It is a month short of 37 years since North Korean government agents abducted Anocha Panjoy. She was taken to Pyongyang for reasons that still are unclear. North Korea has denied the kidnapping and has actually claimed the Chiang Mai woman has never been in North Korea. It is a case close to home that illustrates why Japan last week extended its sanctions on North Korea for similar lies and denials about abductions of Japanese citizens over the past 40 years.
In the almost four decades since she disappeared, fragments of information have leaked out of North Korea. When she was abducted on May 21, 1978, she was employed by a Macau hotel as a massage therapist. On the fateful day, she was on her way to meet a man claiming to be a Japanese tourist. As she walked along a beach, men grabbed her, forced her onto a boat, and headed out to sea.
For many years, her family, at home in San Kamphaeng district of Chiang Mai, only knew she had disappeared. There were plenty of rumours, of course. But Ms Anocha's family really had no idea she had been abducted and forced into a still mysterious programme directed from the very highest levels of the North Korean regime. Dozens of people disappeared behind the closed doors of the communist country. Almost all were women, and almost all of them were Japanese.
Because of what has been learnt since, the Thai woman may have been abducted in order to be given like a slave as a companion - a "wife" - to foreigners who defected to North Korea. It now is known that she was "married" not long after her abduction to a US military defector, Larry Allen Abshier.
He died in the early 1980s, but Ms Anocha and the American lived next to another defector, Charles Jenkins. Mr Jenkins finally left North Korea in 2003, and is the source of almost all information about the kidnapped Thai woman.
According to Mr Jenkins, Ms Anocha was forced to live with at least two other foreigners after the death of the first man. One was an East German. North Korea refused to discuss the case.
The Foreign Ministry has raised the issue with Pyongyang through diplomatic channels. The Panjoy family has never forgotten their daughter and sister. About 10 years ago, the Panjoys contacted a Japanese group, the National Association for the Rescue of Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea, which has added Ms Anocha's case to the many unresolved abductions still under investigation by the Japanese government. The family has frequently raised the kidnapping with the Thai media.
Last week, Japan announced it was extending sanctions on North Korea for another two years over the issue. Japan has been far more insistent than Thailand, and Pyongyang has dribbled out tiny bits of information, even admitting 13 abductions. North Korea "allowed" five of the kidnapped Japanese to return home in 2003. Since then, it has again clammed up, insisting it had nothing to do with dozens of other kidnappings.
As always, North Korea says Japan is provoking Pyongyang by raising the cases. This would be a good time for the Foreign Ministry to add the Thai diplomatic voice to that of the Japanese.
There is no doubt about what happened to Ms Anocha. The government should renew its communications with North Korea over the missing Thai, who turns 60 this year.