The plan was to build a holiday home on the $1.2 million plot where Gao – a 41-year-old Australian based in Bangkok for the past 12 years – and his family could stay when back in town.
Kelvin Shuo Gao is detained by police on July 29 over the shooting death of his mother in Bangkok.Screenshot
Two years later,those vacation plans are no more. The Melbourne man is in a Thai jail,charged over the shooting death of his 65-year-old mother,a prominent businesswoman,in a Bangkok apartment.
Gao is accused of gunning down Xing Liu last Friday night with two shots of a 9mm handgun,striking her in the stomach.
The incident has made headlines in Thailand where local media aired police footage from the scene including of Gao being led away by officers.
The apartment complex,right,in Bangkok where Xing Liu’s body was found on Friday July 29.Facebook
Gao,a married father of two who runs a lighting company in the Thai capital,has been refused bail at Bangkok South Criminal Court. He has been charged with homicide and illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition.
He told investigators from Bangkok’s Thor Lor police station that he had been pressured by his mother over business - she owned a plastics factory and was vice-president of the Thai-Chinese Commercial and Industry Trade Association - and that he had been drunk at the time of the shooting.
Police Colonel Duangchot Suwancharas,the station chief,said Gao had also been threatening to kill his wife and children when officers arrived at the nine-level apartment in the central district of Sukhumvit. He has a seven-year-old son and two-year-old daughter.
The Australian embassy in Thailand is aware of the case.
“Officers from the Australian embassy in Bangkok are providing consular assistance to an Australian man arrested in Thailand,” said a spokesperson for Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
“Owing to our privacy obligations we are unable to comment further.”
Gao,an Australian citizen who was born in China,had lived in Thailand for the past 12 years,police said.
However,he had maintained links with his hometown of Melbourne.
According to property records,he bought a vacant 880-square-metre block in Melbourne’s Point Cook in January 2020. He was listed in records at a unit in the Melbourne suburb of Doncaster at the time of the purchase.
The property,in Sanctuary Lakes estate,was advertised as a site to “build your dream home on… and take your lifestyle to a new level”,with real estate agents spruiking its “prestige island location with panoramic water views”.
The property Gao purchased at Sanctuary Lakes offered “panoramic water views”.Facebook
Police said Gao was being held in a cell at the court where he appeared last weekend but they were in the process of transferring him to a remand prison in the city.
Under Thai law,he can be refused bail for up to 84 days while police conduct their investigation.
His mother,who had reportedly become a Thai citizen,owned a company that manufactures plastic pellets and is based an hour’s drive north of Bangkok in the province of Pathum Thani.
Police said Gao had not tried to flee when officers raced to the apartment,having been called there when the shots were heard.
Liu’s body has been sent to Police General Hospital in central Bangkok for an autopsy.
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