Suspects narrowed in girl’s murder

Autopsies contradict over sexual assault

Police are narrowing down the number of suspects in the mysterious death of “Nong Chompoo,” a three-year-old girl whose body was found in a forest in Mukdahan.

Pol Maj Gen Akkapong Pimonsiri, commander of Mukdahan provincial police, said investigators had scaled down the number of suspects from eight to five.

Police are staking out the suspects, none of whom have left the area, he said.

Police have not yet determined how the girl ended up in the forest, whether she was abducted and brought there or first killed in another location, Pol Maj Gen Akkapong told media yesterday.

Police say they have come up with several valuable pieces of information, including an eight-year-old witness who said she saw a heavyset man in an orange T-shirt carrying the victim.

Pol Maj Gen Panu Buranasiri, deputy chief of Provincial Police Region 4, told media that a second autopsy carried out by the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Police General Hospital suggested the victim had been sexually assaulted.

That conclusion was not reached by Sunpasitthiprasong Hospital in Ubon Ratchathani province, which conducted the first autopsy. When asked about that discrepancy, Pol Maj Gen Panu said it might have resulted from a disparity in medical equipment available at the two facilities.

Meanwhile, Dr Saksit Bunyaluk, head of forensic medicine at Sunpasitthiprasong Hospital, yesterday filed defamation charges against netizens and media for damaging the reputation of the hospital after questioning and or/criticising the hospital’s autopsy.

Dr Saksit reportedly said the hospital stood by its autopsy.

“Forensic experts at Police General Hospital only found wounds to the genitals and over the body. These traces do not mean that the girl was attacked or sexually assaulted,” he was quoted as saying.

“People are now heaping scorn onto our hospital,” said Dr Saksit.

The girl, known by her nickname “Nong Chompoo”, disappeared from her home in a village in Dong Luang district, near Phu Phao Yon in Mukdahan on May 11. Her parents had gone to run errands, leaving their older daughter to look after her. The girl reportedly told police that her little sister had simply wandered off.

On May 14, the victim’s body was found in a forest around 2km from her home.