Phuket nurse in stabbing murder

PHUKET: A nurse at Bangkok Hospital Phuket has confessed to stabbing her husband to death in Rassada last night.

Phuket City Police received a call from the 40-year-old nurse, Mrs Rachada Rattanadilok na Phuket, at about 10:30pm yesterday.

Phuket City Police Superintendent Col Wanchai Ekpornpit, Inspector Col Wijak Tarom and other investigators raced to the scene, a room in an unnamed four-story apartment block on Soi Kiatsin in Rassada, Village 2.

By the time they arrived all they could find were bloodstains.

Mrs Rachada’s husband, 45-year-old Nattanachai Padungwithi, had already been rushed to Bangkok Hospital in Phuket City for treatment.

At the hospital’s emergency room police found doctors frantically trying to save Mr Nattanachai, who was critically injured from a single stab wound to the left side of his chest that severed a coronary artery.

Mrs Rachada, crying over the body, confessed to stabbing her husband. She was taken to Phuket City Police Station for questioning.

Neighbors said the couple’s relationship was characterized by abuse and that Mr Nattanachai often physically assaulted his wife while drunk.

When trouble began brewing between the couple last night, Mrs Rachada grabbed a fruit knife and stabbed her husband once in the chest.

She immediately called police to tell them what she had done and then arranged for her husband to be taken to Bangkok Hospital Phuket, where he later died.

Mrs Rachada, who expressed sorrow for the killing, has been charged with premeditated murder.