Police in Chanthaburi are poised to arrest two more suspects in the May 26 abduction and gang-rape of a 21-year-old woman who was then left for dead.
Makham superintendent Pol Colonel Chettha Keesawan said investigators noticed two additional suspects in CCTV camera recordings, supporting witness testimony that there may have been more people involved than the four suspects already in custody.
The single mother, who raised two young children on her own by selling cosmetics online, was at the Orbit Pub in Muang Chanthaburi with three female friends but then vanished. The friends assumed she’d gone home.
A CCTV camera recording widely shared on social media, however, showed four men carrying the unconscious victim out of the pub and placing her in the back of a pickup truck that then sped away.
Police swiftly arrested Natthapong Saenkla, 24, Patthawee Boontham, 23, Surasit Jaikhammee, also 23, and an 18-year-old man whose name was withheld due to his age.
Three of the men confessed to rape, while Surasit said he was present but did not take part in the rape.
The victim’s family believe she must have been drugged or plied with alcohol and unable to resist being abducted and vowed to wait until the case is solved before collecting her body from Phra Pokklao Chanthaburi Hospital’s morgue for religious rites.
The nightclub owner could be charged with allowing people under 20 onto the premises, since the 18-year-old suspect was among his patrons, and, if the post mortem on the victim turns up any illegal substance, with allowing patrons to take illicit drugs.
The Nation
