A US Marine was killed on the Thai island of Phuket after a British man allegedly picked a fight with him at a bar, followed him back to his hotel and stabbed him to death, police said on Sunday.
The body of Dashawn Longfellow, 23, was found before dawn on Saturday at the Yanui Paradise Resort with several stab wounds in his chest, said police Lieutenant Colonel Anukul Nuket. Longfellow’s passport said he came from Littleton, Colorado, police said.
Witnesses said, Longfellow was at a bar near his hotel with a Thai girlfriend when a British man identified as a regular picked a fight with him, Anukul said.
The Briton, who trained in Thai kickboxing, or Muay Thai, was known for “getting drunk and picking fights and bragging that he’s invincible,” Anukul said in a telephone interview.
Longfellow fended off the attacker until bar staff separated them and the American left with his girlfriend.
The Briton is believed to have followed the couple back to their hotel, where Longfellow dropped off his girlfriend and went out to a convenience store, Anukul said. When the American returned, the Briton was allegedly waiting for him outside his room where a fight ensued and Longfellow was stabbed, Anukul said.
Police said they have issued an arrest warrant for the suspect.
Longfellow had served in the Marines and was a machine gunner for the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, said Matt Gronbach, of Fort Dodge, Iowa, who was in the same unit with Longfellow.
“Dashawn was a caring and loving person. One of the nicest guys you could ever be around. Great friend, brother and son. He was just a huge teddy bear that everyone loved,” Gronbach said in an e-mail.
Longfellow was vacationing in Phuket after sustaining a combat injury in Afghanistan, local media reports said yesterday.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion