A male suspect was in police custody on Wednesday, after allegedly trying to kill himself to evade arrest, as police released more details of the gruesome murder of a young woman believed to be a university student.
Police detained the suspect after the woman’s body was found beneath the Udon Ratthaya expressway in tambon Bang Phun in Pathum Thani on Wednesday morning.
A source said the suspect was apprehended in premises at a housing estate and had tried to take pills to end his own life. Police took him to Krung Siam St Carlos Hospital in Pathum Thani.
Pol Maj Gen Yutthana Jonkhun, chief of Pathum Thani police, said investigators were examining camera footage of the roads between the house and the scene where the body was found.
Rescue workers were told to take the victim’s body to the Justice Ministry’s Central Institute of Forensic Science for autopsy.
The body of the woman, aged about 20, was found wrapped in a bedsheet and bound with three black belts worn by students at Phranakhon Rajabhat University, tied around her knees, waist and neck. From the waist down, her legs were fastened with coat hangers.
She had slash wounds to her neck and both her hands had been cut off at the wrists. Her hands had not been found.
Initial reports in Thai media said she was wearing only a skirt, but later said she was unclothed.
Thongdaeng Bonsungnern, 49, owner of a car garage beneath the expressway, said he saw a man riding a motorcycle dump something beneath the expressway about 5am. Mr Thongdaeng had been sleeping inside his car at the time.
The motorcyclist first attempted to cover the object with grass and then picked up bags of garbage lying nearby and emptied them over the spot before riding his bike away.
About 8am, Mr Thongdaeng’s wife Amphawan Sudsawang, 46, saw the garbage scattered over the area, went to look closer and saw what appeared to be a human foot. She immediately called police.
