Bangkok Post – Young child sole survivor of horrific Khon Kaen shooting

Two-year-old girl left alone in shock after father kills ex-wife and two others before committing suicide

KHON KAEN: A jealous man shot his ex-wife, her mother and a teenage relative before turning the gun on himself at a house in Mancha Khiri district on Saturday, leaving his two-year-old daughter alone and in shock.

The shootings took place at a house in Khampom village, tambon Phon Phek, said Police Capt. Phongphit Thanaphanpakdee, deputy chief of investigations at Mancha Khiri police station, who was alerted at around 11:30 a.m.

Police, forensic officers, doctors and rescue workers rushed to the scene and found a Toyota car with a Nong Khai license plate parked in front of the bungalow. Inside, they found a woman, later identified as Jaruayporn Faengrit, 50, lying dead on a bed with two gunshot wounds to her body.

Next to the body lay that of her daughter Khalita Faengrit, 28, with two gunshot wounds to the head. Noppadol Unthasee, 55, a former husband of Khalita, lay dead on a bed with a bullet in his mouth. The body of Phonphiphat Thongyot, 18, was found dead in a bathroom with two gunshot wounds to the head.

A two-year-old girl, the daughter of Noppadol and Khalita, was shaking with shock as she sat near her mother’s body. The police immediately took her out of the house.

Orn Faengrit, 68, Khalita’s grandmother, told police the house belonged to Ms Yaowaluck, the mother of the deceased teenager Phonphiphat. She worked in Bangkok with her husband, letting their son stay in the house as he studied at a local school.

Khalita was Yaowaluck’s younger sister. She had a daughter with Noppadol, who lived in Nong Khai where he owned a resort along the Mekong River.

Khalita had two children from a previous marriage before marrying Noppadol.

“From what I know, Miew (Khalita’s nickname) was often physically abused by her husband,” Ms Orn said. “This prompted her to run away to live with her parents in Mancha Khiri. Noppadol kept persuading her to come back. She then came back to live with him. But the domestic violence happened three or four times.”

Khalita later confided to her relatives that she had broken up with her husband, her grandmother said. She and her daughter then moved into her older sister’s house.

On Saturday morning, Noppadol arrived at the house and tried to reconnect, but Khalita refused. There was an argument before gunshots were heard, Ms. Orn said.

Amporn Chaokudrang, a 56-year-old neighbor, said she heard eight gunshots over a period of about 10 minutes. At first, she didn’t think they were gunshots, but her son insisted the sound was gunfire. She immediately alerted the village chief.

Mancha Khiri police chief Col. Pichai Nakhandee said witnesses told investigators the couple separated about a year ago and the man had often tried to reconcile before the violence erupted.

According to an initial police investigation, the fatal shooting was motivated by a fit of jealousy after the man learned that his ex-wife had had a romantic relationship with someone else.

Police searched Noppadol’s car and found drug paraphernalia. His relatives took his body back to Nong Khai for religious rites on Saturday afternoon.