Child neglect: Bangkok townhouse horror unfolds as deceased minor found in cement-filled cooler

A 12 year old girl was found lifeless inside a 200-litre plastic ice-cooler, covered in cement and fertiliser soil, at a townhouse in Bangkok functioning as an online retail packaging service. The investigation reveals a tale of child neglect, domestic abuse and horrific crime.

The site of the child neglect incident was a two-storey townhouse used for online sale packaging services in Phahon Yothin Road, Anusawari, Bang Khen, Bangkok.

Inside the kitchen on the ground floor, a 200-litre blue barrel utilised for ice storage was found. The upper soil layer of the barrel was mixed with cement. When the cement was broken apart, the body of the pre-adolescent girl, anonymously named “A”, was discovered, estimated to have been dead for approximately 48 hours.

Apinya or Belle, 24 years old, the person who reported the incident, informed the authorities that the victim was a distant relative’s daughter, who, despite not being a student, lived with them from the age of five. The victim’s caregivers were Apinya’s sister, 30 year old Mint, and her 29 year old husband Yutthana, also named Jab.

According to Apinya, the victim had a stubborn character and often stole food from within the house. The caregivers had to constantly warn and punish her, leading to several instances of physical abuse.

The child neglect crime transpired on the evening of the previous day around 7pm, when Mint and Yutthana confessed to Apinya at her residence in Ram Inthra about killing A.

Yutthana declared that he had used a baseball bat to beat A to death at 1am on July 2, after she had been caught thieving nutritional supplement food meant for packaging and delivering to customers, reported KhaoSod.

Apinya went on to explain Yutthana’s subsequent child neglect actions. After the murder, he planned to dismember the body but couldn’t muster the courage to do so. Consequently, he purchased a large plastic container and placed the body inside followed by cement and a layer of soil. After confessing to Apinya, he went to the Din Daeng Flats to meet his sister and hasn’t been reachable since. Meanwhile, Mint was thoroughly interrogated.

The investigators transferred the deceased to forensic doctors for an in-depth autopsy. They are making rapid attempts to capture Yutthana for legal proceedings. While Mint’s degree of involvement and knowledge is still under investigation, if she is found to have criminal accomplice behaviour, charges of joint murder and body concealment will be filed against her according to the law.