‘He beat a door down to get to her’: Woman killed by boyfriend in ‘sustained attack’

Warning: Graphic content

Manthana Khantharat, known as Nancy, was an “exceptional big sister” and a “huge part” of her family’s lives. She had planned a trip overseas to see her parents when a jealous boyfriend beat down the bathroom door and killed her during what a judge described as a “sustained attack”.

“It’s deeply heartbreaking that she never got the chance to make that visit,” Khantharat’s younger sister Rudeemas Khuntaras told the NSW Supreme Court in Wollongong on Monday. “Instead, we had to bring her body to Thailand, which has been incredibly painful for all of us.”

Khantharat, 37, had moved to Australia in 2019 to study and completed a certificate in childcare. She met her killer Natthawut Tammajanta, a chef, when she started working at a Thai restaurant in Sydney’s west in 2022.

Tammajanta, 29, pleaded guilty last month to the domestic violence-related murder of his girlfriend at their unit in the Shellharbour suburb of Albion Park Rail, south of Sydney, on December 18, 2022.

During the attack, Khantharat locked herself in the bathroom, and “the offender broke in to further assault her”, according to the agreed facts.

Justice Natalie Adams on Monday asked the parties whether it was open for her to find, on the evidence, Khantharat “tried to hide from him, and he beat a door down to get to her, which must have been terrifying for her”.

“That’s well open to your honour, I can’t shy away from that as a finding available to the court,” defence barrister Scott Fraser replied.

The facts state the couple received a termination notice from the Sydney restaurant because Tammajanta was aggressive towards Khantharat as she served a customer.

About a month before the murder, the couple started working at another restaurant in Shellharbour, where a female colleague noticed Tammajanta was “hot-headed”.

“The deceased told her that the offender was abusive towards her and has hit her before when he had been drinking,” the facts state.

On the night of the killing, Tammajanta was witnessed being “hot-tempered”, drinking during his shift, and drinking directly from a wine bottle after work. Khantharat then drove them home.

Crown prosecutor Nerissa Keay submitted the murder was a “savage and sustained assault”. She argued the evidence supported the inference it had lasted an hour, from when neighbours first heard noise around 10pm to Tammajanta’s phone calls to others around 11pm.

Keay said Khantharat’s cause of death was a head injury, which “must have been occasioned with a significant degree of force”, and the victim had suffered multiple fractures to her forearms considered defensive wounds.

The prosecutor said the incident was a “moving event across a number of rooms” upstairs and downstairs.

“In the course of the assault, the deceased retreated down the internal stairs and, as she did so, a further incident with the offender occurred resulting in a clump of her hair being removed,” the facts state.

“In addition, the assault included the offender at some point grabbing the deceased by the throat and applying sufficient pressure to cause injuries to her throat and petechiae of the eyes.”

The judge described the murder as “quite a sustained attack”, which had occurred in the context of a jealous and controlling relationship.

“If she just served a customer, he’d get jealous and pick a fight with her,” Adams said.

Tammajanta’s barrister argued his client had shown remorse upon realising what he had done. He said neighbours heard him calling for help, and he had called colleagues asking for an ambulance. Fraser said Tammajanta did not flee the scene and was seen kneeling beside Khantharat when police arrived.

He accepted there had been “some minimising” by his client of his conduct when he spoke to police. The court heard that Tammajanta has been diagnosed with a depressive disorder.

Regarding the prosecutor’s suggestion it was an hour-long attack, the defence asked the judge to consider the length of time the fight had involved violence.

Tammajanta is due to be sentenced by Adams on Wednesday. The judge acknowledged it was likely he would be deported at the end of his prison term.

In her victim impact statement, Khantharat’s sister said their mother struggles to accept the devastating loss and has “convinced herself that my sister is still in Sydney”.

“Her bedroom is still kept just as it was,” she said. “She was a huge part of our lives … we miss her every day. I don’t think that feeling will go away.”

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732).

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