Businesswoman gunned down in Patong
PATONG: A 27-year-old woman from Udon Thani, Nilasnuch Tongnun, was shot dead by hitmen on Friday evening while chatting with her uncle and neighbors at Ericsson Guest House on Nanai Rd.
Pol Lt Col Boonlert Onklang, of Kathu Police Station, said, “She was shot four times: once in the chest, once in the left shoulder and twice in the back.”
Col Boonlert said police who went to the scene of the shooting found three bullets on the ground and a trail of blood from a marble table in front of the guesthouse to K. Nilasnuch’s home 40 meters away.
“She was sitting outside the guesthouse at about 10.30 pm with her uncle, and the sister and the daughter of the owner of the guesthouse, when two men on a Blue Honda Wave motorcycle, both wearing helmets, pulled up alongside,” Col Boonlert said.
“The man on the back of the motorbike shot K. Nilasnuch twice before getting off the bike. He then walked up to her and fired twice more. When he was sure that she was dead, he got back on the motorbike and [the men] rode off.”
The trail of blood was caused, police learned, when K. Nilasnuch’s uncle carried her to her home.
Col Boonlert said that a man, known to police only as “K. Pong”, had rented a room in the guesthouse about five days before the shooting, but that he had not been seen since K. Nilasnuch was shot.
He added that witnesses had seen two men riding around the area on the same motorbike in the days leading up to the shooting. However, he said, witnesses could not give a description of the men as they always wore full-face helmets.
Col Boonlert said that K. Nilasnuch was planning to open a spa and silk shop in the Jungceylon shopping complex with a business partner.
“She had signed the contract and had already paid the developers for rent and decorating. Last year, more than 1 million baht was paid into, and then withdrawn from, one of her six bank accounts. We believe this money was used to pay for her shop,” he said.
“She was planning to go to Sweden on July 12 because she has a Swedish boyfriend, whom she met about two months ago,” Col Boonlert added.
K. Nilasnuch’s body has already been cremated at Wat Patong.
Police are continuing their investigation into her murder.
