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Toby Charnaud and former bar girl
Pannada Laoruang
Brit killed and barbecued after split from Thai bride
A former public schoolboy was barbecued by his Thai wife after divorcing her when she ran up massive gambling debts, a court has heard.
Toby Charnaud, 41, was clubbed to death with an iron bar and wooden staves by relatives of his ex-wife, Pannada Laoruang.
She then helped them burn his body on a charcoal fire, before chopping it up and scattering the charred remains around Kaeng Krajan National Park on the Thai-Burma border.
Yesterday a Thai court heard how Mr Charnaud, who was educated at Marlborough College, sold his farm near Chippenham
, in Wiltshire, after meeting 35-year-old Laoruang in a Bangkok bar while on holiday.
After marrying, they lived with his parents in England before settling in the resort of Hua Hin, where he bought two bars and became a popular figure in the local golf club.
They had a baby but their relationship collapsed after Laoruang accumulated debts of ?50,000 in high stakes card games.
Mr Charnaud divorced his wife, giving her a ?11,000 settlement, plus another ?6,100 to help pay off her debts.
But when he visited her home after she called him to see their five-year-old son, Daniel, last March, three men attempted to shoot him with a hunting musket. When the weapon backfired, they beat him to death.
Miss Laoruang later reported her husband missing to police, but in court yesterday she admitted it had been a lie, and she had in fact returned home from the market to find his body.
The murder was only discovered when Mr Charnaud's family in Britain became suspicious about his sudden disappe
arance and hired a local private detective to investigate.
After mobile phone records showed he had been at his ex-wife's house on the day he vanished, police raided the home where two of the defendants confessed and led police to the body parts.
The Charnaud's family lawyer, Boonchu Yensabai, who is jointly prosecuting the defendants, told Petchaburi Provincial Court: 'The only motive can be that Pannada expected to inherit everything through their son.'
In a letter to the court, Mr Charnaud's 70-year-old mother, Sarah, said: 'We welcomed Toby's ex-wife into our home and family until they moved to Thailand. To repay us by murdering my son is beyond my comprehension.
'One of the worst horrors of his death is the fact that the first attempt to kill him failed and he would have been aware of his murderers making their fatal attack. His fear and concern for his son would have been overwhelming.
'Toby was a wonderful father to his son and it is so unfair that a small boy has been
deprived of a great father and a father has been deprived of seeing his son grow up.'
Bizarrely, Mr Charnaud appeared to predict his own death in a short story which won first prize in a competition run by a Bangkok magazine shortly before he died.
It told how a British man's life collapses after he falls in love with a Thai woman.
She stays out all night and builds up gambling debts, and he is eventually murdered by his best Thai friend, whm he does not know is one of his wife's lovers.
Mr Charnaud's sister, Hannah Allen, said: 'The story is eerie. I am sure he had his suspicions.
'It is difficult to come to terms with the fact that this woman was behind the murder of the father of her child.'
Pannada Laoruang denies premeditated murder.
Boontin Puipong, 31, Sattri Sripatum, 28, Nipit Satabut, have admitted murder, but say they were provoked because Mr Charnaud interrupted them while they were drinking whisky.
All four also face charges of possessing a gun in a
public place, deceiving police, and concealing the body.
The case was adjourned until next month.
