Sodomy slaying suspect 'killed before'

Sodomy slaying suspect 'killed before'

Police questioning Chiang Mai murder suspect Para Chusri, 52, say they have linked him to other crimes. (Photo by Cheewin Sattha)
Police questioning Chiang Mai murder suspect Para Chusri, 52, say they have linked him to other crimes. (Photo by Cheewin Sattha)

A 52-year-old man charged with the drug-fuelled murder of a woman in Chiang Mai over Songkran faces charges for a similarly grisly crime in Bangkok nine years ago, according to police.

Para Chusri, a resident of Bang Lamung district in Chon Buri, was charged by Thung Mahamek police in Bangkok with murder and rape in 2006, Pol Maj Gen Preecha Rattanaphan, deputy chief of Provincial Police Region 5 said on Saturday.

The victim, identified as Urai Waihong, 31, who worked at a Patpong go go bar, was found dead in a guesthouse in Bangkok's Sathon district on Sept 2, 2006. She had been sodomised with a beer bottle found inside her abdominal cavity and had suffered severe bleeding.

Witnesses had seen her going out with the suspect that night. A warrant had been issued for his arrest but police could not track him down at the time until he was arrested in Chiang Mai in connection with another killing.

Police said that during his interrogation on Saturday, Mr Para admitted he had persuaded Ms Urai to accompany him to a hotel where he had sexually assaulted her with a bottle. He said he fled after she died, Thai media reported.

Mr Para was apprehended around noon on Thursday during a police raid on a guesthouse in tambon Chang Moi in Muang district of Chiang Mai. Police also seized a mobile phone belonging to victim Samorn Klangdet, a motorcycle and the clothes he wore on the day he allegedly killed her. His image had been captured by a closed-circuit television camera.

Samorn, 33, who worked at a beer bar in Chiang Mai, was found dead in a hotel room on Chang Klan Road in Muang district on Tuesday.

An autopsy found bruises to her face and severe cuts to her vagina and anal area. An empty glass water bottle was found inside an abdominal cavity. Doctors said severe bleeding from her vagina and rectum was the cause of death.

Pol Maj Gen Preecha said police in Chon Buri, the suspect's home, had supplied information about similar unsolved murder cases in the province.

He asked people who believe they may have been among the man's victims to come forward and see if they can identify him at the Chiang Mai police station.

Police said the suspect used to be a garment merchant and later changed his job. He liked to visit nightspots and often claimed to be a foreign tourist from Malaysia or Vietnam to lure Thai women into going out with him.

In Chiang Mai alone, he was suspected of three other similar assaults, said Pol Maj Gen Preecha. Two cases in the South in which the victims had been sodomised were also being investigated.

Police who searched Mr Para's room in Chiang Mai said they found several types of tranquilisers as well as sexual stimulant drugs.

Police on Saturday afternoon were seeking court approval to detain him. The officers oppose his release on bail for fear he might flee.

Mr Para currently faces seven charges in separate murder cases that carry the death penalty.

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