IS THAI RATH CARRADINE PHOTO A FAKE?
A growing number of websites around the world are questioning the authenticity of the David Carradine forensic photograph which appeared on the front page of Thailand's top selling Thai Rath newspaper on Saturday.
Amid growing global outrage the newspaper removed the image from its online version of the story yesterday morning, however many websites and blogs carry copies of the image and reproductions of the newspaper's front page. That decision could have been made for any number of reasons, one of which might be doubt about its origins.
Several things are clear. Firstly the Royal Thai Police has confirmed members of the media were not present at the crime scene, and that the image has not come from them. They have also refused to confirm the authenticity of the Thai Rath photograph. The publishers have also declined to reveal the source and have justified its original publication by claiming it was done as a "tribute" to Carradine.
FrogBlog has a post which includes a picture of a typical room at Bangkok's Nai Lert Park hotel where Carradine died. He was reportedly staying in one of the hotel's suites but the Thai Rath photography doesn't give that impression. Thai Indian has a post that also questions the authenticity of the image. (Note: this includes a copy of the original Thai Rath photograph).
It's possible the newspaper has been duped into buying (if indeed they have paid for it) a questionable image. I doubt they would have been able to get anything in the way of confirmation before publishing because, as mentioned earlier, the Royal Thai Police is refusing to confirm whether it's real.
Given that, and given the reluctance of the publisher to confirm its origin there are many questions that remain unanswered.
UPDATE: June 11, 2009: Thai Rath publishes details of a g-string found in Carradine's room. See HERE.
6 comments:
It's possible or even normal to get crime or accident photos from a policeman directly if you know your way in Thailand.
They may be reluctant if they don't know you, but Thai Rath's hardly a new player.
The photo is almost certainly a fake. The body is too dark and the hair coloring is not grey. The position of the body does not match the police report. And the room looks somewhat cheap. It's likely that Thai Rath didn't have a photo taken at the scene so they published something similar. That's Thai style newspaper reporting.
So if that picture is proven to be a fake what are the likely ramifications for Thai Rath ?
I will answer with my view. I think inside Thailand no one will care too much, however the damage to the reputation of Thailand's media from overseas will be severely tarnished.
From a personal perspective yesterday this blog had the highest number of visitors ever, 96% of whom were looking for information about David Carradine's death. Since 9am this morning I have had more hits per hour than I normally have in one day.
Thailand's media (through Thai Rath) is in the spotlight but I share your fears Leosia that the picture just doesn't look right and is not in keeping with the facts as presented by the Royal Thai Police.
The question of course, is if anyone cares what the international view of Thai media is. Apparently the editors of Thai Rath don't.
According to press reports today, Carradine was found wearing a wig and fishnet stockings, which might explain why the man in the pic has black hair (but doesn't explain why the room looks so small).
Another one of his former wives (number 4, from memory) has also come forward to say that he used to like tying himself up and playing 'drowning'games.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1191493/Carradine-familys-fury-publication-crime-scene-photo.html
I've also seen those reports, but in the past Thai Rath has used 'crosshatching' as one of its ways to censor graphic parts of crime and accident photographs. One could easily interpret that as being something more.
Given the amount of official information that has been released by the Royal Thai Police I would have thought facts like the fishnets, wigs, etc, would have been confirmed. As far as I'm aware it's only speculation.
That 'crosshatching' doesn't explain the red lingerie though.
I still feel the Thai Rath pic is dubious at best. There are a number of things (position of hands, hotel room, etc) that just don't seem right.
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