Mystery surrounds death of Yasothorn woman

RASSADA: Police are investigating the violent death of a woman from Yasothorn Province who was found with her throat slashed on the morning of December 4.

Pol Lt Col Amponwat Sangrueng of the Phuket City Police identified the victim as Nittaya Weruwanarak, 30, from Tambon Phai, Saimoon District, Yasothorn.

Her body was found at about 6:15 am at an unnumbered shack about 500 meters from Soi Kingkaew Uthit 1, in Rassada Village 3.

Her neck had been slashed, exposing the windpipe, and there were also six stab wounds in her chest. A bloody knife with a blade about 38 centimeters long, apparently used to kill her, was found next to her body.

K. Nittaya’s death was reported by her husband, construction worker Somchai Sae-er.

Col Amponwat told the Gazette that K. Nittaya had gone to sleep at the home of a friend, 26-year-old Yupaporn Pohsri, at about 2 am that morning, after an argument with her husband.

The couple often fought because K. Nittaya also had a French boyfriend who sent her 10,000 to 20,000 baht each month and occasionally came to Phuket to visit her.

Neither the name of the Frenchman nor his current whereabouts were disclosed.

K. Yupaporn told police that at around 6:05 am on the day of the murder she left K. Nittaya in her house before visiting K. Somchai, who lived about 100 meters away in the couple’s small home in the poor, densely settled area. She wanted the man to take his wife home, she said.

Around 10 minutes later, K. Somchai accompanied K. Yupaporn back to her house to see his wife. They discovered the body of K. Nittaya lying in a pool of blood on the floor inside the shack.

Relatives of K. Somchai told the police that K. Nittaya had come to visit them two days before her death to apologize for her bad behavior, in carrying on relationships with two men, and to ask for their forgiveness.

Police noted that if the death was murder, the assailant must have planned it meticulously in order to have carried out the attack and escaped in just five minutes.

There was a crowded coffee shop opposite the house where many people were eating breakfast when the death occurred, and none reported having seen anything unusual, he added.

Col Amponwat told the Gazette that K. Nittaya’s husband, her relatives and other witnesses all theorized that she might have committed suicide.

Police, however, were unable to find any fingerprints on the knife, he said, and doctors who examined the body said that there were no indications that the wounds had been self-inflicted.

“We are still investigating and have yet to reach a conclusion in this case,” said Col Amponwat.