Songsak Songsaeng, who is accused of killing five children born to two of his wives, has been detained in prison pending further questioning.
Mr Songsak, 46, was sent to the Bangkok Remand Prison and his current wife Sunan Nahuanin, 40, was taken to the Central Women’s Correctional Institution after a Criminal Court hearing on Thursday. Nobody turned up to seek their release on bail.
The Criminal Court on Friday also issued an arrest warrant for a former wife of Mr Songsak in connection with four deaths.
Mr Songsak and his current wife are accused of colluding to kill their two-year-old daughter, transferring and concealing the body to cover up the cause of death in violation of Sections 83, 199 and 290 of the Criminal Code.
Mr Songsak confessed to the charges. Ms Sunan admitted to transferring and concealing the body but denied taking part in the killing.
The two were arrested in Pathum Thani on Sept 20 and taken to Kamphaeng Phet to point out where their two-year-old daughter was buried. Her body was found covered in concrete at her mother’s house. After that they were brought back to the Bang Khen police station in Bangkok on Wednesday.
Mr Songsak’s former wife, Jessada Meepian, has accused him of beating and torturing her while they were living together. They had five children.
However, police now say she too is believed to have been complicit in the crimes committed by her former spouse.
Under the warrant issued on Friday, Ms Jessada, 33, faces five charges: colluding in physical abuse causing serious injury, colluding in physical abuse causing death, concealment or destroying bodies, helping a suspect escape punishment, and altering corpses or areas where corpses were found before autopsies could be performed in a bid to conceal crimes.
Pol Maj Gen Noppasil Poonsawat, the deputy metropolitan police commander, said that during questioning on Wednesday, Mr Songsak admitted he had killed four of the five children born to Ms Jessada, all of them boys.
The bodies of the first two sons were dumped in the Bang Sue area in 2013 and 2014 and the two other bodies in 2016 and 2018 in Sai Mai.
Pol Maj Gen Teeradet Thamsuthee, chief investigator of the Metropolitan Police, said bones believed to be of the four boys had been collected from in Bang Sue and Sai Mai and were undergoing DNA tests.
Mr Songsak would be charged with four more murders pending the results of the test, he added.