Earlier this year Elise Dallemange, 30, was found dead in the jungle on the island of Koh Tao, having being half-eaten by lizards.

Images VIA

The backpacker’s body was found eight days after she said she was leaving to return to her native home Belgium. Elise was the seventh tourist to be found dead on Thailand’s infamous ‘death island’, where the police said that she had hanged herself.

However, Elise’s mother says that she does not believe them and thinks that someone else was involved.

The backpacker had been living at a yoga retreat and travelling around Asia for two years and it is believed that she was part of the Sathya Sai Baba cult movement, allegedly with a self-proclaimed “guru”.

Members of the cult believe that their leader, Sathya Sai Baba, who died in 2011, was an avatar of god. The cult has 1,200 worship centres set up across 26 countries, which reportedly offer “spiritual advancement”.

The followers also believe that their leader was able to conduct miraculous healings and even bring people back from the dead.

During his reign Sathya Sai Baba faced allegations of sexual abuse of young males, although he denied the accusations and said that they were smear campaigns. To this day, there are schools set up in Thailand to continue his teachings.

Whether this has something to do with Elise’s death is unknown. Her mother, Michelle, had this to say:

I do not believe what the police have told us. We fear somebody else was involved.

We’re more and more thinking that the police information is not the right explanation.

According to reports, Elise fled to the jungle after an unexplained fire burned down three bamboo huts on the island, including the one she had been staying in. After making it through the jungle to Tanote Bay, she took a room and booked a ticket for Bangkok. However, when locals became suspicious of a lizard going back and fourth, they discovered Elise’s half-eaten body hidden amongst the rocks. So grim.

The death is the latest in a series of high profile cases, where seven tourists have died on the island in the last three years.

Michele added:

Too many things show us that someone is involved. Police told us that Elise hanged herself up in the jungle. I cannot accept why my daughter should have killed herself.

She was normal in the last conversation and no signs of depression were visible.

I don’t know why she would have booked a transfer to Bangkok and then went into the jungle to commit suicide.

I am devastated by events. I am still waiting for the final autopsy report. We just want more information.

There’s no denying that the series of events are incredibly suspicious. What this means – the cult, the ‘death island’, the suicide – is unclear, but perhaps we will find out more soon, as Michelle is now working with a German investigator to get to the bottom of it. We’ll keep you posted.

To read a woman’s true life account of being enslaved by a cult for 30 years, click HERE.