The tension had been building for months, maybe years. In the days before Alan Hogg, the wealthy Scottish businessman, and his Thai wife Nott, were killed and then buried in the garden of their home, relatives have revealed that the relationship between Nott and her brother Warut Satchakit, who has since been charged with the murders, had soured beyond repair.

For 20 years, Nott’s favourite older brother had lived in a house on her and her husband’s expansive property where he worked as the chief gardener, looking after the plants, the fruit orchard, the chickens and the 15 cows. According to numerous neighbours, Hogg and Satchaikit tended the 13-hectare plot of land side-by-side, though not always harmoniously.

But Nott’s and Satchakit’s youngest brother Thanom Suddan, 53, said Nott had been planning to kick her 63-year-old brother off the property, after the family conflict became too much.

“She visited me the Saturday before she was killed to tell me she could no longer stand Warut,” Suddan told the Guardian, as he sat by their bodies which had been brought to the local Phrae Thammaran temple. “He was creating too many arguments and not looking after the land properly. He didn’t even tell them when the dogs died. She told me she was going to ask him to leave.”(theguardian)…[+]