Tragedy strikes in Thailand: Teen athlete brutally gunned down in southern Thailand

In a shocking incident yesterday, a 15 year old boy was brutally gunned down on a road in the Lungsuan district in the southern Thailand province of Chumphon. The tenth-grade student-athlete, identified as P, was shot eight times by three men in a pick-up truck.

Witnesses revealed they had been returning home from a fruit festival when a white Mitsubishi pickup truck pulled up and the occupants in the vehicle fired four to five rounds before speeding off.

P’s 50 year old father, Wachara, and his 44 year old uncle, Chetsada, said the attack was extreme and shocking.

Police reported that there was substantial evidence to believe there were four assailants involved in the brutal murder but they have yet to make any arrests. The boy will not be cremated until the criminals are arrested.

Wachara reached out to the press to help uncover the truth.

Relatives mentioned that P was due to participate in a regional southern sports competition in Phuket, today, July 5. They admitted that P had disputes and fights with some students in the past but they were settled peacefully.

Wachara presented his deceased son’s blood-stained t-shirt to journalists, clearly showing several bullet holes. He confirmed that it was the shirt P had worn on the day of the fatal shooting. Additionally, both the father and son share the surname of a police general, serving as a spokesman for the police Crime Scene Investigation unit, which may indicate a familial connection.

P’s school yesterday held a memorial for him. His peers wrote messages on paper next to his photograph in a white frame, placed next to white flowers.

A journalist later contacted Senior Police Lieutenant Lad, the commander of Lungsuan Police Station, for case updates. Lad revealed the investigation uncovered that there were four attackers.

The driver was identified as a 37 year old man named Tum, a father of a student who previously had a dispute with the victim.

Arrest warrants are out for Tum and the other three suspects too. The motive behind the crime stemmed from the past feud between the two children which escalated when P confronted the attacker’s child, leading Tum, the father, to hire a gunman to assassinate P.

In related news, a teenage motorcycle rider was fatally shot in a brutal attack in Bangkok. Read more about the story HERE.