Soi Cowboy go-go bar owner falls to death from his condo

The American owner of “The Dollhouse,” a go-go bar in Soi Cowboy, died yesterday after he fell 39 stories from his condominium in Sukhumvit 19.

Darel Davenport, 54, reportedly fell onto the second floor of a house located next to his condo building around 2:30pm yesterday while climbing over from the balcony of the next room to his because he forgot his keys.

Lumpini police said Davenport had locked himself out of his apartment and asked his neighbor if he could climb over from their balcony. His fingerprints were discovered on the wall at the scene as police concluded the case was an accident, Bangkok Post reported.

Police have contacted his Thai wife and will release the body to the family for funeral rites.

According to his employee Kitti Tongjiew, Davenport had lived in Thailand for several decades. His business The Dollhouse, one of the oldest bars in Soi Cowboy, has been flourishing for nearly 17 years.

However, Kitti told Thairath that the go-go bar was recently closed for a few weeks as Davenport was suffering from stress.

In his Facebook posts, which were marked public, Davenport had threatened to fire his employees over the past week and ranted that someone had been hacking his bank and Paypal accounts and the bar’s Facebook page. He threatened to file a police complaint against the perpetrators.

File photo of Darel Davenport from his Facebook page

Bangkok Post reported friends of Davenport were aware that he had struggled with cocaine addiction and other drugs for a long time. He was seen by an acquaintance sleeping on a Soi Cowboy bench on Saturday night and, since then, secretly ducking in and out of the bar, which reportedly was left unclean with no running water.

His decision to climb over the balcony came as no surprise to his friends as Davenport was an experienced skydiver and base jumper who had no fear of height.

Over two hundred people joined Devenport’s memorial page on Facebook to write messages of condolence, paying tribute to him as a “legend.”



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