More shocking news from the Land of Smiles. Nong Gift, 21, had been watching the Champions League final with friends 26th May 2018 at a pub in Chanthaburi, Thailand. The cosmetics seller was believed to have passed out inside the pub. Relatives claimed that she had been drugged. The pub’s CCTV revealed that she was carried away at 2.00am and placed on the back of a pickup truck by four men who said they would take her home.
The men, including one who knew her, drove her to a secluded orchard where it is believed that she was repeatedly raped and then beaten to death. The gang comprised Nattaphong Saenkraud, Patti Boonthal, Panya Chan Somdee and Suitsit Jaechim. They had apparently confessed their involvement to police and were taken for a crime re-enactment at the crime scenes.
Stitched CCTV footage below shows the men carrying Nong Gift out of the bar and into the back of a pickup truck with the help of one of her female friends who thought the group would take her home.
All this is shocking, if not disgusting, but what is the lesson here, really? Some people say that one should never drink and hang out late, but that does not seem to be the problem here. Drinking to excess is a very common problem in Thailand. Many of my Thai friends did it all the time and you can say that they were vulnerable when intoxicated, but apart from road accidents, I’ve not heard of any one of them getting raped and killed.
Considering the fact that one of the men was someone she knew, I suspect that the culprits in Nong Gift’s case did not set out to humiliate and then kill her simply because she looked vulnerable. Like her relatives, I believe she was drugged and the rape/murder was an act of revenge – which is far more common in Thailand than raping and killing the intoxicated and vulnerable. While it’s not safe to drink to excess, it’s even more dangerous to offend the evil.
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