Ban Bo, Thailand: At night, when he returns from work, Thongchai Donhomla still catches hints of his daughter’s perfume. He leaves his room as a comfort, he says, reminding her that his spirit might still be near.

But now she needs to go away and be at peace, she says from her sparse home in the small town of Ban Bo, in Kalasin province, northeastern Thailand. “The spirit cannot have grudges.”

The living, however, need not be so forgiving.

Donhomla and the other grieving relatives of 17-year-old Thanchanok Donhomla in Ban Bo want his alleged killer, Australian Simon Peter Carman, to face justice fairly and, if convicted, be given the full extent that Thai law still allows: execution.

“A life for a life,” says Mee Boonsert, 75, one of two great-aunts who played central roles in raising Thanchanok when her biological mother left when she was just a baby.

Carman, 45, is accused of murdering Thanchanok, or Cake, as she was known, in the early hours of June 25 near the tourist and expatriate hub of Pattaya, about 600 kilometers from her hometown.

Relatives rushed to Pattaya when they were told he was missing, only to discover along the way that his body had been found trapped inside a suitcase and lying in the tall grass next to the train tracks.

His aunt, Miruntree Thanachai, went to the alleged crime scene (Carman’s measly $330-a-month unit) to help with a ritual to prompt the spirit to return home.

He noticed piles of dirty dishes and clothes. “He was a dirty man,” he says. The most curious thing, however, were the “three or four” women’s bags and other items of what appeared to be women’s clothing.

The couple allegedly met at 3 a.m. and “both parties agreed to perform sexual services,” according to the official police report, seen by this newspaper. Cake’s family is concerned about this detail. She had never been a sex worker, “and what parent would allow their daughter to do that work?” says Donhomla. She also didn’t do drugs, she says, and when she was in school she had been a brilliant student. As far as they knew, she went to Pattaya for what was supposed to be a “short” vacation.

“Cake had a transgender friend [from a neighbouring district] He came and stayed with her at my house, and she asked him if he wanted to go to Pattaya,” says Donhomla. “She [Cake] I wanted to go. He said he wanted to see the beach. He asked us for some money and, although we didn’t have much, we gave him what we could.”

Like many parents, Donhomla found it difficult to disappoint his daughter. But he explains that this was compounded by the shame and guilt he felt from having been in prison for four years since 2019 for drug offences. His time away left Cake and the other family members who depended on his meager income destitute.

With her father in prison and her biological mother out of her life, Cake was subjected to teasing and bullying, leading her to abandon the regular curriculum and replace much of her learning with other school-approved activities, the family says.

“I couldn’t be there for Cake, so when I came back from prison I wanted to give him everything I could,” Donhomla says.

He works as a field laborer and earns, on average, the equivalent of about $250 a month, well below the Thai minimum wage.

“Sometimes she asked for a new phone, but these are expensive and I couldn’t afford it. I felt bad that I couldn’t support her,” he says.

Armed with the equivalent of about $40 from her father and $80 from her great-aunts, Cake rode a bus with her friend to the neon lights of the party city of Pattaya on June 16. He promised to bring clothes for his six-month-old cousin Wayu.

Donhomla says he called him a couple of times, including asking for money top-ups, but none in the four or five days before he disappeared, which he said was unusual.

Once in Pattaya, Cake met another friend, a transgender woman whom Donhomla had never met or seen before. He says this is the person seen in photos confronting the Australian at his sleazy condo on June 26 when Cake didn’t return. At that time, she had already been thrown onto the train tracks in a suitcase.

Donhomla rushed to Pattaya when he was told his daughter was missing. During the trip, she received the devastating news that she had been found dead.

“I was shocked, I couldn’t accept it,” he says. “I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t eat.”

The family has not only been robbed of Cake, but also a sense of security about the future. Who will take care of their father and great-aunts when they can no longer take care of themselves? Little Wayu is now the sole future breadwinner of the extended family.

Pattaya police say Carman has claimed it was self-defense and that he attacked them with a knife in a fight over money.

Cake’s family took her to their home in Ban Bo on Monday night last week inside a police van. She was cremated on Tuesday morning and her remains buried in a small gold urn placed at the base of the Buddhist temple’s perimeter wall.

His room is now empty except for a miniature dresser, old sepia family photographs and a ring light kit for social media, which his father says he barely used. Most of his other possessions were cremated alongside his body, in accordance with the family’s beliefs. One day, the smell of perfume will also disappear.

A date has not yet been set for Carman’s first court appearance.