Ning said she regularly saw the teenager at the beach, where many young women gathered daily, drawn to the Thai resort city’s neon-lit nightlife as an escape from unemployment.

On Saturday, the 17-year-old was found dead, her body placed inside a black suitcase and dumped in scrubland beside a railway track.

“I would see her often. I didn’t realise she was still just a child,’’ Ning, 22, told This Week in Asia, giving an alias. “Her murder breaks my heart.’’

Australian national Simon Peter Carman, 45, has been charged by Thai police with premeditated murder, concealment of a body and abduction of a minor for indecent purposes in relation to the death of the teenager, who was affectionately known as “Nong Cake”.

Carman was arrested at Bangkok’s main airport on Saturday attempting to flee to Perth after police discovered the body, discarded in waist-high undergrowth behind a railway line.