Three murders, two women and a man, at different ends of the country, tell us about a society where many lives are destroyed by either drugs or sometimes uncontrollable emotions, such as jealousy, that emerge from sexual relationships.
On Sunday last, a Thai woman was stripped naked and beaten to death in a gruesome fashion in front of horrified onlookers in the Phra Phrome area of Nakhon Si Thammarat. Her attackers included her love rival for a man, assisted by two children. It is one of a spate of murders in Thailand in the last week driven by sexual jealousy and drugs. The latest was a 29-year-old woman murdered by her husband, haunted by crystal methamphetamine and jealousy, on Monday night in Kalasin province.
Police in the northern Thai province of Kalasin have arrested a drug addict for the murder of his wife on Monday night last, the 21st of March.
A team of investigating police officers from Kamalasai Police Station travelled to the village of Bueng Hai on Tuesday evening after being called to the location by villagers who had earlier discovered the body of a 29-year-old woman in a pond near the village at the end of some rice fields.
Husband of the victim, Mr Montree Chotthong, told neighbours he had killed his wife on Tuesday, they disbelieved him at first due to his condition
The woman has been identified as New Chotthong.
Neighbours had been alerted to look there by the victim’s husband, named as Mr Montree Chotthong, who told them on Tuesday he had murdered his wife and left her body at the pond.
At first, the neighbours in the village did not believe the man as he was well known to be a chronic drug addict suffering from hallucinations and fits of violence from his crystal methamphetamine habit.
Drugs had turned the man mad
The locals told police that the man quarrelled violently every night with his wife as he did also on Monday night, but they took little notice of it.
Drugs had made the woman’s husband uncontrollable.
He was regularly driven to fits of madness with anger and also jealousy over his wife’s other relationships as her husband’s life was gradually taken over by drugs.
Body found later at a pond near rice fields
They told officers investigating the case including Police Lieutenant Colonel Watcharin Miraeo and the Deputy Provincial Police Chief, Major Somnuk Mikwan, who were at the scene, that it was only afterwards they checked the pond as they had not seen the 29-year-old woman in person.
There, they found her body wrapped in a sarong or ‘pha thung’ with a red blouse. She had been partly dumped into the pond with tyres and other debris thrown over her.
Her hands were bound with electrical wire.
13 wounds to the neck after the woman was killed in the couple’s bedroom on Monday night by her spouse
Investigating police officers who examined the body soon discovered that the head and neck areas had been the subject of vicious wounds, 13 in all, from a knife.
Police later retrieved a blood-stained machete from the home of Mr Montree which he shared with his wife.
Officers visited the home after finding the body and inside found bloodstains in the couple’s bedroom where it is believed the young woman was slain by her husband.
The main suspect admitted to police, on the spot, that he was responsible for killing his wife.
He was arrested by officers who are still working on the case and is to be charged and prosecuted for murder.
Police in Nakhon Si Thammarat called in after a brutal killing that took place in public on Sunday last
On Tuesday, police in southern Nakhon Si Thammarat were called in to deal with another crime driven by sexual jealousy after a 39-year-old woman was found badly injured and naked after being assaulted by a love rival and two of her children in the Phra Phrome area of the province.
It is reported that video footage and photos of the shocking incident which took place last Sunday, were uploaded online causing shock and revulsion at the nature of the woman’s death.
Victim attacked by love rival assisted by her son and daughter in a vicious assault recorded by onlookers
The victim has been identified as Ms Jirawan Nitsomboon and her main assailant was Yupa Sukthong who was assisted by her son and daughter.
The three attackers swooped on the victim after she had been dropped back to the area by a man thought to have been the boyfriend of Ms Yupa.
The motive for the attack is understood to be sexual jealousy and revenge.
Woman stripped, sexually mutilated with a stick
In public, the three fully stripped the 39-year-old woman and used a wooden implement to dig violently into the genitalia and other parts of her body causing serious injury.
The three were urged by bystanders to cease the attack but failed to do so. After being rescued and taken to hospital, Ms Jirawan succumbed to her wounds within 48 hours.
21-year-old daughter said her mother was having an affair and had just been dropped off by her lover
The victim’s 21-year-old daughter could only confirm that her mother had been having an affair recently with a man who had just dropped her off after the pair had been together.
Police in Nakhon Si Thammarat are now hunting down Ms Yupa and her two children and they will likely face murder charges for the shocking and violent crime carried out in public.
70-year-old man murdered his son in law
In the meantime, police officers in Huai Kha in Ubon Ratchathani have confirmed that a 70-year-old man has been charged with the premeditated murder of his son in law in the Ban Huay Kha area of Udon Thani on the 16th March last.
The man, named as Mr Khad from the Buntharik district of Ubon Ratchathani, took a loaded shotgun to the home of his son in law in Udon Thani and shot him in his bed at close range killing him instantly.
The victim was found in his own blood lying on his side in the bed dressed only with a towel around his waist.
Older man told police his son in law had seduced his wife causing her to leave him for the younger man
He was later arrested by Huai Kha police who charged him with the killing as well as firearms offences.
He is understood to have shot his 48-year-old son in law named only as Mr Prathuang as the younger man had begun an affair with the older man’s wife, his own wife’s mother.
The older man’s wife had left him to go and live with her son in law.
Mr Khad admitted the crime when police came to arrest him.
He told officers that the younger man’s actions had shamed and insulted him leaving Mr Khad with no choice but to take the younger man’s life to restore some of his dignity.
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Further reading:
Senior police officer murdered and sexually mutilated by jealous husband in Kalasin province
Thai man brutally murders the man who took his wife as his own in a country that lives off passion
Thai wife murders her younger husband and buries him 3 metres underground in her orchard
Spate of relationship murders between lovers prompts support for the death penalty in Thailand
Love triangle murders in Thailand linked with popular TV soaps, foreigners and money
