Brit holidaymakers travelling to Koh Tao urged to ‘stay away’ from the notorious ‘death island’ by families of murdered Western tourists

BRITISH holidaymakers travelling to Koh Tao have been urged to “stay away” from the notorious “death island” by families of murdered Western tourists.

Boyne Annesley still doesn’t know what happened to his 23-year-old daughter Christina Annesley, of Orpington, south east London, after she died on the Thai island in 2015.

The heartbroken dad believes that following other unexplained deaths on Koh Tao– dubbed ‘death island’ by social media users – there is a “serial killer family” that “remains free to rape and murder”.

Speaking to news.com.au, Mr Annesley said: “I don’t believe we’ll ever find out what happened to her. There’s no proof because you can’t get proof because the authorities are corrupt.”

He described trying to get hold of her for 24 hours, and had texted her asking “are you alright” but she didn’t reply “because she was already dead”.

The university graduate, who was two weeks into a four-month backpacking trip round South East Asia, was found dead on the beach in January 2015.

In the days leading up to her death, Christina tweeted: “Seriously if Koh Tao is a sleepy diver’s paradise what the hell is Koh Phanghan like.”

She’d also posted on Twitter saying she had bought antibiotics for a chest infection and her mum said shortly after her death that it had been due to natural causes.

However after rumours of secret CCTV footage, inconclusive blood samples and a mysterious Swedish man, Christina’s dad isn’t completely convinced.

Mr Annesley said: “In the back of my mind I had a feeling there might be something wrong. Now I’m really suspicious.

“They didn’t find Christina for 24 hours and she’d been lying in the heat.”

He said he had been told by someone on the island that Christina had been killed because “she was going around asking questions [about former deaths on the island] and taking photos of the beach.

“She was told she shouldn’t be doing that because it is dangerous,” he added.

Koh Tao was plunged into the spotlight in September 2014 when backpackers Hannah Witheridge, 23, and David Miller, 24, were found murdered on the beach.

Hannah had been raped and their semi-naked battered bodies were dumped.

Christina’s body was discovered just a few months later in the same location.

Another Brit, 32-year-old IT consultant Ben Harrington died on the island in 2012, while British backpackers Nick Pearson and Luke Miller – along with Belgian Elise Dellemange, Swiss Hans Peter Suter and French Dimitri Povse – were also found dead in a separate incident.

After a series of glitches with the UK Foreign Office and authorities on Koh Tao, Mr Annesley said he has no doubt there is more to his daughter’s death, and the lack of any evidence shows the incompetence of the investigation.

As the deaths on the island began to spread and the devastated families left behind began to chatter among themselves, the rumours began to tell a darker side to the story.

Mr Annesley said: “We knew nothing about Thailand being a corrupt place. A hell of a lot of people died on Koh Tao, I didn’t realise how many.

“I just think they don’t want you to find out. You can imagine when you’ve just lost a child you’re not really in the frame of mind to challenge that — it’s very raw and you don’t think about it.”

Mr Annesley said he was hopeful a petition, which was handed over to the UK parliament on behalf of the parents of children who have died on Koh Tao, would provoke people “to stop going to that island until it is safe”.

To support Boyne Annesley and the parents of other children who have died on Koh Tao island, view the petition here.

A version of this story originally appeared on 

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