A 42-year-old man has confessed to killing his former wife and her parents in Nakhon Sawan before burying their bodies in a cassava field to conceal the crime, police said on Thursday.
Investigators on Thursday escorted the suspect, Samart Prueksa, to identify the burial site at a cassava plantation in Khok Taknam village Moo 6 of tambon Khok Duea in Phaisali district, following his arrest at a hotel in Pattaya on Wednesday night.
Pol Maj Gen Pattanasak Bubphasuwan, commander of the Crime Suppression Division (CSD), said the arrest came after a village headman notified local police on Tuesday that three family members — Huai Sita, 78, his wife Tim Sita, 69, and their 43-year-old daughter Piwatporn Sita — had mysteriously disappeared from their home.
Police found the front door of the house was locked from the outside. No one was inside, but they discovered that the CCTV wiring had been cut or damaged. Signs of forced entry were also found at a partition leading to the kitchen.
A review of surviving CCTV footage showed Samart, Piwatporn’s former husband, entering the house at about 2.30am on Tuesday before later driving away. Police initially believed he had abducted the three victims.
Local police subsequently coordinated with the CSD to track down the suspect. Investigators later discovered that after leaving the victims’ residence, Mr Samart abandoned his vehicle along a road beside the Rapeepat Canal in Khlong Luang district of Pathum Thani. He then travelled to Pattaya where he rented a hotel room and went into hiding.
Officers from the Hanuman special operations unit of the CSD arrested him shortly before midnight on Wednesday and brought him in for questioning.
During interrogation, Mr Samart reportedly confessed to killing all three victims between June 29 and June 30, before disposing of and concealing the bodies.
Burglary gone wrong
According to police, the suspect admitted he had been in a relationship with Piwatporn but they had separated. He said he had been unemployed and on the run due to an outstanding arrest warrant for theft.
He told investigators he returned to the victims’ home intending to steal money again. Before entering, he disabled the CCTV system, removed its memory card and armed himself with a kitchen knife for protection while committing the burglary.
The suspect claimed the three victims unexpectedly confronted him and that one of them attempted to attack him with a traditional Thai sword. He said he responded by stabbing all three to death in what he claimed was self-defence.
According to police, the suspect then loaded the bodies into his pickup truck and transported them to a cassava field located about one or two kilometres from the house, where he buried them.
Investigators also said Mr Samart admitted to having previously broken into the victims’ home on two occasions. After stealing 114,000 baht on April 21 and 32,000 baht on May 8, he was emboldened to return for another burglary that ultimately ended in the triple murder.
Following the confession, police escorted the suspect to the cassava plantation where the bodies had been buried.
Rescue workers and forensic officers subsequently recovered the bodies and sent them for autopsy while police continued their investigation.
