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The woman stabbed-to-death in Phuket has been identified as Perth mum Michelle Smith. Picture: FacebookSource: Supplied
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UPDATE: THREE Australian women have told of hearing "horrible" screams as a mum from Perth was knifed and killed in the street outside a Phuket resort.
The women, all from Sydney, spoke in shock of hearing the savage attempt at a bag snatch that went horribly wrong.
Police all over Phuket were today hunting the two young men who murdered the travel agent Michelle Smith, 60, for nothing and wounded her companion, Tammee Lynn, 42, with a gash to the arm.
Ms Smith - who held on to her bag - died outside her hotel after suffering a 10cm knife wound to the heart. Two men sped off on a motorcycle about 10.30pm local time (1.30am AEST).
Perth's RAC has confirmed Ms Smith was an employee of its travel and touring division.
Ms Lynn is understood to be an employee of a travel agency in the southern suburb of Attadale, while Ms Smith worked in the northern suburb of Joondalup.
Today, Ms Lee, who was treated in a Phuket hospital and allowed to leave early today after receiving stitches, and the other travel agents on the familiarisation tour of Phuket were checking out of the five-star Katathani Beach Resort and heading for home.
Outside the resort today, Jenni Thuge, her mother Dianne and Rebecca Edgell, all from Cronulla, heard the piercing screams at about 10.30pm.
''I heard someone screaming loudly and yelling 'Help, help,'' Jenni Thuge said.
''It was horrible.''
Ms Thuge turns 40 on Saturday and is on Phuket with her mother and a dozen friends for a week-long holiday celebration.
Her mother Dianne said: ''We read the news this morning and were shocked. We couldn't believe that this could happen. Phuket is such a pleasant place.''
Rebeccas Edgell said: ''We've decided to not carry bags just to play safe, although I forgot and brought mine with me just now.''
The three women plan said they were determined to not let the tragedy ruin their long-planned holiday.
''We read about drink-spiking in Bali and decided to come to Phuket instead.''
Dianne added: ''These things can happen in Parramatta Road. We just feel so sorry for the poor woman. But it's hard to blame Phuket.''
The mood was sombre inside the busy resort in just one corner of the lobby as the travel agents prepared to head straight back to Perth. They were reluctant to talk to the media and grieving for their companion.
Elsewhere, though, hundreds of guests enjoyed the swimming pools or headed for a walk along the Kata Noi beach. Resort managers said the Katathani is full and about 80 per cent occupied by Australians.
Australian honorary consul Larry Cunningham was meeting with police and the tour group in private, with a media conference promised for 2pm local time.
Local Saitong Jankeaw, aged 40, sells popular papaya salad close to the point where Ms Smith collapsed to the ground last night with a long knife wound to heart.
''My husband Mr Preeya heard the screams. We were afraid to go out to help, it was so loud and frightening. I asked him whether we should go out but he said 'Maybe it's better not to go’.''
Phuket Police Colonel Boonlert On-Kang, who is heading the investigation, said teams of police all over Phuket were hunting for the Honda Wave motorcycle identified as the getaway vehicle.
Phuket tourism authorities fear a turn-off by visitors, especially from Australia, unless the killers are apprehended quickly.
Both women were in a group of 10 travel agents from Perth who had arrived on Phuket on Monday to inspect the five-star resort, which dominates the small bay at Kata Noi, south of Patong and Karon, on Phuket's west coast.
The motorcycle pair attempted to snatch the bag in the narrow road outside the resort but fled empty-handed.
Wounded Ms Lynn told police later: "We were walking single-file along the road, coming back from dinner. These guys had gone past a couple of times, and that started to bother us.
"Then I heard a noise behind me and I turned to see what I thought was my friend being pushed in the chest. I tried to help her.
"The men rode off, empty-handed. We started walking again, and only then did we realise we'd both been slashed."
Australian woman stabbed to death. Credit: phuketwan.comSource: News LimitedCCTV footage showing the motorcycle pair wanted over the death. Picture: Phuketwan.com
Two of the travel agents later watched in sorrow, hugging each other and crying, as the body of their holiday companion was shifted from a makeshift resting place in a loading dock at the resort to an ambulance.
Grainy security camera footage captured the men on the motorcycle but the numberplate could not be distinguished.
Police believe a particularly sharp weapon was used.
Perth travel agent Kylie Daff, who is with the group in Phuket, posted on Facebook this morning: "Guys it may have hit local news ... I am ok ... with a supportive group of people ... Can't update further just yet ... will keep post when ok to do so".
Prominent Perth travel agent and former WAFL star George Michalczyk, proprietor of Motive Travel, said he received a text message early this morning from one of his staff members, who was with the group in Phuket.
"One of my staff is with them," he told 6PR.
"It's just amazing how something can get out of hand like this. You would just never ever ever contemplate that something like that would happen."
Mr Michalczyk confirmed all the agents in the group were from Perth.
Friends comfort each other after the stabbing (above) and the victim's shoes at the scene. Pictures: Phuketwan.com
The brutal murder of a tourist will shock the entire holiday island of Phuket, just as it shocked staff and guests at the Katathani last night. The owner of the Katathani, Sombut Atiset, came to see what had happened.
Australian honorary consul Larry Cunningham sped to the Phuket International Hospital in Phuket City to check the condition of the wounded woman before joining Phuket police in interviewing her at the resort.
Australian embassy officials were earlier contacting Ms Smith's family in Australia.
The Katathani on Kata Noi bay is one of the quieter parts of Phuket, some distance from the noisy swirl of crowded Karon and Patong and one of the least likely places on Phuket for this kind of brutal murder.
Bag-snatching by youths on motorcycles is one of the perils of Phuket, particularly for women out walking in isolated streets. But it was the first time anyone could remember a tourist being killed.
A young German visitor had her thumb cut off in a similar savage incident in Krabi Town, a province nearby, earlier this year.
The five-star Katathani Beach Resort is on Phuket's west coast (Google Maps)
Her thumb was successfully reattached in surgery on Phuket and four youths were quickly arrested and charged.
Lately, talk on Phuket has been about the mysterious deaths of two Canadian sisters whose bodies were found on Friday in a room on Phi Phi, another holiday island a ferry ride from Phuket, or the six drownings of tourists that have occurred on Phuket beaches in the space of one month and a day.
Phuket police are likely to pull our all stops in their efforts to find the killers. The holiday island made international news in February when Hollywood actor Jeremy Renner was in a group attacked by axe and knife-wielding security guards at a pub in Phuket City.
Prominent Phuket resort owner-manager Vorasit Issara was seriously injured but Renner was unharmed.
Travel writer Ewen Bell has been travelling to Thailand up to three times a year for the past 12 years and said, although the travel agent's death was tragic, tourists were unlikely to be deterred.
"It is terribly sad, but when you take it into context, anywhere in the world you go that has a lot of tourists walking around drunk is probably not going to be terribly safe," Mr Bell said.
"Places like Phuket tend to attract the worst aspects of tourism, whereas the rest of Thailand is much nicer to travel in."
Mr Bell said Thailand takes good care of tourists, with only a small number landing in holiday drama.
"You don't hear about people having their bags snatched and that kind of thing there, like you do in Hanoi and other places where you have lots of tourists in one spot," Mr Bell said.
"Australians know Thailand really well and they know that there are places that are safe and those that aren't safe.
"I don't think they are going to be put off travelling to Thailand."
FACTS ABOUT PHUKET
- Phuket is Thailand's biggest island at 540 square kilometres. It is located 860km south of the capital Bangkok.
- Figures from December 2011 show Australians made up the second largest number of tourists visiting Phuket, after those from China and just in front of those from Russia. In the first three quarters of last year, 172,984 Australians visited Phuket.
- The average international visitor spends approximately AUD$160 per day in Phuket, according to figures from the Tourism Authority of Thailand. Tourism is worth AUD $3,370 million per year to the province.
- The Australian Government website, Smarttraveller.gov.au, currently recommends Australians ``exercise a high degree of caution'' in Thailand.
- Smarttraveller.gov.au notes: ``Tourists have also been robbed after the bags they were carrying were snatched by thieves on motorcycles or were sliced open by razor blades. Beware of pickpockets in crowded markets and shopping streets. When visiting these areas leave credit and other cards and licences that are not required locked in a hotel safe or be extra vigilant when carrying these items.'
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