Pig farmer’s matrimonial madness

SURAT THANI: A mentally disturbed pig farmer threatened to hang himself and his baby daughter from a flagpole if the police did not comply with his demands to be locked up in a prison cell for 18 months. It was later learned that the crazed man was desperate to find a retreat from his long-term lovers. The incident occurred just before 8 pm on June 16 in front of the Baan Nasarn Police Station, where police were preparing to hoist the flag as part of their daily morning ritual. The deranged man, identified as 43-year-old Preecha Golaga, put his one-year-old baby daughter “Nok” in a headlock, placed a nylon rope around her neck and threatened to hang her – and then himself – if police did not lock him up for 18 months. He specified Nakhon Sri Thammarat Provincial Prison as his penal facility of choice. After a 30-minute standoff, police negotiators were able to calm him down, with his daughter suffering no more than slight abrasions on her neck. K. Preecha had come to the prison earlier claiming that “someone was out to get him”. Suspecting that the man may have been driven to his bizarre behavior by illicit drugs, police contacted his first wife, or mia, Wantana Golaga. She told them that the man had no history of drug abuse. “In fact, he is a pig farmer – and a rich one, too,” she told them. Hearing this, the police decided not to arrest Preecha and instead opted to send him for an examination at Suan Saranrom, the local mental hospital. He later told the officers that all he really wanted was an extended vacation from his two mia, who had apparently driven him crazy. Once at Suan Saranrom, Preecha caused yet another commotion when he again took his daughter hostage and demanded to be incarcerated. It was not reported why a man in his condition was allowed access to a toddler that he had already injured. The medical staff there were eventually able to calm him down, and at last report were still monitoring his his condition. It was not reported if Preecha ever got his wish of being sent to Nakhon Sri Thammarat Prison, which is home to some to the South’s most dangerous criminals – but mercifully free of Preecha’s two annoying wives.