The uncle of a Thai student stabbed to death in a Seattle apartment room was once physically assaulted by her elder roommate when they lived together in Boston.

The two women were found dead in a unit at the Malloy Apartments in Seattle’s University District on Tuesday (US time).

Kornkamon Leenawarat, 25, died from multiple stab wounds and her death was ruled a homicide; Thiti-on Chotechuangsab, 32, died from a stab wound to the chest and her death was ruled a suicide, according to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office. Both died on Saturday (US time).

Krisada Leenawarat, the uncle who is mayor of tambon Thanyaburi municipality in Pathum Thani, said Friday he believed the motive for the murder of his niece was the other woman’s obsessive jealousy.

He described Thiti-on as a lesbian, saying Kornkamon had previously told his brother she was physically assaulted by the woman who acted out of obsessive jealousy when the two women lived together in Boston.

“No one else has heard about this assault before as she only told her brother,” said the uncle.

Before Kornkamon began her graduate studies in Seattle, she briefly returned home in Thailand from Boston before she left for Seattle on Aug 21, he said.

Thiti-on later visited Kornkamon’s home in Thailand looking for Kornkamon who had already left by then, which prompted Thiti-on to follow Kornkamon to the US, he said.

Mr Krisada said he didn’t think Kornkamon was in a same sex relationship with Thiti-on because his niece had been seeing her boyfriend from high school and they still talked to one another just every day on the phone while she was in the US.