AYUTTHAYA: Police are stepping up their efforts to catch the culprits involved in gangland-style killings in Ayutthaya’s Bang Ban district on Tuesday night, suspecting the four deaths may be linked to a business conflict or a possible dispute involving drugs.
Ayutthaya Provincial Police chief Pol Maj Gen Sermkid Sitthichaikarn and Provincial Police Region 1 deputy commissioner Pol Maj Gen Mathee Kusolsrang yesterday called an urgent meeting with investigators and urged them to track down anyone involved in the murder of the four people as soon as possible.
The victims, a couple and two friends, were shot and killed at close range inside a two-storey house in tambon Kob Jao.
The shooting took place between 9pm and 10pm on Tuesday. Police were informed of the incident at 6pm on Wednesday.
When they arrived at the scene they found the bodies of two men and two women lying face down near one another in a bedroom on the house’s second floor, and one spent 9mm shell.
All four victims were found on or near a mattress.
Each victim had been shot one time in the back of the head, Pol Maj Gen Sermkid said.
Police identified the slain couple as Nattanicha Kijkasem, 37, who was the owner of the house, and her husband Worawit Wangmanaopitak, 47.
The two other victims are Pisanu Pakammoon, 56, and Pakinee Bangkomnet, 42, both natives of Chiang Rai.
Pol Maj Gen Sermkid said police did not find any indication a fight took place at the scene.
No valuables had been stolen from the house, except for Nattanicha’s .38 pistol.
Pol Maj Gen Sermkid said they were premeditated and brutal murders which have attracted a lot of public attention, which is why he wants his investigators to bring the suspects and whoever else was involved to justice as soon as possible.
He said investigations have found there must have been more than two perpetrators inside the house as they were able to force the four victims to lie face down before shooting them.
He said investigators are focusing their probe on personal conflicts stemming from both legal and underground businesses as well as illegal drugs, as Pisanu and Pakinee were from Chiang Rai’s border area.
Pol Maj Gen Mathee said police would take a further four days with their investigation, saying details about the case would become clearer on Monday.
''Investigators are trying to piece together what they have found and collected at the crime scene into their investigations and we are confident the murderers must be firearms experts as they shot and killed the four at close range,’’ he said.
The 15-year-old son of Pisanu yesterday travelled from Chiang Rai to meet investigators and wanted to take the body of his father back to Chiang Rai for a funeral rite.
He told investigators that Pakinee was a new girlfriend of his father and his father made a living by selling ducks and often drove his pickup truck to buy the birds.
Nattanicha’s father Chalerm Kijkasem, who lives near his daughter, said she did not have a job and her husband sold second-hand cars.
He told police he heard gunshots between 9pm and 10pm on Tuesday night but did not suspect anything because the couple often fired shots to ward off dogs that were barking at night.
He only went to check on his daughter on Wednesday evening and found the bodies after not hearing from her for almost a day.
Mr Chalerm said the man and woman from Chiang Rai were not relatives and he thinks they were probably his son-in-law’s friends.