Another murder in “Burmese Cemetery’

PHUKET TOWN: Another victim of a vicious stabbing frenzy was found floating yesterday morning in a small mangrove klong by Si Sena Rd – an area that is becoming known locally as the “Burmese cemetery”. He had been stabbed about 50 times. Pol Maj Pitsanu Poonwong of Phuket Town Police Station told the Gazette that local residents called the police after finding the man’s body floating in the small klong behind the Saphan Pla Organization (the government fishery dealer) at 10 am. After retrieving the body, officers found that the victim had about 50 stab wounds to the neck, upper chest, stomach and back. “The weapon used appears to have been a sharpened steel reinforcing bar,” Maj Pitsanu said. No one has yet come forward to identify the man, who is thought to have been a Burmese fisherman, about 35-40 years old. He was wearing only blue fisherman’s pants and had a large tattoo of a dragon covering his entire back. Investigators estimate the man had been dead for at least four days. “I believe the victim got into a fight on a boat in another area,” Maj Pitsanu said. “When he was dead, his body was thrown overboard and floated to the place where it was found.” This is the fourth murder in the area this month. On May 4, the body of a man with his head almost completely severed was found on Soi Kingkaew-U-Tid. On May 16, another victim, with some 50 stab wounds, was found near the abandoned Phaya Thai Hospital building. On Friday, a Burmese transsexual, known only as “Bee”, was bludgeoned and stabbed to death before being dumped in a machine shed behind the Provincial Administration Organization (OrBorJor) office on Si Sena Rd. So far, no arrests have been made in any of the cases.