I know it looks like I killed my Thai wife who was found dead in the Yorkshire Dales – but I can prove my innocence
THE Sun tracked down university lecturer David Armitage to his remote Thai home to ask if he had any part in his wife’s suspicious death – and he dodged the question.
Instead, he hid behind the advice of British Embassy staff not to comment about the intriguing mystery of his Thai wife Lamduan’s murder.
So I went for the blunter approach: “Let me put it another way, David. Did you kill Lamduan?”
Only then did he ignore Embassy officials and protest his innocence.
The portly English lecturer, now 62, said: “Absolutely not. No, absolutely not. I know the inferences are there but I am just getting on with my life here.”
He promised to answer the rest of my questions about the Lady of the Hills case — named after the unidentified, partially-clothed body was found in a mountain stream in the Yorkshire Dales in 2004 — once the dust had settled.
And he said he was happy to speak to cold-case detectives who were taking a fresh look at the discovery of what turned out to be Lamduan’s body.
That was six years ago, and Armitage has evaded every attempt to quiz him since — by me and the police.
But all that could now change after Thai immigration officials decided to deport him.
He was detained last week at the same house where I confronted him, and was taken to a detention centre in Bangkok, where he is now contemplating his future behind 20ft fences topped with barbed wire.
Artist’s impression
According to immigration sources who have spoken to him, that future involves the dramatic plan to return home in a bid to clear his name.
He is free to go anywhere once he leaves Thailand.
But his current Thai girlfriend and his son George, a 32-year-old teacher, are said to have persuaded him to return to the UK so he can tell police he had nothing to do with Lamduan’s murder.
A source told The Sun: “George is obviously aware of everything that has happened over the last few years and everything that has been said — as is David’s girlfriend.
“They have persuaded him to go back to the UK to clear his name.
“He is free to go anywhere when he leaves Thailand, but in reality he only has one option — back to Britain.
“He had the choice of appealing the decision to revoke his visa within 48 hours but he did not take it.”
If Armitage does return and speaks to police it may finally shed some light on a case which has baffled them for more than two decades.
They have persuaded him to go back to the UK to clear his name
Sun source
It began on September 20, 2004, when hikers doing the 24-mile Three Peaks walk stopped for a photo by a stream near one of the peaks, Pen-y-ghent, where the partially clothed body of a woman lay in the water — which was shown in their picture.
A post-mortem failed to establish a cause of death, although she had not been shot, stabbed or drowned.
Police were unable to identify her and she was dubbed the Lady of the Hills by locals, who arranged for her funeral in the nearby village of Horton-in-Ribblesdale.
A cold-case review finally led to her identification in 2019 when a relative living in the UK saw an artist’s impression in a police appeal and alerted detectives.
As officers were waiting for test results on DNA samples taken from her parents Buasa and Joomsri, I travelled to Thailand to speak to her Yorkshire-born husband.
He married Lamduan in 1991 after they met in the Thai city of Chiang Mai, and they moved to Portsmouth, where Armitage taught at a further education college and Lamduan washed dishes at a Thai restaurant.
They later moved to Rugby, Warwickshire, and by the summer of 2004 were staying with Armitage’s parents in Cumbria.
Lamduan’s mum Joomsri told how her daughter had reported difficulties in the marriage, but after a final phone call in 2004 she never heard from her again.
She recalled: “She said she missed home so much.
“It was a very short call. We’ve not heard from her since.”
Armitage moved back to Thailand with their two children shortly after Lamduan vanished.
When I caught up with him 15 years later he was working as a university lecturer in Kanchanaburi, the town where 1957 war movie The Bridge On The River Kwai was set.
There is all this innuendo and I’ve got no comeback on it in a country which is not mine
David Armitage
He had never reported his wife missing, and according to Lamduan’s parents, he had told their children that she had left them to go back to Thailand to marry another man.
When Armitage answered the door at his whitewashed bungalow next to a banana plantation, he said there had been a whispering campaign against him in the Thai media, but insisted he was innocent.
He said: “There is all this innuendo and I’ve got no comeback on it in a country which is not mine. I do feel for the parents.
“I would want to know, in their situation.”
Armitage said he would be happy to speak to North Yorkshire Police, and added: “I made that point to the Embassy. No problem, I actually made that offer.”
In fact he had that opportunity when British detectives flew to Thailand in February 2023, but despite arranging a meeting with them, he cancelled at the last minute.
I do feel for the parents. I would want to know, in their situation
David Armitage
A spokesman for the Thai police’s Department of Special Investigation said at the time: “He said he didn’t feel well and also had some personal issues.”
Masking what must have been a huge irritation after officers flew 6,000 miles for the interview, cold-case manager Adam Harland said it was “unfortunate” that the meeting had not gone ahead.
But his team may finally get the chance to speak to Armitage if he keeps his pledge to return to the UK following his deportation.
His residency visa was revoked after Interpol issued a Blue Notice against him.
It is not an arrest warrant, but an order that enables police to obtain information about a crime from witnesses and potential suspects living abroad.
Yet the Thai authorities still decided to deport him, under laws which bar foreigners from remaining in Thailand if they are subject to an arrest warrant.
North Yorkshire Police said the decision was an issue for the Thai authorities, and Armitage was free to travel and live anywhere he chose.
He has not been arrested and is not being extradited to the UK, but if he was to return here a force spokesman said officers would “make every effort to speak to him about the investigation”.
As for Lamduan, she remains buried in the graveyard in North Yorkshire.
Her parents have begged for her to be returned home so they can have a Buddhist funeral.
But she can only be exhumed with the consent of her next of kin — her husband.
Joomsri, who is 80 and frail, has given up hope of ever seeing her daughter’s killer brought to justice.
She shed more tears this week when news of the latest development brought the heartache flooding back.
She said: “If my daughter’s spirit can hear me, I want to tell her to rest in peace.”