Malaysia - Jim Thompson, 61, Cameron Highlands, 26 March 1967

The mysterious disappearance of Jim Thompson has been the subject of many books, films and documentaries such as

Jim Thompson: Silk King

so I won’t bore you with the myriad of entertaining stories about Jim Thompson’s life or theories about his disappearance in Malaysia in March of 1967, and if do*just google him up*and*read away

Jim who was born in 1906, would be well and truly long dead by now, even if he staged it and lived on.

However, for those that want some overlooked leads on what might prove to be the dullest of all endings have a squizzy at a couple of minor articles that apparently have some dots left to connect.

http://www.petedavo.wordpress.com/2...ut-the-disappearance-of-jim-thompson/amp/#top

Sent from my HTC 2PQ910 using Tapatalk

http://time.com/4319751/jim-thompson-history/

"The best-known American in the picturesque kingdom of Thailand is a greying, well-tanned onetime architect named James H. W. Thompson, 52, who has almost singlehanded saved Thailand's vital silk industry from extinction."

So begins TIME’s 1958 profile of Jim Thompson, dubbed ‘The Silk King.’

Less than a decade later, the news out of Asia regarding Jim Thompson would be much different. The media, including TIME, reported on Thompson’s mysterious disappearance while on a walk in the Malaysian highlands. Even today, nearly a half-century later, what happened to Thompson remains a mystery.

Click to expand...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6484761.stm

It was an Easter Sunday on 26 March 1967. At around 3pm that day Jim Thompson, already well known as the "Thai Silk King", walked out of Moonlight Cottage where he was holidaying with friends in Malaysia's Cameron Highlands and was never seen again.

It was not simply Thompson's fame and wealth that guaranteed his disappearance would become one of South East Asia's greatest modern mysteries - it was his past.

He had spent World War II with the OSS, the US intelligence agency that was the precursor to the CIA.

Click to expand...

In early 2010 a Malaysian local newspaper called the Ipoh Echo and the Malaysian national newspaper called The Star ran stories about*a talk given by Captain P.J. Rivers, a Research Fellow of Perak Academy in a local hotel who had come across a box of bones*from the old hospital in Tanah Rata found in the Jungle of the Cameron Highlands (or a shallow grave on the Golf Course depending on which story you come across)

Bones May Cast Some Light to Jim Thompson’s Mystery

According to Capt. Rivers that when he was in Cameron Highlands about ten years ago, all the items from the old hospital in Tanah Rata were transferred to a new hospital and one of the items was a box containing the bones brought by Orang Asli who had found them in the jungle.

Capt. Rivers feels that those bones could solve the problem of the missing Thompson.

Firstly, it must be confirmed whether the bones belong to a Caucasian or not; if affirmative, find out whether male or female. If the bones belong to a male, further investigation should be done to confirm whether it is the remains of Jim Thompson.

Capt. Rivers ended his talk by saying that though this is a solution to the mystery, it is a costly exercise and doubts if anyone is willing to do it.

Researcher: DNA may help unravel the mysterious disappearance of ‘Thai Silk King’

A RESEARCHER believes that the clue to the mysterious disappearance of ‘Thai Silk King’ Jim Thompson may be found in bones from a grave in Cameron Highlands.

Captain Philip J. Rivers (pictured), *a long-time resident in the highlands, said the bone fragments, without the skull, were discovered at the edge of a vegetable plot off the main road in Brinchang by orang asli settlers in 1985.



Police collected the fragments but no connection was made to Thompson’s disappearance in Tanah Rata, as they were found in Brinchang and almost 30 years after his ‘death’, Rivers said at a talk on ‘He Never Left The Hills — The Real Search For Jim Thompson’ organised by the Perak Academy in Ipoh on Friday.

Among the audience were retired Asst Supt Tan Ai Bee (pictured), who was involved in the investigations on Thompson’s case, and Edward Roy De Souza, author of the bookSolved!.

*

“The probability is that his body lay undiscovered in the thick underbush, hidden in an unmarked grave after a hit-and-run accident. A DNA on the bones might possibly provide a fuller answer,”



Sent from my HTC 2PQ910 using Tapatalk

In March of 2012 a story by MICHAEL CHEANG appeared in The Star that mentions an interesting fellow named Ng Kiew Chay who apparently has been given the nickname “Jim Thompson” by the Cameron Highlands locals.

Re-living the day Jim Thompson went missing

A story on Jim Thompson would not be complete without a visit to the legendary Moonlight Bungalow, the last place Thompson was seen alive.

Located high above the town of Brinchang atop a hilltop overlooking vast spans of jungle, the Moonlight Bungalow is only accessible via a small, steep road that is only wide enough to accommodate one vehicle at a time.

…

What intrigued us the most about Ng’s story is how everyone in Tanah Rata seemed to know of his involvement, and some of these stories were almost as varied and far-fetched as the ones told about the actual Jim Thompson.

After paying a visit to a couple of spots he usually frequents, we eventually caught up with Ng, taking a nap inside his taxi on the main street of Tanah Rata. However, when we approached him to ask about Jim Thompson, Ng refused point blank to comment on the subject. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” he said, waving his hands dismissively. “So many people come and disturb me about that Jim Thompson… and I don’t even know where he went!”

After a bit of prodding, however, he reluctantly let slip a few comments about his experience that day, though it took a bit of digging (in Alias’ library, to be exact) to find out more. We eventually found an article in a local Bahasa Malaysia magazine dating back seven years, where Ng had recounted how he was sitting at the Tanah Rata taxi stand minding his own business when a convoy of military and police vehicles trundled through the town. Some of the vehicles had Thai licence plates, others were carrying groups of Caucasian military officers. After asking around, he found that the*mat sallehhe often ferries around in his taxi had gone missing in the jungle, and that there was a reward for anyone who could find him.

Later that afternoon, Ng decided to try for the reward and entered the jungle with a group of friends to look for Thompson. Unfortunately, Ng was separated from his friends, got hopelessly lost, and ended up wandering around the forest for two days before being found by search parties. Since that incident, he’s been saddled with the name “Thompson”, something he seemed quite perplexed about even to this day.

“I wasn’t the only one who went in looking for him that day, but I don’t know why I was the only one who got called Thompson!” he grunted



Sent from my HTC 2PQ910 using Tapatalk

OK, so we have the evidence, if DNA tests confirm it, leading to the conclusion that Jim Thompson died of some misadventure whilst on his walk on the winding hill road that’s barely wide enough for one car. A possible hit and run accident.
Then we have a local taxi driver who appeared to be Jim Thompson’s usual taxi driver disappearing for a few days “in the jungle”.
If the bones were Jim Thompson’s, then did someone spend some time to dig a shallow grave or move the corpse when everyone came to look for him, so that Jim’s body wouldn’t be discovered?

Sent from my HTC 2PQ910 using Tapatalk

Cited links

Looking for the Silk King
http://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/features/2010/03/23/looking-for-the-silk-king/

Bones May Cast Some Light to Jim Thompson’s Mystery
http://www.ipohecho.com.my/v2/2010/04/01/bones-may-cast-some-light-to-jim-thompson’s-mystery/

Researcher: DNA may help unravel the mysterious disappearance of ‘Thai Silk King’
http://www.thestar.com.my/story/?file=/2010/3/31/north/5950600&sec=North

Re-living the day Jim Thompson went missing
http://www.thestar.com.my/story/?file=/2012/3/26/lifeliving/10953274

[video=youtube;_87B3ErkOsg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_87B3ErkOsg[/video]

[h=1]http://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/2017/10/21/jim-thompson-disappearance-case-solved/

JIM THOMPSON DISAPPEARANCE: CASE SOLVED?[/h][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]By
Associated Press -
[/FONT]
October 21, 2017 12:32 pm
[/FONT]

American businessman Jim Thompson views a Buddha statue in November 1966 in Bangkok. Photo: File / Associated Press

​

BANGKOK — A new documentary is set to stir fresh debate over one of Asia’s most enduring mysteries: What happened to Jim Thompson, Thailand’s legendary silk king.
The former American intelligence officer turned textile tycoon went for a walk in the Malaysian jungle 50 years ago and never returned. Despite a massive search, no trace of Thompson was ever found. One of the most prominent Westerners in Asia had simply vanished.
Theories abound: He was killed by a tiger; he got lost and perished in deep forest; he disappeared himself as part of a political intrigue. Those behind the documentary say they have new evidence that Thompson was killed.
Their film, “Who Killed Jim Thompson,” premiered Oct. 20 at the Eugene International Film Festival in the U.S. state of Oregon.

“There’s been all sorts of theories and mostly silly theories, but I’m hoping that this will put some closure to, you know, the whole story,” said Barry Broman, the film’s producer.
The filmmakers, from Adventure Film Productions, said they got their break out of the blue: An old contact approached them with a tale of a death-bed confession. They eventually found a second source whose information dove-tailed with the first.
Their conclusion: Thompson was slain by rebels from the Communist Party of Malaya who grew suspicious after he arrived in the jungle and began requesting a meeting with the party’s secretary-general, at the time Malaysia’s most-wanted man. Rather than vacationing, the filmmakers said, Thompson was on what turned out to be a final, fatal mission.
Broman, who has decades of Asia experience as a photographer, U.S. marine and diplomat, said the conclusion is unequivocal: “Jim was never going to be found. He was murdered.”
The filmmakers acknowledged the murder theory’s not new, but they believe their version is more substantial.
While some of the film’s conclusions are plausible based on what is known about Thompson’s life, there is nothing definitive given that it relies on second-hand information from relatives of those allegedly involved and leaves many questions unanswered.
During World War II, Thompson was a highly decorated operative with the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the CIA. After the war, he was stationed in Thailand with the OSS and chose to make his home there after turning businessman and founding his silk firm in 1948.
Thompson helped revive the Thai silk industry and his company has since grown into one of Thailand’s flag-ship luxury brands. His former Bangkok home, once the site of legendary parties, is now a museum filled with his fabulous collection of Asian art and antiques. Both have become must-see attractions for the millions of tourists who visit Thailand each year.
The company declined to comment on the new claims about the fate of its founder.
Thompson had a USD$1.5 million a year business by 1967, when the Vietnam War was in full swing with Thailand playing an essential role, hosting bases from which the U.S. Air Force bombed communist-controlled areas of Indochina.
Thompson decamped in March of that year to Malaysia’s Cameron Highlands, a hill station dotted with tea plantations that was once popular with British colonists, for some rest and relaxation with Singaporean friends at their Tudor-style Moonlight Cottage vacation home.
On March 26, Easter Sunday, as his hosts were taking a rest, they heard their guest from Bangkok leave the house, presumably to take a stroll in the area’s crisp fresh air.
Not a trace of Thompson was found after that. Hundreds of people were involved in the initial sweep to find him: soldiers, police, professional jungle trackers, native tribespeople. When no clues were unearthed, psychics and medicine men joined the fruitless quest.
“I still have questions. I’d like to have a couple of more sources,” Broman acknowledged. He hopes bringing the story to the screen may jog some memories, and perhaps someone, somewhere will be struck by a realization along the lines of, “say, didn’t grandpa talk about that?”
Story: Grant Peck

Click to expand...

Two of the most well-known cases of disappearance in the Malaysian jungle - that of Swiss environmental activist Bruno Manser, who went missing in Sarawak on the island of Borneo in May 2000 and that of Jim Thompson, a former American intelligence officer turned textile tycoon, remain mysteries.

Nóra Quoirin search: local trackers and special forces deployed

I would like to know more about her sister murder; I don't even know her name. Reportedly, she died in August 1967 at her home in Chester County, PA.
Edit: I have just found this: http://www.themosttraveled.com/NewLand/Disappearance of Jim Thompson final briefing for website.pdf