I was drugged & raped on Thailand’s notorious Koh Tao – now I fear a serial attacker is prowling the paradise island

10 months ago 6

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A TOURIST has told how she was raped on Thailand’s so-called Death Island after having her drink spiked.

Marijke, 30, said she sipped her drink before “everything went blank” and she woke up in the middle of nowhere in Koh Tao, without her clothes or other belongings.

Marijke is certain her drink was spiked during a pub crawl in Koh Tao[/caption]

The young tourist told how she woke up terrified ‘in the middle of nowhere’[/caption]

Koh Tao looks like a paradise, but it's known among Brits as 'death island'

Marijke urges others who may have experienced something similar to come forward[/caption]

Despite its flawless beaches and crystal seas, the island has earned a deadly reputation after 60 Brits died in unknown circumstances from 2014 to 2016 alone.

Heartbroken families of victims have branded Koh Tao “Death Island” after the mystery backpacker deaths.

Marijke visited the popular island in 2014 – the same year Brit tourists Hannah Witheridge and David Miller were killed – and claims she was drugged and raped by a stranger.

Marijke now fears she could have easily met the same fate as dozens of other tourists – and has urged any other victims to come forward.

She has bravely waived her anonymity to speak about the attack as she seeks to warn others.

The 30-year-old told The Sun: “I remember taking a sip from a bucket and a moment later I woke up almost naked behind some bushes.

“That’s it – the last conscious memory I have, drinking from the bucket.

“I just remember waking up being naked somewhere uphill in the middle of the island. I don’t remember anything in between.”

After finishing her bachelor’s degree, Marijke, who was 21 at the time, decided to travel to Thailand for a few months to learn scuba diving.

As backpackers often do, she stayed at a hostel in the centre of the island, where she met a group of other tourists and decided to join them in a pub crawl.

She recalls meeting ” a very nice, really tall” Dutchman, around 33 to 34-years-old – and the two of them hit it off.

Marijke, from the Netherlands, said: “I was 21 and was very shy and he was really nice to me.

“I hadn’t even finish my drink and I remember waking up next to him while all our things were missing.

“I told him where my hostel is so we walked there and I remember being scared and him trying to calm me down telling me it’s gonna be okay.

“I’m sure there was something in my drink – I know what being drunk feels like and that wasn’t it.

“I think he took a bit of whatever I had to make himself believable.

“Sometimes you wonder – do I really remember it or I just imagined it? Would anyone believe me?”

Marijke said he told her that both of them were most likely drugged – and at the time, she believed him.

The pair continued to see each other and going out for dinners and Marijke said he made her feel “special” by helping her find a better hostel and a good diving course.

Marijke, 30, said she had a sip of her drink before ‘everything went blank’[/caption]

The Dutch backpacker said she remembers being ‘dragged across a bed quite violently’[/caption]

But on one occasion, Marijke remembers a “very long night of sleep” that lasted two days where she couldn’t explain what happened.

She said: “There are like some very very vague [memories] in my head which I can’t see clearly.

“For example him hovering above me, me being dragged across the bed quite violently, the feeling that something squeezes my throat and I can’t breathe.”

After leaving Thailand, the two of them lost touch.

It wasn’t until years later when a female colleague confided in her that she was sexually assaulted that Marijke realised something similar happened to her.

And after other horror stories from Koh Tao, she suspects that the “tall handsome lawyer” from Amsterdam had targeted more women.

“I have this distinct feeling that the man has made more victims,” Marijke said.

“I do hope that if there are others, some will come forward.

“As I’ve said, when I am old I want to able to look in the mirror and be absolutely certain that I have done everything to find out what this man is guilty of.

“What is also important is that I felt so fearful and hesitant to tell anyone about this experience, perhaps others will recognise this fear as well.

“It’s a really powerless feeling.”

In Sky’s documentary, Death On The Beach, released last year, families of the victims opened up on how they believe Thai police covered up what really happened to their loved ones.

Brit Christina Annesley, 23, was found dead in her bungalow in 2015 while Ben Harrington died on the island in 2012.

British backpackers Nick Pearson and Luke Miller were also found dead – along with Belgian Elise Dellemange, Swiss Hans Peter Suter and French Dimitri Povse

German Bernd Grotsch, 47, was found dead at his home deep in the jungle in the Mae Haad part of Koh Tao while Russian Valentina Novozhyonova, 23, vanished from her hostel in 2017.