Anti-drug in-laws gunned down in their home
A man has been arrested after shooting his father-in-law and a brother-in-law dead at their house in Bangkok’s Bang Kae district Saturday morning.
Police say the man was preparing to kill his mother-in-law when they arrived on the scene.
The deadly shootout took place inside a two-storey house at Ban Suk Samran housing estate in the Lak Song area, according to Pol Capt Kittipong Bunset, deputy investigation officer at the Phetkasem police station. Police were called to the house around 7.45am.
On entering the house, police and rescue workers found the body of a man, identified later as 22 year old Pongsathorn Seetapanya, lying face-up on the first floor with a gunshot wound to the left temple. At the back of the house, the body of another man was found, later identified as Thanin Seetapanya. Thanin also appeared to have been killed by a gunshot to the left temple.
Prapassorn Sawetanai, the wife of Thanin, told police that the gunman was her son-in-law Nathee Panthumsen, who had threatened to kill her family as they disapproved of his relationship with her daughter Thanyarat, who he has known since they were at school.
When Nathee got involved with drugs, Prapassorn asked her daughter to end the relationship. The couple separated for a while but now have a baby boy together.
According to his mother-in-law, Nathee told his wife not to contact her family and eventually threatened to kill all of them.
Before the shooting, Thanyarat called her mother to warn her that Nathee was heading to the house to shoot everyone. While they were talking, Prapassorn heard two gunshots. She immediately locked herself in her room on the second floor but the gunman came upstairs and fired shots at the door. She ran to hide in the bathroom and phoned a friend to alert the police. Nathee was subsequently arrested opposite the Phetsakem police station.
The arrest came after an officer noticed the man wearing a face mask. The officer approached him and talked with him briefly before asking him to remove his face mask. On seeing the suspect’s face, the officer immediately arrested him. A gun with eight rounds of bullets was seized.
During questioning, Nathee told police that he had waited opposite the precinct as he expected his mother-in-law to come to give a statement about the shootings and planned to kill her.
