Thai man hails taxi from female-only app and murders driver

A 21 year old Thai man has been arrested under suspicion of murdering a female taxi driver in central Thailand on Saturday.

On Saturday, officers from Chaiya Phruek Police Station were notified about the discovery of a female body in the Khlong Khoi subdistrict of Nonthaburi province. Police and volunteers from the Phor Teck Tung Foundation went to the scene, some overgrown grass along a highway, to investigate.

Police said the woman’s neck and wrists were tied up with ropes and her body was dumped in the forest.

The deceased was identified as 50 year old Ketyukol [surname reserved], a female taxi driver who disappeared along with her white Toyota sedan after picking up a passenger from the Pla Thong Flats in Rangsit, Pathum Thani province, on Saturday morning.

Investigating officers identified one main suspect after learning that he asked his girlfriend of two months to request a taxi for him through a female-only taxi-hailing app from the Pla Thong Flats to Prueklada Village in Bang Bua Thong district of Nonthaburi province on Saturday at about 10.30am.

Officers from Bang Bua Thong Police Station arrested a 21 year old man at Pla Thong Flats under suspicion of murder and robbery.

The accused confessed to murdering Ketyukol and said he had already sold her car.

The police confirmed his confession by asking him to lead them to the spot where he dumped her body.

Police didn’t say exactly how the 21 year old murdered Ketyukol or reveal further circumstances around her death.

The suspect was taken into custody to await prosecution.

The murderer did not know Ketyukol. He intended to murder someone, a woman, by ordering a taxi via an app which only employs female taxi drivers and accepts female passengers.

Violence against women in Thailand is rampant.

Today, a 37 year old Thai man was arrested for murdering his mother in an apartment in Bangkok by smashing her head with a blunt object.

Four days ago, a half-naked corpse of a woman was found by a railway in Sa Keao province sparking a murder investigation.

Yesterday, the violent monk who attacked his 17 year old granddaughter and left her for dead in Ubon Ratchathani last week was found hanged in the forest.