Court told of drug link

A Territory teenager accused of the drowning murders of two sex workers said yesterday one of the women was his drug supplier.

Phu Ngoc Trinh and Ben William McLean, both 19, are standing trial in the NT Supreme Court charged with the murders of Phuangsri Kroksamrang, 58, and Somjai Insamnan, 27.

The bodies of the two Thai-born women were found by crocodile-spotting tour operators in the Adelaide River, southeast of Darwin, last March.

They had been bound with cable ties and weighed down with car batteries before being thrown into the murky crocodile-inhabited waterway alive, the court heard.

Trinh told the court yesterday he had contacted Phuangsri in the months before her murder because he wanted someone to supply him ecstasy and was surprised to discover she was a prostitute.

Both McLean and Trinh originally told police they killed the women but have since said they did not murder them.

Instead, Trinh has implicated three other men in the killings, members of an Asian gang. Trinh said a group of six men in a gang headed by a Mr Lee turned up at his house unexpectedly when the two women were there on the night of the alleged murders.

He said he did not know how the men knew the women were at the house but it was some of the visiting men who strangled the women before throwing them into the Adelaide River.

Trinh feared he would also be killed, he told the court. He said he could not sleep after the killings. Trinh admitted he burnt key evidence _ items belonging to the two women that had been left at the house, including clothing.

But he said he left several items for police to find at the house in case the gang came after him. Trinh said if they came after him he planned to turn himself into police so he would be placed in custody and kept out of reach of the men.

``It would save my life if Lee's group was close behind me,'' Trinh said.

He did not tell police the truth because he feared for his parents' safety.

The trial continues.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org
Pubdate: Fri, 11 Mar 2005
Author: Karen Michelmore
Source: Northern Territory News (Australia)
Copyright: 2005 Northern Territory News
Contact: ntnmail@ntn.newsltd.com.au
Website: http://ntnews.news.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/283