A BRITISH lecturer at the centre of a cold case murder mystery has been detained in Thailand – six years after he denied killing his wife.
David Armitage, 62, was held by immigration officials in the town of Kanchanaburi where he has been teaching at a university for nearly 20 years.
He is now facing being deported from Thailand after a probe into his visa, according to Thai media.
If he travels back to the UK then police investigating the Lady of the Hills case plan to speak to him about the 2004 murder of his Thai wife.
Over a year later, he has agreed to meet with police officers from North Yorkshire Police’s cold case unit, who made the journey to Thailand in February 2023.
He had agreed to speak to them but cancelled at the last minute.
Lamduan’s partially-clothed body was found in a mountain stream in the Yorkshire Dales in 2004 near the village of Horton-in-Ribblesdale.
At the time police – who were unable to identify her – treated her death as non-suspicious.
She was dubbed the Lady of the Hills by villagers who buried her in an anonymous grave in Horton in 2007.
Around a decade later North Yorkshire Police’s cold case unit launched a fresh probe and declared her death was murder.
The mother-of-three was finally identified as Lamduan after fresh police appeals.
She had moved to the UK in 1991 after marrying Armitage, who is from Burton-in-Kendal, Cumbria, in Bangkok.
They settled in Portsmouth where Armitage worked as a teacher and Lamduan washed dishes in a Thai restaurant, before moving to Rugby, Warwickshire.
The mother-of-three vanished in the summer of 2004 but was never reported missing.
The Sun tracked Armitage down to his remote home in Thailand in 2019 where he denied killing his wife.
He said there had been a whispering campaign against him in the Thai media but added: “I didn’t kill my wife. Absolutely not.
“I know the inferences are there but I’m just getting on with my life. It’s been a long time.”
Lamduan’s heartbroken mum Joomsri Seekanya, 79, revealed the last time she had spoken to her daughter was in an emotional phone call in 2004.
She said: “She said she missed home so much.
“It was a very short call. We’ve not heard from her since.”
Armitage was detained on Thursday, according to Thai media.
North Yorkshire Police said they were keen to speak to Armitage if he is deported and returns to the UK.
A North Yorkshire Police spokesperson said: “We are aware of the detention in Thailand of David Armitage, the husband of Lamduan Armitage.
“We understand it relates to his visa status and residence in Thailand and is entirely a matter for the Immigration Service of the Royal Thai Police.
“Should Mr Armitage be deported, we understand that he will have a choice as to where he goes, which will include return to the UK.
Should that occur, we will again make every effort to speak to him about the investigation.”
