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| Tragic wife Pornpilai Srisroy |
Rickie La-Touche, 30, told a court that his Thai wife Pornpilai Srisroy, 28, had damaged his precious Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker memorabilia.
He later suffocated her during a row and then ran sobbing to his mother who lived nearby.
La-Touche later told police his wife had smashed up his Star Wars collection as part of a campaign to “make his life hell”. He also claimed he “flipped” when she threatened to leave him to go back to Thailand.
La-Touche, also known as Rickie Nehls, was found guilty of murder and was ordered to serve a minimum of 12 years.
Rickie La Touche was found guilty of murder (Pic: Greater Manchester Police)
The court heard that he met his wife in a bar while on holiday in Bangkok in 2001. He became besotted and they married on his fourth visit to Thailand in 2003.
In April the couple had a violent row one morning and he later arrived at his mother’s house in an agitated state.
When his mother asked him what was wrong, he replied he had “killed her”.
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La-Touche told Preston Crown Court his wife had damaged most of his collection of Star Wars memorabilia, which he had built up since he was a child and was worth thousands of pounds.
He had also told detectives he was worried she was about to leave him. La-Touche, from Leigh, Greater Manchester, said in a police interview: “My wife is from Thailand and she keeps threatening to leave. We argued and she said she was going to make my life hell.
“She’s put me through it before. I couldn’t let that happen again. I then just remember getting up from on top of her. I think I’ve choked her.”
La-Touche denied murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter. A postmortem concluded she died of asphyxiation.
Senior investigating officer Andy Tattersall, from Greater Manchester Police, said after the trial: “Unfortunately, we may never know exactly what happened that morning, but I hope La-Touche’s sentence is of some small comfort to Pornpilai’s family and friends.
"He now has to live the rest of his life with the awful knowledge he is responsible for killing his wife.”
