An autopsy showed that a two-year-old boy whose body was found hidden in a bedroom fridge in Nonthaburi province on Saturday really did choke to death, as a woman who lived in the house claimed, according to police.
Pol Col Preut Chamroonsart, chief of the Bang Bua Thong police station in Nonthaburi, on Sunday said an autopsy by Thammasat University Hospital found that the boy fatally choked with sticky rice in this throat.
The finding went along with the account of a woman who helped raise the boy. She told police on Saturday that her grandfather had fed the boy with sticky rice.
The 25-year-old woman, Marisa Thong-iam, and her 31-year-old husband, Harnnarong Praipanom, were charged with body concealment and failure to report death.
Rescue workers found the body of the toddler wrapped in a blanket and placed inside a bag in a refrigerator in Mr Harnnarong's bedroom at the house in Rattanathibet housing estate in tambon Bang Rak Pattana in Bang Bua Thong district.
Before the discovery, his grandmother alerted police that the boy had gone missing and the bedroom was locked.
Mr Harnnarong is a biological grandson of a 70-year-old visually-impaired man who owns the house where the boy's body was found.
The grandfather, Somboon Praipanom, told police that on the morning of Dec 2 (Tuesday last week) he fed the boy with sticky rice and banana. Then he heard the boy running to a room in the house and he never heard any sound from the boy again.
The late boy's biological father Noparat Duangngam, 29, said he had hired Mr Harnnarong, his friend, to take care of his son because he did not have time to do so. He paid the friend 500 baht a day for the care.