RATCHABURI: A 70-year-old man accused of shooting a pregnant woman to death and seriously wounding her husband on Friday has turned himself in to police, claiming a land dispute drove him to open fire on their car.
Krit Thanathavornrit surrendered at the Pak Tho police station late Friday night and handed a .38 pistol used in the fatal shooting to Pol Col Sombat Phor-ngam, the station chief. He was taken for a crime re-enactment on Saturday.
The shooting happened in broad daylight on Soi Sabaijai in tambon Yang Hak of Pak Tho on Friday. A white Honda Jazz was found lying in a ditch at a guava plantation when police and rescue workers arrived after being alerted at around 2.30pm.
Driver Pitak Sukmak, 31, of Muang district in Ratchaburi, sustained gunshot wounds to his neck and his left hand. His wife Jindarak Khunnut, 28, who was four months pregnant, was shot dead in the front passenger seat. She had three gunshot wounds in her head, left ear and left arm.
Police immediately launched a manhunt for the gunman, who had fled in a Honda car with Nonthaburi licence plates.
Mr Krit, 70, later contacted police and arranged to surrender. Officers said he confessed to shooting the couple in a fit of rage over a land dispute.
He said he had bought a land-reform plot from the mother of Ms Jindarak and then built a house on the site. Ms Jindarak, who did not want her mother to sell the plot, filed a complaint against him. This led to a dispute, said the suspect.
Mr Krit said he had was with a worker who was building a gate at the entrance of his house when the couple arrived in their car. A quarrel erupted, during which he pulled out a .38 pistol and fired on the car.
He claimed he did not know whether the bullets had hit anyone. The driver sped off but the car rammed into the fence of a nearby house, about 100 metres from the scene of the shooting. It plunged into a ditch. After seeing what had happened, Mr Krit told police he decided to flee in his car before turning himself in.
Mr Pitak, who was being treated at Ratchaburi Hospital, was reportedly declared out of danger.
Local residents look at the car that plunged into a ditch after a fatal shooting in Pak Tho district of Ratchaburi. (Photo: Saichol Srinuanchan)
KritKrit Thanathavornrit, 70, is taken for a crime re-enactment in Pak Tho district of Ratchaburi on Saturday. (Photo: Saichol Srinuanchan)