Skip to main content

Mothers of alleged UK backpacker killers beg Thai king for sons' lives

Wai Phyo and Zaw Lin
The mothers of two men on death row in Thailand for the murders of two British backpackers have begged the country's king to spare their sons.

Wai Phyo and Zaw Lin, migrant workers from Myanmar, were sentenced to death in 2015 after being found guilty of murdering David Miller, 24, and murdering and raping Hannah Witheridge, 23 .

Their badly beaten bodies were discovered on a beach on the holiday island of Koh Tao in 2014.

Three court appeals attempting to overturn the death sentences have failed , so now the mothers of the convicted men have come to Bangkok to ask for a pardon from the king.

Speaking exclusively to Sky News ahead of submitting their petition, Phyu Shwe Nu, 55, and Taw May Thein, 52, maintained their sons are innocent.

"Don't kill my son," Phyu Shwe Nu sobbed. "My son didn't do it, my son didn't kill them. Please return them to us."

In August, Thailand's Supreme Court upheld the guilty verdicts - meaning the Thai monarch is now the only person who can overturn the death sentences.


Both men have consistently denied the murders, saying their original confessions were obtained under duress.

Their families claim they've been framed .

"My son said the Thai police caught them and beat them many times," Wai Phyo's mother Taw May Thein said.

"'Listen all of you,' the Thai police said, 'We'll burn you, chop you up, put you in a bag and throw it away'.

"Police forced my son. The boys were scared and confessed. He is innocent; why is this happening? After we heard our son's sentence, his father went crazy and passed away. Maybe I'll be next."

Police say evidence including DNA found at the scene and on Ms Witheridge's body led to Wai Phyo and Zaw Lin.

Police Colonel Kissana Phathanacharoen, deputy spokesman of Royal Thai Police, said: "We followed the legal procedure as to how we treated the offenders.

"We respected the principals of human rights and strictly follow the rules.

"They have all their rights guaranteed by Thai law. If there was any brutality or torture as claimed, they have the right to bring legal action against the Thai authorities. In five years they haven't done this."

The Supreme Court dismissed claims of physical mistreatment and mishandling of forensic evidence, saying the forensic work was done by respectable institutions and there was no proof of torture.

The family of Mr Miller has repeatedly expressed its view that justice has been done and the evidence against the men was overwhelming.

However, following the Supreme Court verdict, Mr Miller's father Ian said he hoped the death penalty would be withdrawn in exchange for prison sentences.

Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo's families will now submit a petition to the king asking that he commutes the death sentences to life in prison instead.

All death sentences in Thailand had been commuted by royal pardon in the nine years prior to a convicted murderer being executed by lethal injection in June last year.

Both mothers know this is their last chance and that the king could uphold the execution order at any time, but they refuse to abandon their sons.

"Every night I pray for him, it's all I can do," Taw May Thein cries.

Source: Yahoo.news, Staff, October 1, 2019


⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.


Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!



"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Most viewed (Last 7 days)

Florida executes Chadwick Scott Willacy

STARKE, Fla. -- A Florida man who set his neighbor on fire after she returned from work to find him burglarizing her home was executed Tuesday evening. Chadwick Scott Willacy, 58, received a three-drug injection and was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke for the 1990 killing of Marlys Sather. It was Florida's fifth execution this year. The curtain to the execution chamber went up promptly at the scheduled 6 p.m. time, and the lethal injection got underway two minutes later, after Willacy made a brief statement.

Florida | Man avoids death penalty in Daytona Beach triple murder

Jerome Anderson shot and killed Antoine Melvin, 42, John Burch, 65, and Patrick Lassiter, 35, in 2023. A man pleaded no contest to a triple-murder in Daytona Beach and was sentenced April 20 to three consecutive life terms in prison as part of a plea deal in which he avoided a possible death sentence. Jerome Anderson, 41, was indicted on three counts of first-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon in the 2023 triple-slaying. Anderson pleaded no contest to the three first-degree murder charges April 20 and, in exchange, Assistant State Attorney Andrew Urbanak agreed not to continue to pursue the death penalty.

Florida Schedules Two Executions for Late April

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Governor Ron DeSantis has directed the Florida Department of Corrections to move forward with two executions scheduled for late April 2026, marking a significant ramp-up in the state's use of capital punishment. The scheduled deaths of Chadwick Willacy and James Ernest Hitchcock follow a series of landmark judicial rulings that have kept both men on death row for decades.

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

The following document is a firsthand account of the final moments of Hamida Djandoubi, a convicted murderer executed by guillotine at Marseille’s Baumettes Prison on September 10, 1977. The record—dated September 9—was written by Monique Mabelly, a judge appointed by the state to witness the proceedings. Djandoubi’s execution would ultimately be the last carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. At the time, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing—who had publicly voiced his "deep aversion to the death penalty" prior to his election—rejected Djandoubi’s appeal for clemency. Choosing to let "justice take its course," the President allowed the execution to proceed, just as he had in two previous cases during his term:   Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977. Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was execu...

Iran to execute first woman linked to mass protests after ‘forced confessions’

Bita Hemmati and three others have been sentenced to death for 'collusion' and 'propaganda.' Advocates claim the charges are baseless, citing a secretive process and state-televised interrogations. Iranian authorities are preparing to execute Bita Hemmati, the first woman sentenced to death in connection with the mass protests in Tehran in late December and January, according to the US-based non-profit the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Judge Iman Afshari, of Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, sentenced Hemmati, her husband, Mohammadreza Majidi Asl, and Behrouz Zamaninezhad, and Kourosh Zamaninezhad to death on the charge of “operational action for the hostile government of the United States and hostile groups,” in addition to discretionary imprisonment period of five years on the charge of “assembly and collusion against national security.”  

Arizona | Man who murdered pastor crucifixion style requests plea deal after parents killed in plane crash

Adam Sheafe, the California man who admitted to killing a New River, Arizona, pastor in a crucifixion-style attack, has asked prosecutors to offer him a plea deal that would result in a natural life sentence rather than the death penalty he had previously sought. Advisory council attorneys representing Sheafe sent a formal plea offer to prosecutors this week, about two weeks after his father and stepmother died in a plane crash at Marana Airport on April 8, according to 12 News. Sheafe, 51, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of William Schonemann, 76, pastor of New River Bible Church, who was found dead inside his home last April.

Singapore executes man for trafficking 1kg of cannabis

SINGAPORE — Singaporean authorities executed Omar bin Yacob Bamadhaj at Changi Prison on Thursday, April 16, 2026, following his 2019 conviction for importing 1,009.1 grams of cannabis. Bamadhaj, 41, though some reports have cited his age as 46, was arrested on July 12, 2018, during a routine search at the Woodlands Checkpoint. Officers discovered the narcotics wrapped in plastic and hidden within his vehicle as he attempted to enter Singapore from Malaysia.  Under the Misuse of Drugs Act, the threshold for the mandatory death penalty involving cannabis is 500 grams, a limit this shipment exceeded by more than double.

Tennessee | Man set to be executed files motion claiming DNA evidence will exonerate him

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Attorneys for death row inmate Tony Carruthers filed a motion in Shelby County Criminal Court seeking immediate DNA testing on evidence they claim will prove his innocence in a 1994 triple murder.  Carruthers is scheduled for execution on May 12. He was convicted and sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murders of 24-year-old Marcellos Anderson, 17-year-old Delois Anderson, and 21-year-old Frederick Scarborough. Prosecutors at trial alleged the victims were buried alive in a Memphis cemetery as part of a drug-related robbery.

US Department of Justice announces decision to resume federal executions

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Friday that it will resume the federal use of capital punishment and that it is seeking death sentences against 44 defendants. DOJ also said that it will use firing squads, electrocution, or nitrogen asphyxiation if the drug used in lethal injection is unavailable. The announcement follows the Restoring and Strengthening the Federal Death Penalty report, published on April 24. The report is especially critical of the moratorium on federal executions, ordered by Attorney General Merrick Garland in July 2021, to remain until the death penalty could be conducted “fairly and humanely.” Garland was concerned about the federal lethal injection protocol, which uses only one drug, pentobarbital, and the possibility that it causes “unnecessary pain and suffering.” In response to Garland’s moratorium and concerns, President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 prisoners on federal death row, leaving only three prisoners.

Florida Supreme Court upholds death sentence for man who raped & killed girl, babysitter in 1990

FORT MYERS, Fla. — The Florida Supreme Court on Friday affirmed the convictions and death sentences of Joseph Zieler for the 1990 murders of an 11-year-old girl and her babysitter, clearing the way for his execution after decades of the case remaining unsolved. Zieler, 61, was sentenced to death in 2023 for the slayings of Robin Cornell and Lisa Story. The decision by the state’s highest court marks a pivotal moment in one of Southwest Florida’s most notorious cold cases, which saw no progress until a 2016 DNA match linked Zieler to the crime scene.