British victim's mother offers Bt493,000 for infomation

At a press conference yesterday with officials from the Department of Special Investigation, Susan Jones, the mother of victim Christy Sarah Jones, said she still felt a great loss in her life, especially with the murderer still being at large.
“I believe there must be someone with information [that could lead] to the arrest of the one who took our daughter’s life. As time goes by, one’s loyalty is supposed to change after certain connections are over, which results in lingering hesitation in the past being taken away, and later the information [could] lead to filling in the missing jigsaw,” she said.
Jones was found raped and strangled in her room at the Aree Guesthouse in Muang Chiang Mai district on August 10, 2000. Guesthouse owner Andrew Gill was arrested and prosecuted, but later acquitted when a DNA test showed his semen did not match that found on the victim’s body.
The DSI took over the case five years later, finding no clues despite DNA testing of 22 other suspects, including many incarcerated sex offenders.
The semen found on the victim’s body was also tested in the UK, where experts determined it belonged to a man of South Asian origin.
A senior DSI official, Songsak Raksaksakul, said the police’s DNA database of 80,000 sex offenders turned up no match.
He said the reward would be helpful in encouraging anyone with knowledge in the case or of the offender to come forward. Eight years remain before the case lapses under the statute of limitations.
Susan Jones appeared at yesterday’s conference with John Andrews, a senior investigator from the DyfedPowys police in Wales.
Andrews expressed hope of securing information from someone with knowledge of the case, and vowed to support the DSI in working on the murder. He said the reward money would be helpful in encouraging witnesses to come forward.