PUBLISHED : 2 Aug 2023 at 04:00
Police have yet to verify whether a Japanese woman committed suicide, as claimed by her husband, after her body was found in their hotel room on Monday.
The Japanese husband of Ami Hosoe, 25, told police she suffered from depression and had tried to strangle herself with the cord of a hairdryer in their hotel room on Sunday night.
At the time, he said, he was able to save his wife and then hid the hairdryer, according to Pol Maj Gen Thawatchai Pongwiwatanachai, commander of Chiang Mai police.
The man denied reportedly having had an argument with his wife.
The couple briefly left their hotel room to go to a convenience store at 3.45am on Monday, the husband told police.
When they returned, he went to bed. He then woke up on Monday morning and found his wife dead in the bathroom, he said.
He told police his wife was lying face down in a bathtub with a phone charging cable around her neck. He said he moved the body and left it face up on the hotel room floor before calling hotel staff.
Police were checking the woman’s medical records to determine if she suffered from depression. They are also waiting for an autopsy report from Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital, said Pol Maj Gen Thawatchai.
The couple had a business in Bangkok and were in Chiang Mai for a vacation. They checked into the Parc Borough Hotel on Mahidol Road in Muang district on Saturday.
Pol Maj Gen Thawatchai said security video showed no one else entered their room before the report of the death.
They had been scheduled to check out at noon on Monday, he added.