MURDER CASE SOLVED
WASSAYOS NGAMKHAM
Missing persons cases involving "ordinary" people often go unsolved because police tend to focus on high-profile cases, two senior crime-busters say.
"Most police choose to handle high-profile cases involving well-known people," Prayont Lasua, deputy commander of the Crime Suppression Division (CSD), said after wrapping up the case of a 36-year-old woman and her three-year-old son, whose bodies were recently found in a cesspit near their house after they had been missing for more than two years.
The victims, Lamyai Paejanla and her son Porntep Boonkong, had been beaten to death by Prasit Boonkong, 36, the woman's husband and father of the boy.
Prasit, who was caught last Friday, admitted he used a wooden bar to bludgeon his wife as she was holding their son after they had an argument at their house in Krabi province on April 12, 2006. He then threw their bodies into a cesspit and covered them with soil. The skeletons of the two victims were dug up on Thursday.
According to Prasit's confession, he was angry after learning that his wife secretly sent money to her parents in Udon Thani province.
Pol Col Prayont and another deputy CSD commander Thitiraj Nongharnpitak, who dusted off the case after receiving a complaint from Lamyai's parents, urged local police to pay more attention to missing persons cases.
He decided to handle the case as he identified clues pointing to the victim's husband.
After the murders, Prasit left his village in Krabi's Ao Luk district and was ordained as a monk at a temple in Nakhon Si Thammarat.
When he returned home 10 days later, Prasit told his neighbours that his wife had run away with her lover and taken their son with her.
Pol Col Thitiraj said the law seemed to benefit suspects rather than victims.
"In this case, the mother of the victim almost lost her mind because the suspect had not been caught," he said.
"Over the past two years, she could not sleep well, as she believed her daughter had been murdered. However, a hunt for the murderer had not been launched.
"The case had been left unsolved. The woman told us she simply wanted the bodies of her daughter and her nephew for the funeral rites. Nobody seems to care about the poor," he said.
The CSD investigation team took about three months to wrap up the case.
The team found the corpses of the victims after one witness said he remembered seeing traces of earth at a deserted house near Prasit's home two years ago.
Pol Lt-Gen Somyos Phumphanmuang, commissioner of the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB), said record checks found that the suspect had three ex-wives from before the time he lived with his victim. All of his former wives worked at nightspots. The suspect claimed his ex-wives all ran away with lovers.
The CIB chief said he has ordered police to investigate whether all ex-wives of the suspects were missing or not.
There were several cases involving missing people that the CSD has been looking into.
Among them is the disappearance of Ms Chonthicha Bantaothuek, or Nong Oui, a former dancer of popular Ponglang Sa-on music troupe.
The 23-year-old student of the Kalasin dancing art college has been missing since July 4 last year.
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