Phuket – Australian stabbed in heart in Thai bag-snatch tragedy

Via: Sydney Morning Herald

A 60-year-old Perth woman has been stabbed to death and another woman was  hurt in a bag-snatch attempt gone wrong on the popular holiday island of Phuket  in Thailand.

It is understood Michelle Elizabeth Smith, who worked as a travel agent at  RAC Travel in Joondalup, died in front of a Phuket hotel after being stabbed in  the heart.

Ms Yone, a supervisor at the five-star Katathani Phuket Beach Resort  where  the women were staying, this morning confirmed the death of an Australian  woman.

Mrs Smith’s companion Tammee Lynn, 42, who works at an Attadale travel  agency, escaped with a cut to her arm after she was slashed by the attacker and  was taken to a Phuket hospital.

The women were walking near their hotel complex in Kata Noi Bay, on Phuket’s west coast, about 10.30pm yesterday when they were attacked by two men who approached them on a motorbike.

The men attempted to steal the women’s handbags and lashed out with a knife  when they could not grab the bags.

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The woman (Tammee Lynn) told local media she and the victim had been hassled and pushed in  the street by the men but did not realise they had been stabbed until the men  had fled.

”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,”  the  woman told tourism news website Phuket Wan.

”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.”

Read more, HERE:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/australian-stabbed-in-heart-in-thai-bagsnatch-tragedy-20120621-20p5f.html#ixzz1yZ1RlTth

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