stuffed into a large suitcase and dumped in a remote part of Wichit, several kilometers from Mr Fanelli€™s rented home, also in Wichit.

After a brief statement outlining the details of the case, Mr Fanelli told the press flatly, €œI killed her.€

He had been treated fairly by police, he added.

The atmosphere at the press conference was somber, with many officers showing sympathy to Mr Fanelli, who now faces the rest of his life behind bars in a Thai prison.

Phuket City Police Superintendent Wanchai Ekpornpit told the Gazette that Mr Fanelli initially denied the charges, but changed his mind when confronted with evidence including CCTV images and recorded telephone conversations.

Police also explained to him that pleading guilty to a murder charge customarily leads Thai judges to commute a death sentence to life imprisonment.

Mr Fanelli, originally from New York and a former US Navy lieutenant who served aboard the USS Nevada, said he came to Thailand about three years ago and has lived here since.

Asked if he were the same Ronald Fanelli who was a former professional poker player who gambled in tournaments under the name €œMadYank€, he laughed briefly with a tone of bitter irony before replying, €œYes, but that was a long time ago.€

Mr Fanelli declined to comment on the motive for the murder, asking reporters to read his statement to police.

Phuket City Police Superintendent Wanchai Ekpornpit told reporters after the press conference that several factors appeared to have contributed to Mr Fanelli€™s mental state at the time of the stabbing: he was drunk; his Thai wife had left him and taken their young child back to her native Maha Sarakham province in Isarn. He had also recently lost his Internet connection, he noted.

Altogether, this caused the former sailor to €œsnap€ when Ms Wanphen approached him playfully in his bedroom asking for sex, Col Wanchai said.

Mr Fanelli stabbed Ms Wanphen once in the back then again in the chest, Col Wanchai added.

Mr Fanelli was drunk at the time of his arrest and the exact timing of events remains unclear, Col Wanchai said, but added that it appeared Wanphen had stayed with him for about one day before she was murdered.

In a re-enactment of the murder carried out earlier, Mr Fanelli told officers that he carried the suitcase in front of him while he rode his motorbike to where he dumped Wanphen€™s body off Chao Fa Thani Rd in Wichit.

Ms Wanphen€™s wrists and ankles were found broken, apparently so her body could be stuffed into the suitcase.

The re-enactment also revealed that Mr Fanelli returned home and hid the switchblade above the gypsum tile roof, then rented a house in Kata to avoid detection by police.

Maj Gen Pekad said the arrest followed several days of surveillance following a tip-off by a person whose identity will remain anonymous.

Phuket Police were under intense pressure to bring Ms Wanphen€™s killer to justice.

High-ranking officers at the Royal Thai Police Headquarters in Bangkok as well as Region 8 commanders in Surat Thani had taken a strong interest in the investigation and were sent frequent updates, Maj Gen Pekad said.

Police Region 8 Commissioner Pol Maj Gen Pitak Jarusombat came to Phuket to personally oversee the arrest, he added.

The murder sent shock waves throughout the bar industry across Phuket, with €œmamasans€ taking extra precautions to screen potential customers.

Prostitution is illegal in Thailand, but enforcement of anti-prostitution laws are rare in cases involving consenting adults.

[f0xxee]

So:
The guy is an ex-Lieutenant. They didn't teach him much did they?
He hid the knife in his loom?
And it was a mistake?
Fry the prick for no other reason than he deserves it for being stupid.

[Road Runner]

The following part of the article intrigues me;-

Phuket Police were under intense pressure to bring Ms Wanphen€™s killer to justice.

High-ranking officers at the Royal Thai Police Headquarters in Bangkok as well as Region 8 commanders in Surat Thani had taken a strong interest in the investigation and were sent frequent updates, Maj Gen Pekad said.

Somebody knows somebody who knows someone else. TIT


Sounds like he was drunk when he did it and then panicked when he sobered up.


RR.

[Jake_Sully]

(f0xxee @ Jul. 19 2010,11:04) So:
The guy is an ex-Lieutenant. They didn't teach him much did they?
He hid the knife in his loom?
And it was a mistake?
Fry the prick for no other reason than he deserves it for being stupid.

Total fucking scum of the earth.

I was going to make a joke about 2nd lieutenant being the most dangerous rank in the US armed forces but after I read that article, I lost my enthusiasm and want to shoot him myself.

[batman4ever]

the former chief of homocide-investigation in Denmark wrote his memories lately, he wrote something i believe is quite true...

you hunt a beast,but ends up catching a poor bastard....

i believe this is the case as well here....

[Rocket J. Squirrel]

(batman4ever @ Jul. 20 2010,06:15) you hunt a beast,but ends up catching a poor bastard....

i believe this is the case as well here....

I disagree.  This guy's a beast.

Ms Wanphen€™s wrists and ankles were found broken, apparently so her body could be stuffed into the suitcase.

[PigDogg]

I am sure the beast regrets what he has done, not that he gives a rat's ass about the dead girl or her family.

But rather he realizes how one episode of stupidity has changed HIS life forever. In that sense a poor bastard I suppose as well as a beast.

Surprises me that he was a professional poker player. You would think that sort of guy would get out of the country.

To me, things like breaking bones so the corpse fits in a suitcase doesn't make things worse simply cause once she is dead it can't get any worse.

Never understood how most cultures value the physical remains of the dead.

[Chinaman]

(PigDogg @ Jul. 19 2010,16:45) He had also recently lost his Internet connection[/b], he noted.

Well, this could push me over the edge too ...

[Jake_Sully]

(PigDogg @ Jul. 20 2010,02:15) To me, things like breaking bones so the corpse fits in a suitcase doesn't make things worse simply cause once she is dead it can't get any worse.

Never understood how most cultures value the physical remains of the dead.

That little bit of difference is enough difference between involuntary manslaughter and second degree murder.

If it happened by accident, a responsible person would atleast try and call help for the victim and not care about himself. If he attempts to get away by means of disposing of the body in that fashion, then that is a cold, calculated execution of a crime.

[Chinaman]

On a more serious note again, did he really think that he would not get caught?
There must have been reasons for him why he stayed in Thailand.

I know that this is no excuse for murder but I would be curious what the victim really did to provoke this. I mean he did not just go out an stabbed someone. Something must have snapped and we might never know what it was.

If he had made it to another country and at some point even surrendered himself to a US-embassy, is there an extradition treaty between the US and Thailand? Probably he would prefer to do his time in a US-prison, although that is not gonna be that much fun unless you have Michael Scofield as your inmate and buddy ...

Sad story but unfortunately similar ones happen almost everywhere on a daily basis ...

What would have happened if he had turned himself in with the US-embassy in Bangkok?

[Ivor Biggun]

Something good has come out of this, not that it will replace their mother but her kids have been accepted into the Scholarship Program of the Rotary Club of Patong Beach and will receive financial support on an ongoing basis. http://www.phuketgazette.net/archive...ticle9004.html

Unforunately Grandma gave 5k ofthe 20k for funeral expenses as a donation to her local temple, ostensively to build a section of temple wall. Obviously these poor monks with their vows of poverty needed to top up their phones.

'Making merit'= the poor feeding religion whatever its form be it the Buddhists, the skirt wearing child molesters in Rome or the polygamists in Salt lake City

[Chinaman]

(Ivor Biggun @ Jul. 28 2010,19:14) ... or  the polygamists in Salt lake City ...

... but that Bill Hendrikson and his 3 spouses + I don't know how many kids from BIG LOVE do seem to be a nice enough family, don't they? On the other hand he also couldn't keep his little fellow in his pants when he had the hots for Serbian Anna ;-)

But the other fundamentalists like Roman and the Greenes were indeed disgusting ...

Now, depriving the Catholic priests of their underage boy harem could eventually open the doors for female clergymen (= clergywomen)

Hallelujah and