Australian kickboxer Jayson Tonkin quietly returned home after watching his young boxing partner die in front of him near a drugs stash in a Thai hotel room.
Joshua Goldstone, a 21-year-old Briton who trained with Tonkin, was found dead on the floor of his hotel room in the Thai coastal resort town of Pattaya six weeks ago.
The two men had been partying after training for Muay Thai fights in Hua Hin, a small, sleepy Thai town across the water that contrasts sharply with the seedier, party-night appeal of Pattaya.
But in the early hours of October 30, Thai police were called to room 2412 of Pattaya’s Vogue Hotel, where they found a man lying dead on the floor.
Confusion at the crime scene initially led Pattaya City police to believe it was the Australian who had died until hours later it was confirmed it was Goldstone.
The alarm was activated after staff ran to the upper level of the hotel when they “heard a commotion” around 12:10 a.m. and found a man allegedly “in a state of serious intoxication.”
He was said to be “panicking and screaming” because the second man was lying face up on the ground and not moving.
Thai police issued a statement to the media, along with photos from inside the hotel room of a body on the floor.
Josh Goldstone, 21, left, with Jay Tonkin, 27, centre, and other Muay Thai fighters partying at the Pattaya hotel, just days before the young Briton’s tragic death.
Josh Goldstone with a tray of cannabis plants four days before his death from what Thai police suspected was an overdose, possibly of ketamine.
Josh’s body on the floor of room 2412, where hotel staff found Jayson Tonkin severely intoxicated, panicking and screaming as the 21-year-old was lying face up on the floor and not moving.
The police statement said that an Australian, “Mr Jayson Peter Tonkin, 27, was found lying on his back, shirtless, wearing black shorts, with tattoos on his body and a fanny pack.”
‘A search of the room found no signs of a struggle, but ketamine and marijuana drugs, as well as drug paraphernalia, were found on the table.
“The police officers collected all the evidence.”
The police also revealed that the deceased’s friend had been taken to hospital seriously affected by drugs and was possibly in a coma..
It took a day for Pattaya police to acknowledge the mistake, but not before Tonkin’s friends posted alarming messages on social media about the death of the Australian, nicknamed ‘The Dingo’.
Alarm turned to messages of relief of “praying for you brother,” but for Goldstone’s family in England, the agony and devastation was just beginning.
Goldstone, who had turned 21 six months earlier, had traveled to Thailand several times, where he had embraced Buddhism while training with different Muay Thai masters.
Before his sudden death from a suspected drug overdose, he had earned a reputation as a fierce fighter and a rising young star in his sport.
His kickboxing mentor in the UK, Steve Gladstone, said he was a “strong, kind-hearted, brave boy” who was just starting out and “the story wasn’t over.”
By contrast, fellow Australian Tonkin is a 27-year-old experienced wrestler who recently admitted his addiction to methamphetamine, cannabis and other drugs.
The ABC reported that Thai police confiscated white powder and a small glass tube, along with cannabis, from the table in the hotel room where Goldstone and Tonkin had booked to spend a night and were awaiting lab results.
Drug possession risks heavy sentences in Thailand, where ketamine is classified as a Schedule 2 drug and carries a possible sentence of between one and five years in one of the country’s most notorious prisons.
Jayson ‘The Dingo’ Tonkin opened up about his drug addictions in a brutally honest podcast earlier this year.
Jayson Tonkin, who left Thailand after Josh’s tragic death in his hotel room in Pattaya, has made his Facebook page private and posts a tribute to “my little brother Joshy”.
A photo posted to his Instagram page just four days before his death shows a shirtless Josh in a market carrying a tray of drug plants.
Cannabis is decriminalized in Thailand. In a video posted the same day he died, Goldstone sits behind Tonkin on a bicycle with the tray of plants, laughing as they ride through the streets of Pattaya at night.
Thai police were reportedly embarrassed for confusing the identities of the men who were alive and dead in the Pattaya hotel room.
No charges were laid over alleged drugs and Daily Mail Australia has not been able to confirm the investigation is still ongoing.
Tonkin left Thailand following the tragedy and is reportedly relieved that the ordeal is over, but aware that he was lucky to have survived and escaped potential charges.
He changed his Facebook page to private and posted a tribute to Goldstone, saying: “Rest in peace my little brother Joshy” with a heart and white dove emoji.
One of his associates described Tonkin’s experience to Daily Mail Australia as a major “wake-up call”.
A Muay Thai associate said Tonkin was currently on the Gold Coast but was not approaching others in the kickboxing world at the moment.
In a scathing confession in March of this year, Tonkin admitted to using prostitutes, his addiction to methamphetamine and other drugs, and fleeing from police.
Pattaya City police found white powder and a glass pipe on a table near Josh’s body (above) in the early hours of October 30.
Josh Goldstone should have spent Christmas at home with his family. Instead, the devastated Goldstone are preparing to bury him in Etchingham, England.
In a dramatic account of how he went “hard on meth,” he described feeling paralyzed for hours and in pain, as if someone were stomping on his head with steel boots and the voice of a “demonic” woman whispering in his ear.
The middleweight Muay Thai fighter spoke about his fights in the @TidesTalk podcastabout mental health and addiction.
He said he moved to Bangkok, the “crazy sex capital of the world” when he was 15 with his father and “lost my virginity” when he was chosen “as a prostitute in a club.”
“In Thailand there are Russian prostitutes, Indian prostitutes, all kinds of different prostitutes,” he added. “You have everything, although mainly Thai.”
He was 17 when he smoked “my first joint” and was soon “smoking 10 to 15 joints a day,” doing cocaine, and “sometimes I smoke weed before my fights.”
In Australia during Covid, I lived in a house with a drug dealer, he sold coke, MDMA, that’s when I started to learn what a binge was, two days without sleep.
“The people I attract because of who I am as a fighter are largely gangsters,” he told podcasters Kahika Beckett, who is his cousin, and Chandu Grant.
“Partying with The Dingo, taking this phrase, taking this pill. I was pretty much a guinea pig, so I moved back to Thailand and fell down the rabbit hole.”
Tonkin’s fight against WBC Muay Thai middleweight champion Tengnueng Sitjaesairong on October 20 was canceled due to rain.
Tonkin (pictured with her mother Marisa) posted on Instagram that she is “the only person who will love me unconditionally and pray for me every day.”
Jayson Tonkin has quietly returned to Australia from Thailand after a nightmarish trip to the resort town of Pattaya, where Josh Goldstone (pictured) died on the floor of his Pattaya hotel room.
However, in Bangkok, “that’s when I first got into meth.”
“I was starting to try really hard, there was one night… I had sleep paralysis.
“I can’t move, I have a lot of pressure and weight on me and it feels like someone is stomping on my head, boom, boom, boom, like they have boots of steel… and then there was this simply demonic woman. Voice in my ear .’
When Tonkin returned to Thailand in September to prepare for a big fight, he admitted: “I’m not really allowed to live here, I get too lost in the madness.”
“I live in Hua Hin, which is very quiet and good for me to focus on my training.”
Tonkin was due to fight WBC Muay Thai middleweight champion Tengnueng Sitjaesairong on October 20, who he said he was ready to beat with a knockout victory.
But the fight was postponed due to monsoon rain that day and was rescheduled for November.
Meanwhile, Tonkin, Goldstone and other fighters had abandoned the tranquility of Hua Hin for the bright lights of Pattaya.
After Goldstone’s body was flown back to the United Kingdom, his devastated family held a funeral on December 14 near his home in southern England.
With Tonkin’s big rematch fight now canceled and his low-key return to Australia, it remains to be seen what the future holds for Tonkin.