Families mourn dozens slain in massacre at Thai day care
UTHAI SAWAN, Thailand — Relatives wailed and collapsed in grief before the small coffins of children Friday after a fired police officer stormed a rural Thai day care center at naptime and massacred 36 people.
At least 24 of the dead were children, mostly preschoolers. The gun and knife attack a day earlier was the deadliest mass killing in Thailand’s history, leaving virtually no family untouched in the rural community of Uthai Sawan.
“I cried until I had no more tears coming out of my eyes,” said Seksan Sriraj, 28, whose wife was a teacher at the Young Children’s Development Center and was due to give birth this month.
Across the country, flags were lowered to half-staff and schoolchildren said prayers to honor the dead, while at the site of the attack a stream of people, including Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, left flowers. The wall outside the small, one-story day care center was lined with bouquets of white roses and carnations, along with juice boxes, bags of corn chips and a stuffed animal.
Relatives crowded a nearby Buddhist temple to receive the dead after their autopsies. Some screamed as the small, white coffins were opened. Others fainted and were revived with smelling salts.
“It was just too much. I can’t accept this,” said Oy Yodkhao, 51, a rice farmer whose 4-year-old grandson Tawatchai Sriphu was among the dead.
Som-Mai Pitfai collapsed at the sight of her 3-year-old niece’s body.
“When I looked, I saw she had been slashed in the face with a knife,” the 58-yearold said, holding back tears after being revived by paramedics.
Police identified the attacker as Panya Kamrap, 34, a former police sergeant fired this year because of a drug charge involving methamphetamine. He had been due to appear in court Friday.
Authorities believe Panya may have been triggered by an argument with his wife. He took his own life, police said, after killing his wife and son at home. In interviews with Thai media, Panya’s mother said there was tension between her son and his wife, and talking with 3Plus News, she said he was stressed by debt.
An initial autopsy of Panya did not detect any illicit drugs, police said. A second autopsy was planned.
Children at the day care center had been taking an afternoon nap at the time of the attack. An employee of the center told a Thai TV station that Panya’s son had attended the day care but hadn’t been there for about a month.
In an interview with Amarin TV, Satita Boonsom, a worker at the center, said staff locked the building’s glass front door after seeing the assailant shoot a child and his father out front. But the gunman shot and kicked his way through.
Satita said she and three other teachers climbed the center’s fence to escape and call police and seek help. By the time she returned, the children were dead. She said one child who was covered by a blanket survived the attack, apparently because the assailant assumed he was dead.