A 51-year-old man accused of at least 50 burglary and sexual abuse offences in eight provinces has been arrested in Nakhon Ratchasima’s Pak Chong district, police said on Friday.
The man chose his women victims by counting the shoes left outside the front door, to ensure they were alone, police said
Watcharapol Jakkaew was apprehended in the northeastern province by a team of Plaeng Yao district police from Chachoengsao who tracked him to his house in Pak Chong.
He was shown at a police press conference in Chachoengsao on Friday.
The suspect was wanted on an arrest warrant issued by the Chachoengsao provincial court on theft and sexual abuse charges. Arresting police also seized stolen valuables, cash, many pawn tickets and burglary tools found in the house.
Mr Watcharapol had targeted women who were alone, Chachoengsao provincial police chief Theerapol Jindaluang said during the police press conference.
The suspect had looked for target houses during the day, driving a pickup truck around housing estates and communities. He portrayed himself as a merchant wanting to buy used car tyres.
Once he had chosen a target he would rent a hotel room nearby, and then breaking into the house at night, said Pol Maj Gen Theerapol.
Watcharapol Jakkaew confesses young women living alone were his targets for burglary, sexual abuse. (Photo by Sonthanaporn Inchan)
The suspect usually struck after 2am and his main targets were young women living alone or whose husbands worked night shift.
He would figure out how many women or men stayed in a house by checking the pairs of shoes left outside the front door. The man would then break into houses with female shoes, or houses which had only a few pairs of shoes, the Chachoengsao police chief said.
Once inside, he would steal items of value, and if he saw a good-looking woman asleep there he would hold her at knife point and sexually abuse her.
Police alleged Mr Watcharapol had committed at least 50 criminal offences, but the suspect claimed he could remember only 18.
He preyed on people in eight central, northern and eastern provinces, including Lop Buri, Nakhon Ratchasima, Chachoengsao and Chon Buri.
Mr Watcharapol admitted he had spent five years in prison for theft in Pathum Thani. After he was released he had returned to his former habits, spending the last three years burgling homes.
The former inmate said he had learned a lot about house-breaking from his fellow prisoners.
Police said he was hard to track down because he had blurred the licence plate of his pickup truck.