PHUKET: Convicted killer Diana Goh Li Fun appeared healthy but full of deep regrets when Phuketwan visited her this week inside the jail where she has just begun serving a life sentence.
Goh, 34, was transferred from Phuket Prison to a more secure facility in Nakhon Si Thammarat on March 8 after being sentenced to life for ordering the murder of Canadian Francis Alex Degioanni outside his Patong home on his 34th birthday in February 2009.
The two had been in a property business together, but had a falling out.
Goh, originally from Singapore, had been free on bail and was commenting on Facebook up to the day before she was placed in shackles after sentencing on Phuket on December 29.
At visiting time in the more secure jail on Tuesday, Goh remembered Phuketwan and asked to not have anything more written about her case.
As a matter of public interest, we've decided simply to record that she seemed genuinely full of regret and prepared for the consequences.
She had written on Facebook in a final message before her sentencing: ''Hey, be it good or bad friends, always remember once upon a time there was this person you once call(ed) friend!!!
''Forgive and forget, life is short! Never twice but only once in our lifetime!!! Love!!!''
Today Francis Alex Degioanni's fiancee, who was almost in the line of fire when a hired gunman opened up eight times, said: ''Francis was one of the best people I've ever known in my life.
''I still miss him and I can never forget what happened. But I hold no grudges.''
Fern Pencharoenwatana has since started a new life in another part of Thailand, away from Phuket and the memories of that evening.
Two men had approached as she alighted from the passenger's side of the vehicle. They opened fire on Mr Degioanni, still in the driver's seat. One bullet went through the car and into a metal roller door.
"It literally just missed me,'' Khun Fern said at the time. ''If I hadn't gotten out of the car, I would have been dead right then and there," she told one reporter.
"I got one foot out of the way and then I heard, it sounded like firecrackers."
Goh is spending some of her time so far working in the extensive garden at the 329 rai prison, which holds 4500 inmates compared to the 1600 inside Phuket Prison.
Phuket Prison is much smaller, but overcrowded. On Phuket, Goh shared a dormitory with more than 200 women. In Nakhon she shares sleeping quarters with 35 female inmates.
Because prisoners are longer-term than on Phuket, the Nakhon jail is surrounded by a seven-metre tall wall with more than 200 security cameras.
Security is tight. Visitors may order food and other goods for prisoners outside the jail, where they pay, then the good and food can be collected on the inside.
Goh has had other visitors but most of her contacts remain on Phuket, about five hours' drive away, or in Singapore, a much longer drive or a flight and a drive away.
Goh is planning an appeal against the length of her sentence. The gunman and three other people who carried out her orders have also been sentenced to life.
Goh, 34, was transferred from Phuket Prison to a more secure facility in Nakhon Si Thammarat on March 8 after being sentenced to life for ordering the murder of Canadian Francis Alex Degioanni outside his Patong home on his 34th birthday in February 2009.
The two had been in a property business together, but had a falling out.
Goh, originally from Singapore, had been free on bail and was commenting on Facebook up to the day before she was placed in shackles after sentencing on Phuket on December 29.
At visiting time in the more secure jail on Tuesday, Goh remembered Phuketwan and asked to not have anything more written about her case.
As a matter of public interest, we've decided simply to record that she seemed genuinely full of regret and prepared for the consequences.
She had written on Facebook in a final message before her sentencing: ''Hey, be it good or bad friends, always remember once upon a time there was this person you once call(ed) friend!!!
''Forgive and forget, life is short! Never twice but only once in our lifetime!!! Love!!!''
Today Francis Alex Degioanni's fiancee, who was almost in the line of fire when a hired gunman opened up eight times, said: ''Francis was one of the best people I've ever known in my life.
''I still miss him and I can never forget what happened. But I hold no grudges.''
Fern Pencharoenwatana has since started a new life in another part of Thailand, away from Phuket and the memories of that evening.
Two men had approached as she alighted from the passenger's side of the vehicle. They opened fire on Mr Degioanni, still in the driver's seat. One bullet went through the car and into a metal roller door.
"It literally just missed me,'' Khun Fern said at the time. ''If I hadn't gotten out of the car, I would have been dead right then and there," she told one reporter.
"I got one foot out of the way and then I heard, it sounded like firecrackers."
Goh is spending some of her time so far working in the extensive garden at the 329 rai prison, which holds 4500 inmates compared to the 1600 inside Phuket Prison.
Phuket Prison is much smaller, but overcrowded. On Phuket, Goh shared a dormitory with more than 200 women. In Nakhon she shares sleeping quarters with 35 female inmates.
Because prisoners are longer-term than on Phuket, the Nakhon jail is surrounded by a seven-metre tall wall with more than 200 security cameras.
Security is tight. Visitors may order food and other goods for prisoners outside the jail, where they pay, then the good and food can be collected on the inside.
Goh has had other visitors but most of her contacts remain on Phuket, about five hours' drive away, or in Singapore, a much longer drive or a flight and a drive away.
Goh is planning an appeal against the length of her sentence. The gunman and three other people who carried out her orders have also been sentenced to life.
She's right where she should be..
Posted by frog on March 22, 2012 17:54