BANGKOK – A manhunt was underway Monday in Thailand for a British kickboxer police say is believed to have killed a former U.S. Marine after provoking a barroom brawl on a tropical island.
Police have named 28-year-old Lee Aldhouse of Britain as the prime suspect in the weekend stabbing death of Dashawn Longfellow, 23, who was vacationing on the island of Phuket and, according to U.S. media, a recipient of the Purple Heart after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Thai authorities have issued an arrest warrant for Aldhouse and think he is still in the Phuket area but have alerted airports and sea ports in case he attempts to flee, said police Lt. Col. Anukul Nuket.
"It is very clear what happened," Anukul said. "Everything is very clear cut."
Longfellow's body was found before dawn Saturday at Phuket's Yanui Paradise Resort with several stab wounds in his chest.
Hours earlier the two men had come to blows at a local pub called the Freedom Bar, where the American was having drinks with a Thai girlfriend and Aldhouse picked a fight with him, police said according to witnesses. Witnesses described Aldhouse as a regular at the bar and known for "getting drunk and picking fights and bragging that he's invincible," Anukul told The Associated Press.
Both men were students of muay Thai, or Thai kickboxing, police said. Aldhouse had lived on-and-off in Thailand for four years and had competed on the club boxing circuit in Phuket, but police described him as currently unemployed. Videos posted on YouTube show Aldhouse in the boxing ring. One from 2006 refers to him as "Lee 'The Pitbull' Aldhouse." Another from 2009 shows him with several tattoos including one on his left shoulder that stretches down to the elbow.
But the American overpowered Aldhouse and apparently humiliated him, Anukul said. Onlookers broke up the fight, but the Briton allegedly followed the couple back to their hotel where Longfellow dropped off his girlfriend and went to a convenience store.
