SONGKHLA: The woman found dead at a waterfall in Hat Yai district on Thursday has been identified as a Chinese tourist who visited the area alone, and mystery surrounds the circumstances of her death.
Pol Lt Col Sitthipong Yodprasit, chief investigator at Thung Thamsaom, said she was Lei Tian, 28, a Chinese national. She was identified from an immigration photograph.
Pol Lt Col Sitthipong and Chai Suwanchart, head of Tan Nga Chang Wildlife Sanctuary, on Friday went to the place where her body was found on Thursday in a rock pool partway down Ton Nga Chang waterfall.
Police found a white handbag and a black bag with some personal belongings dumped in a garbage bin at the first level of the waterfall. They believed they belonged to the dead woman, and were investigating the circumstances of her death.
They had sought information from the immigration office, which enabled them to match the dead woman with a photograph on file. A mole on the woman's chin also matched that on the photo.
The woman was found in a rock pool at Ton Nga Chang Wildlife Sanctuary, between the first and second levels of the seven-tier Ton Nga Chang waterfall on Thursday by another visitor to the waterfall.
Footage from a surveillance camera at the ticket booth entrance to the waterfall showed the woman arriving alone on Sept 19 in a taxi with Songkhla licence plates Khor Yor 5089. The cabbie had picked her up at a hotel on Sripuwanart Road in downtown Hat Yai.
Pol Lt Col Sitthipong said it was not known at this stage whether she died in an accidental fall from the cliff at the waterfall, or if it was suicide or some other cause. They would await the autopsy results.
The pool area where the body was found was declared off-limits to the public on Friday, and also the area around the garbage bins where the bags were found.
The investigation is continuing.
Police onFriday inspect the rock pool at the seven-tier Ton Nga Chang waterfall in Hat Yai, Songkhla, where the body of the Chinese woman was found on Thursday. (Photo by Assawin Pakkawan)