Crime
Charles Jones Family and Friends find Closure at Murder Trial in Pattaya
PATTAYA – Charles Jones sister and friends have a sense of closure since travelling to Pattaya Thailand last week to give evidence at his killer’s trial. “It’s a healing step,” Jones’ sister, Alison McMillan, said.
She and Jones’ friend, Stuart Yeatman, both of Christchurch, went to Pattaya for the court hearing on November 7 of Mohamad Shanar Ryad, a former Syrian army commando and United Nations-registered refugee accused of the brutal murder.
Jones, 56, was the World Croquet Federation president and was five days into a six-week holiday at the Thai beach resort when he was slain in his rented apartment on August 22 last year.
Yeatman discovered his body the next morning and helped Thai police to capture his killer, then aged 22. He was arrested four days later with Jones’ computer, cellphone and watch.
Ryad admitted killing the New Zealander but claimed Jones had tried to rape him at knifepoint so he stabbed him to death.
McMillan said she had struggled to comprehend her brother’s murder and went to Thailand to defend his reputation.
Some details that emerged shocked her, including that he was stabbed 27 times. However, she felt no malice when she saw her brother’s killer for the first time.
He was led into the courtroom with his legs manacled, linked by a chain to wrist irons, and sat within arm’s reach of her in court.
“I couldn’t quite get my head around the whole thing. Just to be there to see this is the man who had taken Charles’ life, I thought I should feel angry but I can’t. His eyes seemed so empty, like there was nothing there.”
Yeatman spent most of the day in the witness box being questioned about his friend, whom he knew for about four years.
“‘I feel I’ve been heard and I feel I’ve done my job as far as my friendship to Charles goes and my obligations to him.”
His friend’s murder had been hard to cope with on top of rebuilding his Christchurch business, which was destroyed in the February quake, he said.
“I was a bit worried going back and that it would stuff me up in the head but it did the opposite.”
On the night of the murder, Yeatman had dropped Jones at his apartment to meet Ryad, whom Jones had befriended and had met twice previously.
When he failed to turn up at breakfast, Yeatman investigated and found his body in his apartment. A cellphone sim card belonging to Jones, which Yeatman told Thai police about, helped them to track down the killer.
