Thai student, boyfriend in 'murder-suicide'

Thai student, boyfriend in 'murder-suicide'

The Foreign Affairs Ministry has arranged to bring back the body of a Thai student who was killed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Thursday.

A Carnegie Mellon alumnus fatally shot his graduate student girlfriend before committing suicide inside their off-campus apartment. (Photos: Sanook.com)

Sek Wannamethee, director-general of the Information Department, said on Saturday Pittsburgh police had informed the ministry they had found a man and a woman shot dead in an apartment in Sherwood Towers in North Oakland on Thursday afternoon.

The woman was Chalalai Chaihirankarn, 26, a Thai computer-science doctorate degree student on Mahidol University scholarship. She was a lecturer at the university's Faculty of Informational and Communication Technology before receiving the scholarship to study at Carnegie Mellon University.

The man was Bryan Springer, 29, her Thai-American boyfriend. A mechanical engineering graduate at the same university, he worked as an engineer at the university's Computer Science Institute.

US police said both lived at the apartment and evidence at the scene indicated Chalalai was killed by her boyfriend before he turned the gun on himself.

AP reported earlier she was shot several times in the head and chest.

Mr Sek said US police told the ministry initial investigation suggested the cause of the murder was jealousy.

US police acted on friends' report after they had not seen Chalalai for days. The friends also told police the couple's relationship was troubled, but there were no signs of a struggle, according to AP.

Mr Sek said the Washington branch of the Civil Service Commission Office, the point of contact for Thai students abroad, had informed Chalalai's relatives and Mahidol University. The Royal Thai Consulate General in New York has also been informed so that it could issue a death certificate.

Chalalai was a daughter of a Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives executive.

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