Death on the Beach of Koh Tao

I got distracted from my Sophie research by Death on the Beach, a brilliant Sky Crime documentary about a series of suspicious deaths on the island of Koh Tao in Thailand.

PAUL DETTMANN
2 min readApr 2, 2022

The bodies of a British couple were found on Sairee Beach on the Thai island of Koh Tao in 2014. I remember something about this at the time, but it was firmly in the back of my mind. I had no idea that, although these tourists had been murdered, there were a whole series of suspicious deaths in the recent past, dating back to the year 2000.

This series covers all of the suspicious deaths, but the star of this documentary is the father of Chrissie Annesley. Chrissie died in 2015, and was on the island just four months after the bodies of Hannah Witheridge and David Miller were found. It emerges that Chrissie had been asking questions about the recent murders when she died. Was she really a victim of an accidental overdose? Her father does not think so.

No spoilers here as I have not seen all episodes yet, but this is a very well-researched story including contributions from a Sky News journalist who has reported on the weird happenings in paradise. It’s an island you will find on Google by searching for ‘death island’ or ‘murder island’ which speaks volumes about the reputational damage to this island resort.

Photo by Rachid Oucharia on Unsplash

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PAUL DETTMANN

All the news from my work as a true crime researcher. We’re building a true crime community one person at a time. UK-based.