A Chiang Mai woman turned private investigator as she tracked down her philandering husband after he used her discount card to make a mysterious goods purchase.
Prang Natpimol
Prang Natpimol, 39, was sitting at home with their 10-year-old daughter on Oct 9 last year when a message arrived on her phone about 9.49pm saying she had earned new points for the purchase of four packs of sanitary napkins and a drink of milk. The purchase raised her curiosity, as she knew nothing about it.
Ms Prang had given her card to her husband, who was supposedly away on a business trip. She contacted the 7-11 call centre to ask about the purchase.
Claiming someone had stolen the card, she asked where the purchase had been made. Ms Prang set off in her car to track down the branch, though she had to visit four or five outlets before she found the right one.
“I persuaded the staff to show me their CCTV vision. It shows my husband standing next to a woman at the counter as they make their purchase,” she told the media last week after she decided to make his affair public.
After seeing the CCTV vision, Ms Prang drove about for hours looking for her husband’s car.
She even visited the local police station, asking to see footage from CCTV cameras around the 7-11, but they told her to come back during business hours.
She was still driving around at 8am the next day, praying for divine intervention, when she finally saw her husband’s car parked at a motel nearby.
“I was praying so I would have my eyes finally opened as to the extent of his unfaithful behaviour,” she recalled later.
Having finally tracked down her husband to the motel, Ms Prang told staff that she had come to see a friend.
In the dramatic scenes which followed, Ms Prang, phone in hand and accompanied by their daughter, knocked angrily at the window of her husband’s unit. He can be seen inside with the woman, who is still in bed.
She is able to gain entry to the room, where her husband’s sleeping partner denies sheepishly that she is a kept woman.
Ms Prang says she doesn’t care, as she intends filing for a divorce. The clip shows her husband inviting her outside to plead with her, as the couple’s daughter looks sadly at her father.
Later, as the father tries to explain himself outside to their daughter, Ms Prang heads back inside to confront her husband’s sleeping partner, who has managed to take her belongings and flee through the back door.
She does, however, grab his smartphone, setting off feverish scenes, not caught on the clip, in which her husband gives chase from the motel as he attempts to retrieve his phone. “I told him I would give it back but I wanted to remove the evidence of his philandering first,” she said.
Ms Prang said her daughter managed to unlock the phone, which yielded a treasure trove of incriminating evidence showing the extent of her husband’s illicit relationship. They include romantic chats, video calls, and pictures in which the couple goes on outings together, wears matching clothes, even matching sanitary masks.
Ms Prang said she left her husband after the motel encounter and talks between them have collapsed.
She is demanding compensation and maintenance to support their child, but her husband insists he has no money to give her. “I have decided to make the clip public because he won’t take responsibility,” she said.
She suspects the other woman is a teacher whom she discovered her husband taking an interest in years ago. When asked if the woman she saw at the motel was the same person, he refused to say.
Her husband, she said, liked to claim he was away on lengthy business trips, and would refuse to have moo kra ta (Thai bar-b-que) meals with his family even as he was dining in the same style with his other woman.
Once when their daughter called him on one of his trips, supposedly to Chiang Rai, he spoke to her brusquely, which aroused her suspicions. Since the confrontation at the motel he had also started bad-mouthing her in front of their daughter.
“It was once a warm, loving family, but now my daughter is aware there are problems,” she said.
She had asked the little girl to write down what her father had been saying about her which she says will also serve as evidence against him as she files for a divorce.
So that’s us, then
A city messenger killed himself after shooting his former lover and co-employee in grief after she ended their three-year relationship.
Rungarun ‘Tor’ Sangwong
Rungarun “Tor” Sangwong, 38, coolly shot his victim, Malinee Kortulama, 34, at her apartment in Dusit district.
Moments later he returned to his own home in Laksi district, said a brief goodbye to a young relative and shot himself in the head. Both worked for a messenger company in Watthana district.
CCTV vision at Ms Malinee’s apartment in Nakhon Chai Si sub-district shows him arriving on Jan 24 about 3pm and taking the lift to the fifth floor. He knocks on the door, and when Ms Malinee answers they start to argue.
When Tor pulled out his gun, Ms Malinee called out to her son, telling him to flee. She follows him, running towards the stairs, but Tor, in hot pursuit, shoots her.
One bullet grazed her face and another entered her arm. Police called to the scene found her bleeding on the stairs. Her son, who was safe, raised the alarm.
The security guard said Tor turned up on his Honda motorcycle, handed over his ID card, and said he was coming to see a friend. “I had never seen him before, but he knew her name and where she lives, so I let him in,” he said.
“I heard several shots about 15 minutes later, but I didn’t realise what had happened until one of the tenants told me,” he said.
After the shooting, Tor took the lift back down to the lobby, retrieved his ID card, and quietly left.
Thung Song Hong police, alerted about the apartment shooting, were looking for Tor later that afternoon when they heard a man had shot himself in soi Ngam Wong Wan 47, Laksi.
Called to the scene, they found Tor’s body in his family home. After returning from Ms Malinee’s place, he said a brief goodbye to a relative, went to his bedroom and evidently shot himself once in the head.
His elder sister, Namkang Nilwong, 50, said she heard Tor arrive on his bike and later heard the shot ring out. “I went to see him, and found my brother foaming at the mouth.” He was taken to hospital but died from his injuries.
Ms Namkang said she was surprised to hear her brother had shot his former girlfriend, as he was a quiet type. “He once had a wife and family of his own until he met the woman victim. They were together three years and broke up a few months ago,” she said.
Media reports said Ms Malinee, the victim, had a family of her own and tried to put distance between herself and Tor.
Druggie outnumbered
A jailbird burglar emerged worse for wear after breaking into a Nakhon Si Thammarat shophouse and attacking the occupants with a knife.
Worawut Jansa-ngiam
Worawut Jansa-ngiam, 36, from Pak Phun of Muang district, needed 10 stitches for stab wounds to his arm, body, and head after the owner, Dusit Palasuek, 55, also deputy mayor of Thon Hong sub-district, managed to wrest the knife away and stab him back.
When police turned up, Mr Dusit and his family, all of whom suffered stab wounds, had managed to subdue Worawut, who was lying face down with his hands and legs tied.
He had broken into their shophouse in Thon Hong, Phrom Khiri on Jan 22 about 4am after gaining entry through the roof.
Dusit Palasuek
Mr Dusit’s wife got up briefly and noticed the lock of an inside door was broken, which aroused her suspicions that a burglar was inside. Moments later, Mr Dusit saw Worawut trying to escape through the roof.
Mr Worawut charged at Mr Dusit with a knife, and a half-hour struggle ensued. Mr Dusit called on two other occupants of the household for help.
In the battle to wrest back control of the knife, Mr Dusit was stabbed in the hand, arm and forehead, himself needing 10 stitches; his daughter, Thiwadee, 32, suffered a hand injury needing five stitches; and her husband Thirakan Hankayankit, 40, was stabbed with a broken bottle, needing four stitches. Household goods were strewn about, showing the extent of the struggle.
Media images showed a dejected looking Worawut sitting in a wheelchair after police arrived and freed him from his restraints.
After being treated, police took him to Phrom Khiri station where Worawut was charged with attempted robbery, breaking in and harming others, with the possibility of an attempted murder charge to follow.
Police say Worawut, recently released from prison, spoke little sense and was probably under the influence of drugs.
Mr Dusit, the shophouse owner, said he recalls Worawut came into the shop several days before, no doubt casing out the joint for the attempted robbery which was to follow.
