Body parts in bag case stumps cops
GRISLY CRIME IN BUSHES ‘APPALS PUBLIC’
>> Police are stepping up an investigation into the grisly murder of an unidentified woman believed to be an Asian who was found beheaded and dismembered in Khlong Sam Wa district in eastern Bangkok.
Investigators said t he body parts belonged to a woman aged around 30 to 35. She had been cut into 14 pieces. Only the right arm was still missing.
Ratthasat Khomkham, a staff member of the Romsai Rescue Foundation, was the first to discover the dismembered body on Sam Wa road near the Darling Mattress Co.
He told police he spotted a backpack on the roadside last Tuesday when he was riding a bicycle for exercise.
A few days later, he saw the backpack was still sitting at the same spot, and it had become bloated. He also smelled a foul odour. He checked the bag and found a human head inside and alerted police on Thursday night.
Police and forensic officials arrived at the scene, which is a poorly lit and isolated area, far away from residential areas. The left side of the road is covered with overgrown plants as high as two metres.
Police found the backpack in bushes off the road. Inside the backpack, they found the head of a woman hidden in a red towel double-wrapped in two blue plastic bags.
The woman was fair-skinned with long, curly, red hair. The right side of her forehead was collapsed. The neck had signs of having been cut by a sharp object. The woman was believed to have been dead four to five days, police said.
About 10 metres deep into the roadside overgrown area, police found two fertiliser sacks. Inside one was a female torso wrapped in three black plastic bags. The other sack contained two upper legs.
Another black plastic bag was also found with a black towel, a black bra, a red, longsleeved Hara jacket, and a red short-sleeved T-shirt, also of the Hara brand. All the clothes had been cut.
Police also found another black plastic bag containing two hands and and two feet and part of the lower arm, and another black plastic bag with two lower legs and two upper arms.
They also found personal belongings such as nail polish, four fashion rings, a gold ring, a pink pair of glasses, and a white T-shirt screen-printed with “Here is Cha-am”, among other items, police said.
Speaking after a two-hour meeting of investigators to consider the case yesterday, Metropolitan Police Bureau deputy chief Pol Maj Gen Sompong Chingduang said that the first urgent task is to identify who the woman is and look for the relatives.
Anyone who think they might be related can ask to check evidence collected at Min Buri police station.
Pol Maj Gen Sompong said police believed the woman was likely to be an Asian.
The victim’s head sustained severe injuries caused by a hard object.
Doctors examining the body revealed the way the body was dismembered showed the killer must have had experience cutting up a human body, Pol Maj Gen Sompong said.
Police would also examine where the clothes of the victim were and bought, particularly the T-shirt with the screening “Here is Cha-am”.
Police will also ask foreign embassies to check missing persons reports, the officer said, adding that police will check security cameras around the area to look for any suspicious people who dumped the body parts.
Investigators were also waiting for the results of forensic tests from the Police General Hospital’s Institute of Forensic Medicine, particularly a check on the victim’s stomach which will shed light on when the victim ate, which in turn will help police to determine when she died.
Pol Col Kritsana Pattanacharoen, deputy spokesman of the Royal Thai Police (RTP), said the case is a grisly crime, causing shock and horror among the public.
National police chief Pol Gen Chakthip Chaijinda has instructed investigators to proceed with the case carefully, based on forensic evidence, and bring the perpetrator to justice as swiftly as possible, Pol Col Kritsana said.
Investigators will not speculate on the motives and need to gather more evidence, he added. Anyone with information leading to the arrest of the killer can contact the RTP’s operation centre at 1599 or contact Min Buri police station on 02-540-7311.
Min Buri police, forensic officers, and sniffer dogs yesterday returned to the scene where the dismembered body was found to look for more evidence, especially the right arm which was still missing.