Strange case for Chiang Mai Police as a 31-year-old Japanese man claimed that his girlfriend strangled herself with a charger cable while he slept. Investigators await the victim’s medical records and DNA test results from the crime scene.
Police in Chiang Mai are awaiting clinical medical and forensic evidence after the body of a 25-year-old Japanese woman was found in her hotel suite on Monday morning strangled by a phone charger cable. Her 31-year-old boyfriend claims his girlfriend killed herself after she had, hours earlier, also tried to take her own life with a hair dryer.
Police in Chiang Mai are investigating the mysterious death of a Japanese woman at a luxury hotel in the centre of the tourist city early on Monday morning.
The case involves the death of 25-year-old Ami Hozoe, a Japanese woman visiting with her boyfriend who arrived in the city on the 29th of July from Bangkok.
The couple planned to return to the capital on Monday the 31st, the day that Ms Hozoe was found dead in the bathroom of their luxury hotel room.
Police await DNA forensic tests after quickly ruling out a third party in the room from CCTV footage
Chiang Mai police investigators are awaiting results of DNA forensic tests on the body, articles linked with the death and surfaces from the hotel bedroom while having conducted interviews with the woman’s boyfriend, a 31-year-old Japanese national, at Chiang Mai Police Station.
The Japanese man told police that his girlfriend suffered from suicidal tendencies and was suffering from depression.
He claimed she was having panic attacks on the day she took her own life.
It is understood that the Japanese woman died after being strangled by a phone charger cable in the bathroom of the hotel room she was sharing with her partner.
On Monday, Police Major General Tawatchai Pong Wiwattanachai, the Chief of Police in Chiang Mai, said that police had initially examined CCTV footage from both outside and inside the hotel to establish if a third party was involved in the incident.
Japanese man carried his girlfriend’s body to the hotel’s lobby area seeking help after discovering her
On this basis, investigators have ruled out the possibility that someone entered the room and murdered the young woman.
Police are satisfied that the only two people in the room early on Monday morning last before Ms Hozoe was found were the deceased and her boyfriend.
The Japanese man discovered the body and lifted it to the ground floor of the hotel where he raised the alarm and summoned emergency services to assist while staff alerted the police.
When initially interviewed, he said that the couple had not quarrelled beforehand but had, at 3.45 am on Monday, gone outside for a break.
They had left the hotel to visit a local convenience store to buy some snacks and returned to sleep with each other.
He said that, after awakening, he went to the bathroom where he found his girlfriend dead.
Woman tried to kill herself the night before with an electric hair dryer after suffering a panic attack
He told police that his partner had tried to commit suicide the night before using a hair dryer but that he had intervened. He explained he had taken the implement from her and placed it out of reach.
He did not think his girlfriend would attempt to take her own life again.
It is understood that police are awaiting critical forensic information which is being prepared by the Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital while they have also reached out to the Japanese Consulate for assistance.
They are looking to find medical evidence including the woman’s clinical history.
In particular, police want to know whether she has been treated in the past for depression or suicidal tendencies.
At that point, police officers in the northern province will decide how to proceed with the case.
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