A 19-year-old man who was recently released from jail has been charged with raping and murdering a nine-year-old girl in Nakhon Phanom.
Relatives of the girl found her body in a swamp near Thavorn village in Pla Pak district on Jan 4. She had gone missing from her home in the village in tambon Mahachai in the northeastern province the previous night.
The accused, who was also the girl's neighbour, admitted that he committed the crime alone, police said. He said he bought snacks for the girl and lured her to go out with him on Jan 3. He claimed he had been drunk and wanted to have sex.
According to police, the accused took the girl to a paddy field to have sex, but she resisted. He beat and choked her until she became unconscious before raping her. When he realised the girl had died, fear of arrest drove him to dump her body in a swamp, he told police.
Rattanapol Promwichai, 19, was brought to a police news conference at the Pla Pak station in Nakhon Phanom on Saturday. Police later took him to three locations to re-enact the crime. During the re-enactment, angry relatives and local teenagers tried to attack him, prompting police to take the accused away.
Rattanapol, a regular solvent user, had been out of jail for the past four months after serving a sentence for theft, police said.