Russian man allegedly murders trans woman in northeast Thailand

Yesterday, a mother in the northeastern province of Surin discovered the rotting body of her 31 year old daughter – a trans woman named Thiraphong – wrapped inside a blanket in a storage room behind their family home. The mother suspects her daughter’s Russian boyfriend, who disappeared a few weeks ago, murdered her daughter. Police say they estimate that the woman was killed 3 weeks ago.

A neighbour who lives behind the house in Prasat district visited 47 year old Wandee, the deceased’s mother, yesterday. The neighbour said she could smell a dead animal rotting behind the house. Wandee found blood stains outside the storage room. When she opened the door, Wandee found her daughter’s rotting body wrapped in a blanket. Wandee said her daughter’s leg was sticking out the blanket and had a putrid appearance. She said the smell was “foul”.

Wandee suspects it was her daughter’s boyfriend, who is of Russian nationality but has worked in Norway for a long time, who murdered Thiraphong. Wandee said the last time she saw her daughter and her boyfriend was on May 22.

The man, his name unknown, called Wandee on the Line app on May 22 to say he would be visiting their home that evening. Wandee asked the man to give Thiraphong’s father 20,000 baht this week and 40,000 baht next week to help pay off his car. Wandee said he agreed and came to drink at their house that night. He got drunk and sang songs as usual, said Wandee.

After that, Wandee didn’t see her daughter or her boyfriend again, and assumed the couple had returned to Phuket where they first met. Wandee or her neighbours did not suspect anything until the smell of Thiraphong’s corpse began emerging from the storage room.

Police suspect the man murdered Thiraphong around 3 weeks ago and tried to hide her body in the storage room. The storage room was locked, so police think he hid the body, locked the door from the inside, and climbed out of the window.

Police from Prasert Police Station are investigating Thiraphong’s murder and trying to locate her Russian boyfriend, who is the prime suspect in the case.

SOURCE: Sanook