Was Airbnb supervisor lured to her loss of life by supply of £30,000?
- Kamonnan Thiamphanit, 27, was knifed to death at a property in Bayswater
The boyfriend of a murdered property manager has revealed he received messages from the man believed to have killed her at a £4million mansion near Hyde Park.
Kamonnan Thiamphanit, who was a tenant at the former Ethiopian embassy in Stanhope Place, Bayswater, was found stabbed to death on Monday, April 8 just hours after neighbours heard ear piercing screams.
Her body was found by police officers after they were contacted by friends of the 27-year-old on Sunday but only attended the scene more than 13 hours later.
At an inquest into her death last month, it was revealed police have a name for the prime suspect and believe he has left the country.
However, her boyfriend Chris Zeng, 27, believes that police missed a crucial opportunity to apprehend the suspect while he was still in the UK, The Times has reported.
Zeng, who is a Chinese citizen based in Singapore, claims to have messaged the man that killed Thiamphanit just hours after she went missing and, when he tried to arrange a meeting with them, police declined to investigate.
Kamonnan Thiamphanit, 27, who was found stabbed to death at a home near Hyde Park
Police pictured at the scene on April 9, after Thiamphanit’s body was found inside the property the day before
Thiamphanit’s family suspect that she was killed by an unknown man who messaged her on the property rental app AirBnB on the Friday before her body was found.
Thiamphanit reportedly rented out several properties across Soho as AirBnBs for 12 years and had recently singing a two year lease for the Stanhope Place property for the same purpose.
The unknown man messaged her using the AirBnB app on the Friday before her death and offered her around £30,000 to stay at the flat for a month, according to The Times.
She told her boyfriend, who was living in Singapore, having dated long distance for two years, and her mother Fiona Fu about the offer.
Zeng told The Times: ‘She called me that [morning] extremely happy, because she had been worried after signing an expensive lease for two years, and now she was going to make around £30,000 instantly.
‘She told me we could use this money to start her dream of owning her own hotel. I called her.
‘[She said] he agreed to take it and immediately moved in. He told her the payment would be transferred that evening.’
Zeng claims the man had requested to visit the property before paying and arrived later that night after flying there ‘directly in his private plane’.
The ‘chilling’ messages that Thiamphanit’s Chris Zeng, 27, sent in the hours after she went missing. He believes they are from the man that killed Thiamphanit
Thiamphanit is then believed to have gone to a house party in East London, bringing with her passport and extra clothes as she planned to stay at a hotel, Zeng said.
But she left at 4am the next day, telling her friends that she received an urgent text message before booking an Uber home.
At this point, Zeng said he was still in contact with her. Thiamphanit told him she was tired and shortly after Zeng sent her three texts that went unread.
Police believe that Thiamphanit was attacked ‘at some point after’ 6.15am on April 6 and sustained a number of stab injuries.
After not hearing from her for a few hours, Zeng texted his girlfriend again at 4pm on the Saturday, referring to her in Chinese as ‘Meow Meow’ and asking if her phone had run out of battery or if she was ‘in any danger’.
Zeng sent another string of messages, this time to Thiamphanit’s Airbnb account, in the early hours of Sunday morning, writing again in Chinese: ‘Meow meow, what’s going wrong? If you’re in danger, I’ll have someone check the house.’
He also used a coded message, ‘Would you like a drink from Little Sure Tea? Grape or something’, which they had established if either one of them was in danger.
Zeng was then sent a ‘chilling’ message from the man he believes killed Thiamphanit, with the person using her account messaging him in English: ‘Everything is fine, I just changed my phone and couldn’t talk here well.
‘I will try to download we chat now on the new phone. The house us (sic) booked. Someone rented it for a month. I lost all my WhatsApp contacts so im (sic) trying to recover it now.’
A few minutes later the person added: ‘But just give me privacy..I need my time. The house was rented for a month. I’m going to Paris.’
This map shows the street where Ms Thiamphanit was staying. It is located just off Bayswater Road, which is opposite Hyde Park in London
Police officers at the scene after forcing entry to the house near Hyde Park at around 8.30am on April 8
Zeng then asked for their phone number before telling them: ‘Ok. just give me a call when you in Pairs, I am in Paris now.’
Growing suspicious, Zeng contacted Thiamphanit on Airbnb again but this time using another account which he thought she would have recognised.
He pretended to be a prospective looking to rent the property, but the account user did not acknowledge it was him and instead tried to negotiate renting the property for £8,000.
Zeng said he exchanged messages with the person using the account ‘for hours’ and even organised to meet, but he claimed police declined to follow up on the lead at the time.
In a statement, the Met said it had first been called by a friend of Thiamphanit at 7.05pm on April 7, grading the call as a ‘medium risk missing person’. It then received a further call two and a half hours later at 9.34pm.
But it was not until 8.30am on April 8 that police were seen forcing the door at the property on the edge of Hyde Park and sealing off the scene.
An inquest into the 27-year-old property manager’s death was opened and adjourned at Westminster Coroner’s Court on Tuesday, April 16.
Detective Chief Inspector Alison Foxwell told the inquest that officers have a named individual as a suspect – and asked the Crown Prosecution Service whether there is sufficient evidence to extradite that person from outside the UK.
Officers will not confirm the suspect’s identity or where it is believed they currently are.
Forensic officers gather evidence at the scene where Ms Thiamphanit was knifed to death
Police tape cordon at the scene where a woman was found with stab wounds in her home in Stanhope Place, Bayswater
Thiamphanit, who had dual Chinese-Hong Kong and Thai nationality, had been living in the UK for around nine years, having initially come over to study at university.
Her family said in a statement: ‘We are unspeakably hurt by the loss of our dearly loved one and are sincerely thankful for the relentless efforts of the British police in investigating this tragic event.
‘We believe that with the commendable teamwork and dedication of the police, this case will be resolved swiftly, thereby preventing any further innocent victims.’
Thiamphanit’s cousin Nutcha Tiempanich, 28, spoke with Thiamphanit eight days before her body was found to rubber-stamp plans for her to jet back to the Thai province of Ratchaburi.
But she suddenly cancelled at the last minute because she could no longer make it.
According to Ms Tiempanich, Thiamphanit was flying back for the Qingming festival – a Chinese celebration that honours the dead. ‘We talked about the day the whole family would meet in a Chinese cemetery [for] the festival,’ she told The Times.
‘Angela said she was ready to book the ticket, but she could not make it.
‘We are shocked. We did not believe the news when we heard [she had died]. It happened so suddenly. We spoke only days before she passed.’
She said there was no sign that anything was wrong before her killing and the property manager had last visited Ratchaburi in February.
The Chinese-Hong Kong and Thai national moved to London eight years ago to study graphic design at the London College of Communication and would travel between Hong Kong and Thailand several times a year to see her parents.
The scene on Stanhope Place, Bayswater, on April 9 after Thiamphanit was found dead with a number of stab wounds in her home in Westminster
A police officer at the scene where a Woman was found with stab wounds in her home in Stanhope Place, Bayswater
DCI Alison Foxwell told an inquest last month, held remotely by Westminster Coroner’s Court: ‘Angela which is what she was known as while here in the UK had been renting out the property as an Airbnb.
‘We believe that the person who attacked her was known to her, this isn’t a stranger attack but at some point after the 6 April at 6.15am she was attacked in the address and sustained a number of stab injuries.
‘We are currently seeking the perpetrator but cannot give much more information about that at this stage, I’m afraid.’
When asked by the corner Fiona Wilcox, for further details, DCI Foxwell said: ‘We have a named individual. I think it unlikely that the person will be arrested in the next two weeks.
‘We are asking the CPS whether we have sufficient evidence to extradite somebody from outside the UK.’
The inquest also heard how she was identified by fingerprints through immigration records. Her mother in Thailand had been informed of her death with the family planning to hold a traditional funeral in Ratchaburi.
An inquest revealed she had died from multiple stab injuries.
The five storey building, just a stone’s throw from Hyde Park, has a video camera entry and police are believed to have recovered that and used it to identify their prime suspect.
No details of who that is have been released but the Metropolitan Police has referred itself to the IOPC watchdog over how it responded to an initial report of concern by the woman’s friend 13 hours before she was found dead.
