In the early morning of Nov 30, Wayne Rodney Schneider, a 37-year-old Australian fitness business entrepreneur, was beaten up by a group of five masked foreigners in a rented house in Chon Buri's Bang Lamung district. They later dragged him to a pickup truck and fled.
That was where local police investigators began their attempt to find out where the Australian man was taken as well as the identities of his kidnappers.
Police cracked the case in just two days -- but it was not fast enough to save the man's life.
At the crime scene, investigators found pieces of evidence that included one cartridge holder, a foldable metal baton, three 9mm bullets, one cap, a G-Shock wrist watch, sticky tape and trails of blood.
The investigation revealed that Schneider had lived in his Chon Buri house for just a month. He paid 130,000 baht for rent a month and frequently had foreign visitors over for parties and drinks.
Among the many friends who visited the house was 26-year-old Australian Antonio Bagnato, who police suspected had something to do with Shneider's disappearance.
Investigators, who at that point were still hoping to find Schneider alive, checked security cameras near the house and found a number of cars they thought could have been used in the abduction.
They believed the car must have been rented in Pattaya, as the abductors were believed to be foreigners.
After checking with rental car companies, investigators were able to track the suspects using GPS technology from the recorded locations of the rental car allegedly used in the abduction.
They eventually found the car parked on Kaset Sin Soi 5 on Khao Phra Tamnak hill in South Pattaya.
A team was sent to inspect the car while another team monitored the locations of the car as tracked by the GPS and analysed its previous travels for more clues about the abduction.
Shortly after the abduction, the car stopped for more than two hours in a wooded area on the side of Wihan Sian-Kho Cheechan Road in Sattahip district.
That caught investigators' attention and they thought something important must have happened with the car having stopped in that area for so long.
The other police team, meanwhile, found out a Thai woman identified as Priew had signed the car rental contract. Interestingly enough, Priew was married to an Australian man who had recently left Thailand.
She told police that before leaving, her Australian husband had instructed her to delete all of the call logs on her mobile phone.
Based on the Priew's account of her husband's suspicious actions, police believed the crime had been planned.
Information obtained later confirmed the hypothesis was true. Police found the man was liked to a criminal drug network in Australia. He was identified as 26-year-old Australian Antonio Bagnato.
Meanwhile, the team sent to inspect the area where the car had parked after the abduction found tyre tracks leading 100 metres into the woods off the roadside.
After following the tracks, police found a fresh plot where a hole had recently been dug and refilled with soil.
They dug up the spot and found the body of the abducted Australian businessman.
By the time the corpse was unearthed, police had sufficient evidence to convince the Pattaya provincial court to approve arrest warrants on abduction charges for Mr Bagnato and a number of other people suspected to be his accomplices in the abduction.
But there was not enough evidence yet for police to charge the suspects with Schneider's murder.
The warrants issued on the abduction charges did, however, work.
US national Tyler Joseph Fulton Sheen Gerard, who was among the suspects wanted along with Mr Bagnato, was arrested at an immigration checkpoint in Sa Kaeo province as he was about to flee across the border to Cambodia.
Mr Gerard confessed to abducting and murdering Schneider with four other people.
The other four included Mr Bagnato, who was arrested in a hotel in Phnom Penh on Thursday afternoon.
Police have yet to determine the motive for the abduction and murder, and say it could have been driven by a personal conflict between Schneider and Mr Bagnato, or a drug problem.
Investigators found evidence showing Schneider had taken drugs at his Chon Buri home.
A background check showed both Schneider and Mr Bagnato were members of the Hell's Angels, an infamous motorcycle gang network linked to similar underground groups worldwide.
Contact Crime Track: crimetrack@bangkokpost.co.th