UDON THANI: Buasa and Jumsri Sikanya have not seen or heard from their daughter since she called them from Britain in 2004. But a recent report about the 14-year-old mystery surrounding the discovery of a body in Yorkshire might finally lead them to closure.
Mrs Jumsri wrote a letter to the Thai Women’s Network in the UK in London last month asking for help after a relative in Britain read the BBC report last month.
The report on Dec 9, headlined “Who was the ‘Thai bride’ dumped in the hills?”, was about the body of a woman found 14 years ago in Yorkshire. To this day, the BBC said, police had been unable to shed light on her identity or the cause of her death. It was a follow-up to an Oct 30 BBC report headlined “Mystery Yorkshire Dales body was ‘killed and dumped’.”
British investigators believed the woman might have been a Southeast Asian and a lead investigator even said in the BBC report that she could have been a Thai.
The original investigators believed the woman may have died of natural causes, possibly while out hiking, but nothing conclusive was ever determined and the case went cold. Residents of the nearby village of Horton in Ribblesdale took an interest in the case and eventually arranged for the body to be buried in the local cemetery.
But when cold-case investigators took up the mystery again in 2016, they came to an entirely new conclusion, saying they believed a murder had taken place. Forensic advances in recent years might now enable authorities to learn more.
A sketch by North Yorkshire police looks similar to the picture of Mrs Lamduan that Mrs Jumsri displayed at her house in Phen district on Thursday. The year the body was found in Yorkshire also matched the year that Mrs Lamduan contacted her parents for the last time.
Mrs Lamduan met a Briton in Chiang Mai. He was an English teacher at a school in Bangkok. They were married in a wedding ceremony held at her parents’ house in Phen. The couple had two children and the family later moved to the UK, according to the mother, who said her daugther’s last name after the marriage was Armitage.
Mrs Jumsri did not say how many years her daughter had been married, where her new home in the UK was, or the first name of her husband. She only said the last call from her daughter came in 2004.
The picture of Mrs Lamduan, who last contacted her parents in 2004. (Photo by Yuttapong Kumnodnae)
The London-based women’s network recently contacted the Thai Department of Special Investigation, and network chairwoman Setthinaree Veness met Ornkasemsilp Jirawasawong of the provincial Justice Ministry office to work on the case on Thursday.
Mrs Ornkasemsilp later interviewed the parents and said the couple agreed to a DNA test. Officials from the Central Institute of Forensic Science will collect their samples and send them to the UK to compare with those of the mysterious body, she said. The process could take about a month.
“We miss her and are worried about her,” Mrs Jumsri said. “I have dreamed of her several times. In one dream, she said she was very cold and wanted to go home.”
Mrs Jumsri and her husband have a simple request: “If she is dead, we just want to hold a religious ceremony for her,” she said. “[Solving] the case will be left for the police.”