Shraman Mitra
The Island of Koh Tao in Thailand received the horrifying moniker of ‘Death Island’ after it witnessed numerous mysterious deaths since January 1, 2014. On January 21, 2015, the residents of Koh Tao had to live through another unnatural death and subsequent police investigation when Christina Annesley passed away under mysterious circumstances. The podcast ‘Death Island,’ chronicles the gruesome incident and shows how the police tried their best to draw a complete picture.
How Did Christina Annesley Die?
A native of Lower Hutt, New Zealand, Christina Annesley was just 23 years old at the time of her death. Although she belonged to New Zealand, the 23-year-old also held an UK citizenship and had spent most of her life in London. People who knew Christina described her as a kindhearted and down-to-earth individual who loved living life to the fullest. She never hesitated to extend a helping hand wherever required and tried to maintain friendly relationships with most.
Some of her acquaintances insisted that Christina was a role model for the younger generation, as she stayed true to her principles and was a pleasure to be around. According to reports, Christina graduated shortly before her demise and had planned a massive four-month-long trip around South-East Asia at the beginning of 2015. She flew out for the trip on January 7 and kept in regular touch with her parents as well as her followers on Twitter. Yet, no one had any idea of the tragedy that was about to befall Christina.
Christina found it difficult to adjust to life on Thailand’s Koh Tao Island immediately upon her arrival. Her Twitter posts showed that it was challenging for her to make new friends or find a place to stay. She even complained about the showers being smelly and the people being weird. However, with time, Christina fell in love with the island and even checked into a rented bungalow. On top of it, she even made new friends but soon began complaining of a chest infection that did not seem to go away.
In fact, some of Christina’s last tweets showed that she was looking for antibiotics to treat her infection before the New Zealand native’s Twitter account fell oddly silent. Eventually, on January 21, 2015, the Koh Tao police came across human remains in a beach hut on the island. It did not take long to determine the body as that of Christina Annesley, although there was almost no sign of foul play.
An initial medical examination could not find any fatal wounds on the victim’s body, while an autopsy later determined that Christina had died of natural causes. Interestingly, the autopsy even went on to suggest that Christina mixed her antibiotics and other prescription medicine with alcohol, which allegedly led to her death. Hence, the police soon chalked off the incident as an unfortunate death and stopped all investigations.
Christina Died a Natural Death, as per the Police
Even though the Koh Tao police determined that Christina died of natural causes, her family back home refused to accept such an explanation. They insisted that Christina was pretty cautious of her health and would never make the fatal mistake of mixing prescription drugs with alcohol. On top of it, it was also out of character for Christina to disappear without a trace, only for the police to find her body days later. In fact, from the very beginning, the victim’s family suspected foul play and was convinced that the law enforcement officials were trying to cover up the facts surrounding her death.
When people investigated further, they were surprised to find significant holes in the police investigation, which no one was able to explain properly. For starters, reports mentioned that even after Christina’s body was discovered at the beach hut, it remained unattended in a temple for days before authorities decided to carry out an autopsy. On top of it, the victim’s family hired a coroner back in London, who refused to accept the Thai autopsy report after going through it carefully.
Besides, Thai officials also took a lot of time to release Christina’s body to her family, and it was impossible to conduct a fresh autopsy after the victim’s remains reached London. Additionally, sources also mentioned that even though Thailand officials claimed Christina died of poisoning after mixing medicine and alcohol, they never conducted a toxicology test, and there was no information about the contents of the victim’s stomach at the time of her death.
Naturally, such developments made Christina’s family suspect that the police in Koh Tao were hiding something, even though there was no proof or evidence supporting such an opinion. Nevertheless, believing that they would never get to know the truth about Christina, and considering the number of British deaths in Koh Tao since January 2014, her family joined several others in delivering a petition to the then-British Prime Minister, Theresa May, in 2018.
Through the petition, the families asked for better translation services as well as adequate warnings about countries that have witnessed several unnatural British deaths in recent years. Unfortunately, there has been no further development surrounding Christina’s death, and the family still believes they are yet to know the truth. However, the official reports state that the 23-year-old died from natural causes.
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