A 27-year-old man has been apprehended in Phatthalung for allegedly detaining and beating a woman to death after they met through a dating app.
The man also allegedly assaulted and detained another woman for a month before she was rescued by the police during his arrest.
The suspect, Thanadej Kaewchuang, was arrested by Crime Suppression Division (CSD) sub-division 6 at an apartment building in tambon Khuha Sawan of Muang district on Wednesday night, Pol Lt Gen Jirabhop Bhuridej, commissioner of the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB), told media yesterday.
The man was wanted on an arrest warrant issued on Sept 29 by the Criminal Court in a murder case.
The arrest came after Bang Yi Khan police discovered the dead body of Kamolphet Lamul, 26, in a house in Bangkok Noi district in Bangkok on July 21. Bruises were found over her body, and her spine and skull had been badly damaged.
Police said the suspect and Kamolphet first struck up a relationship through a dating app nearly a month before she was invited by Mr Thanadej to come to the house. The suspect fled after her death.
Afterwards, police, acting on a tip-off as to the suspect’s whereabouts in Phatthalung, raided the apartment to arrest the man.
There, police found a 31-year-old woman, a Lamphun native, badly injured in the room. Her body was covered in bruises, her face seriously swollen, and 10 of her ribs were broken.
“I thought I would die in this room,” said the woman, identified as Noei.
Ms Noei told police that she met Mr Thanadej on a dating app in early August. A month later, the suspect asked her to live with him. She decided to take a train from the North to the southern province. She was attacked during their first meal together when Mr Thanadej accused her of looking at another man in a market.
He hit her with a rice plate and poured soup over her head. He later dragged her to his room, attacked again and kept her there until the police came.
“When he took meth pills, he attacked me again,” she said.
Following his arrest, a urine test showed Thanadej had taken meth.
Pol Lt Gen Jirabhop said the man had confessed to the murder in Bangkok and for attacking Ms Noei in Phatthalung.
He also said Thanadej had a violent criminal record.
In 2016, he was convicted of murder for which he was sentenced to 10 years in jail, but his sentence was later commuted to 5 years and 10 months. He was released in January last year.
Previous brushes with the law saw him prosecuted for drug possession in 2014 and 2015.
Pol Lt Gen Jirabhop believed there could be more women who could have been victims.