Bounty of bras reveals a sad tale

ROI-ET: Stories of men dying in strange circumstances while dressed in women’s clothing are not so unusual. A few years ago the BBC reported that an up-and-coming UK Conservative Party Member of Parliament was found dead with “a black bin liner over his head and wearing stockings and suspenders”.

Police in Roi-Et Town, however, were initially left a bit flummoxed by the discovery of the body of a man who had dressed himself up even more exotically than the MP. The deceased was found wearing a black miniskirt with no underwear and no fewer than 15 bras of various colors and patterns. To top it off, he had a black women’s undershirt wrapped around his neck.

The find was reported to Pol Maj Sumet Laoyonkham, Investigating officer at Roi-Et Muang District Police Station. Arriving at the scene he found Jaran Khatphannoh, 43, lying face down wearing the selection of women’s undergarments.

Maj Sumet reported that K. Jaran had some blood coming out of his mouth and nose, but there was nothing to indicate a struggle had taken place or that he had been assaulted. The likely cause of death was a heart attack, police concluded.

What at first appeared to be some kind of sexual misadventure was, however, revealed by K. Jaran’s elder sister Sawaeng Khatphannoh, 45, to be an altogether sadder tale.

K. Jaran had once been married and worked in an optical shop in Bangkok, his sister said. After living together with his wife for a number of years, she left him for another man. K. Jaran tried to win his estranged wife back many times, but to no avail.

Eventually he decided to leave Bangkok and move back to his native Roi-Et, taking all the clothes he had bought his wife back with him as keepsakes, K. Sawaeng said.

Living with his sister, K. Jaran picked up occasional jobs laboring. Every month he returned to Bangkok to see his wife, but she never returned to Roi-Et with him, K. Sawaeng said.

To relieve the anguish this caused him, K. Jaran began drinking three or four cups a day of coffee laced with painkillers, she added.

On the day of his death, K. Jaran must have missed his wife particularly intensely and thus decided to put on all her clothes so that he could feel close to her, K. Sawaeng speculated.