One dead, one injured in karaoke brawl

KATHU: Police have arrested youths, including a 16-year-old boy, for stabbing one man to death and seriously injuring another during a brawl at a karaoke bar just after midnight on Tuesday morning.

Tung Tong Police Station Investigator Sub Lt Pattapee Srichay told the Gazette that his station received a report of a fight at the Dowrueng Restaurant and Karaoke on Wichit Songkhram Rd about 1 am on Tuesday.

By the time police arrived at the scene, across the street from Baan Kathu School, both parties had fled the scene. One man, later identified as 22-year-old Sompong Phokha of Srisaket’s Phusingha district, had been rushed to Patong Hospital by Kusoldharm Foundation volunteers for a stab wound in the right side of his chest.

A witness told police that a fight had broken out between two groups sitting at nearby tables, apparently for no reason other than the fact that “each group didn’t like the way the other looked at them”.

“A waitress told us that the two parties began fighting, then the fight moved into the kitchen, where an six-inch knife that was not the property of the restaurant was later found,” Sub Lt Pattapee said.

Just after dawn the same day, the body of 24-year-old Sakhorn Promsri was discovered by villagers in a small lane about 50 meters from the karaoke bar. Sakhorn had been stabbed near the heart. Police estimated that he had been dead for about four hours.

He had probably run out of the restaurant to hide from his attackers and died of blood loss, Sub Lt Pattapee said.

K. Sakhorn was also a resident of Phusingha district, Srisaket.

A team of about 12 officers had little difficulty finding and arresting three suspects, all of whom were taken into custody at their shared quarters on nearby Soi Pothong at midday Tuesday.

They were identified as Prawit Kittikun, 27, Theerawat Intharo, 26, and one minor aged 16. All three were residents of Wangwiset district in Trang and regular customers of the restaurant.

All three have been charged with murder.