Tip-off leads to skeleton discovery

Tip-off leads to skeleton discovery

Police yesterday discovered a human skeleton in a pond near a house owned by suspect Apichai Ongwisit, 40, who was arrested and charged last week with murdering his 22-year-old girlfriend and concealing her corpse.

Divers found the skeleton, wrapped in clothes and a bed sheet, hidden under a massive round metal object and fastened to dumbbells with chains, police said.

The search of the pond was ordered after investigators were convinced by witness testimony which indicated that there were possibly two more corpses in the pond near Mr Apichai's house in Bang Khae district.

Pol Col Chirakrit Charunaphat, chief of the Metropolitan Police Bureau's Juvenile Sub-Division, said the witness was Mr Apichai's friend, who said they had taken drugs together two years ago in Mr Apichai's house.

While under the influence of drugs, Mr Apichai had told his friend that there were two more bodies in the pond and challenged him to find them for a reward of 5,000 baht per corpse, a source said.

The friend accepted the challenge and presented a skull he found to Mr Apichai to reclaim his reward, but Mr Apichai refused and fired a gun at him instead, the source said.

A bullet grazed the ear of the witness, who ran for his life, the source said, adding that the witness had no idea where Mr Apichai got rid of the skull he had retrieved.

On Wednesday, police raided a house owned by Mr Apichai in the same district and found 100 grammes of crystal methamphetamine and about 2,000 methamphetamine tablets, another source said.

The source said the house on Soi Phetkasem 47 was being used by Mr Apichai as a warehouse for his stockpile of drugs.

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