The family of a Thai teenager allegedly killed by an Australian man has placed her cremated ashes to rest at a local Buddhist temple as they seek justice for her murder.

The body of 17-year-old Tunchanok Donhomla was found inside a suitcase last week, discarded near railway tracks in the coastal city of Pattaya.

Thai police allege 45-year-old Simon Peter Carman m𝑢rdєred her after picking her up from the Beach Road vice strip in the early hours of 25 June.

The city of Pattaya is almost 500 kilometres from the 17-year-old’s home in Kalasin, where her family is now in mourning.

Her great aunt, Mee Boonsert, helped raise her, and wept as she recalled their final moments together before the teenager left for Pattaya.

“I am just like a mother to her, she called me Mum,” she said.

“Before she went, she told me she is going and she will be back soon.”

The 75-year-old said she wished she was able to give her own life in place of Tunchanok’s, saying: “I love her more than I love myself.”

Hundreds gather to mourn teenager

CCTV vision shows Carman and Tunchanok arriving at the building where he was living, and almost 18 hours later it captures him leaving with a large suitcase.

A friend of the 17-year-old, affectionately known as “Cake”, lodged a missing person’s report, and visited Carman’s house looking for her, photos obtained by the ABC show.

But by then, the teenager was already dead. Police allege he strangled her and kept her body in the bathroom before taking it out in the suitcase.

Tunchanok’s aunt Mirantee Thanachai was part of a group of family members who police called on to identify the teenager’s body.

“I was scared knowing my niece is no longer alive, I was crying on the way to the hospital,” she told the ABC.

Mirantee said the two were like sisters and cried as she spoke of her “brutal” dєatᩚh.

Tunchanok’s body was released to the family this week and cremated at a Buddhist temple in Kalasin.

The abbot of the monastery, Pra Vichien, said hundreds of people attended the service and there was a “tremendous grief”.

“It was raining the day the body was delivered, people were crying,” he detailed.

He said the dєatᩚh had taken a “big toll” on the community and there was “deep sorrow to its core”.

“Lot and lot and lot of grief, she is a poor girl,” he told the ABC.

“She was born in a broken home, the parents are separated and what she have to face at the end.”

The following day, members of her family interred an urn of her ashes at their local Buddhist temple.

Four monks chanted as candles were lit and water poured, before the urn was placed in a memorial wall.

Family seeks ‘a life for a life’

Carman has been charged with murder, moving a body, and taking a minor for 𝘴єxual purposes. Thai authorities say he has denied all of the charges.

Tunchanok’s great aunt, Mee Boonsert, wants him to face the dєatᩚh penalty if found guilty.

“I want a life for a life,” she said.

Mirantee said she was “very happy” the police were able to arrest Carmen before he could leave the country.

The 17-year-old told the family she was going to Pattaya for a holiday and Mirantee said they believed she was there to sightsee.

“I don’t want people to view her negatively,” she said.

“Whether she went for work or sightseeing, she was not trying to put herself in harm’s way.”