The man who allegedly killed his girlfriend and then dismembered her body, hid her severed head in a backpack and dumped it in the bushes was jealous after she decided to reunite with her ex-husband, police said on Sunday.
Deputy national police chief Chalermkiat Srivorakhan said Thanakrit Prakob, 36, told investigators that jealousy led him to kill Laksana Kamlangkeng, 24, on June 12.
The suspect became consumed by jealousy after Lasana, who he was dating, decided to move back in with her ex-husband, Pol Gen Chalermkiat said.
Mr Thanakrit and the victim worked at the same factory before she resigned in April. They were living together in a flat in Min Buri district before they broke up.
She returned to collect her belongings from the flat on June 12 -- a day that would prove to be her last.
Mr Thanakrit allegedly killed her in the room and used his skills as a former chef in a factory where chickens were dissected to dismember Laksana into 14 pieces. He stuffed her head into a backpack and placed other body parts in sacks before dumping them in bushes in Khlong Sam Wa district.
A backpack containing the woman's head and other items were discovered on Friday.
"The crime was committed at 8pm on June 12, and the suspect used a hammer in the room to kill her," said Pol Lt Gen Charnthep Saesawet, the Metropolitan Police Bureau chief, who was also in the press briefing. "He covered her body with a sheet, and went to work the next morning. On his return, he dissected her body into 14 pieces and then dumped them in several different locations."
CCTV footage showed the two entering his room together on June 12.
CCTV footage shows Laksana Kamlungkeng entering the room she used to share with Thanakrit Prakob in Min Buri district on June 12, 2018.
Later footage captured him leaving the room alone, and two days later carrying several bags out of the room. The footage from the apartment building's security camera provided the principal evidence to arrest the man, he added.
Investigators gathered additional evidence from the woman's body, including fingerprints, and began searching for people connected with her before they found and captured Mr Thanakrit.
Somkid Jaemung, Laksana's uncle, said she had two children with her former husband before they broke up. The woman left her native home in Suwannaphum district in Roi Et to work in Bangkok, and was in a relationship with Thanakrit for about two years, he said, adding that Laksana took him back to meet her parents.
Thanakrit Prakob shows police where he dropped a sack containing parts of Laksana Kamlungkeng's body in a crime re-enactment on Sunday. (Photo by Apichit Jinakul)
The suspect was charged with premeditated murder and concealment of a body, said police.
After the press briefing, he was taken to his apartment to re-enact the crime.
'We're going back home, my girl'
Laksana's family members, including her father, Kaewmoon, came from Roi Et to take her body home on Sunday.
Mr Kaewmoon first went to Min Buri police station to fill out paperwork. When about to get into a taxi to Police General Hospital, he suddenly dropped to his knees and burst into tears.
The family later went to the hospital's Institute of Forensic Medicine to collect the body.
Mr Kaewmoon rapped on his daughter's coffin to tell her that the family had come to take her back to Roi Et. "We're going back home, my girl," he said.
A religious ceremony for the cruelly-murdered woman will be held at Wat Dong Hua Ruea in Suwannaphum.