A couple in Thailand have been charged with hiding the body of a dead toddler in a refrigerator, Thai police said on Monday (Jan 8).
The body of a two-year-old boy was found on Saturday in a fridge at a townhouse in the Bang Bua Thong district of Nonthaburi, the Bangkok Post reported.
Harnnarong Praiphanom, 31, and his wife, Marisa Thong-iam, 25, are accused of failing to report the toddler’s death to the police and concealing the body. Harnnarong is also accused of drug offences.
Thai media reported that Harnnarong was a friend of the child’s father. Preut Chamroonsart, chief of the Bang Bua Thong police station, told reporters that police would question the boy’s biological parents.
Police officers, forensic experts and a medical team were called to a housing estate on Rattanathibet Road on Saturday.
According to a report from Thai PBS World, authorities had gone to the home after Harnnarong’s mother complained of a rotting smell emanating from the house and that the child had been missing since Jan 2.
Officers found the body of the toddler wrapped in a blanket and placed inside a refrigerator, reported the Bangkok Post.
Autopsy results on Sunday confirmed the boy choked to death on sticky rice, reported Thai media. The boy’s body was cremated on Monday.