PHUKET, July 19 – An American man was arrested in Thailand’s southern seaside resort island of Phuket on charges of murdering a Thai woman working in nightclub, a senior police officer told a press briefing Monday.

Ronald John Fanelli, a 37-year-old suspect with an outstanding arrest warrant, was apprehended for murder Sunday at his home in the Karon area of the provincial seat, said Pol Maj-Gen Pikat Tantipong, the provincial police commander.

Local police and immigration police seized a cellphone, a 10 cm penknife and other evidence found at his place.

The Phuket court earlier issued an arrest warrant for Mr Fanelli suspected of killing the 33-year-old Thai woman working at a Phuket nightclub and moving the victim’s body to conceal the crime and cause of the murder.

Police said the suspected murderer on June 18 killed the victim and stuffed her body in a suitcase, then disposed it at a roadside area in provincial seat.

Mr Fanelli confessed to police investigators that he left the nightclub with the victim, but they later quarrelled, and he stabbed the woman to death. Placing her body in a black plastic bag, he stuffed the remains in the suitcase before disposing it on the roadside. (MCOT online news)