Sleeping teenager shot dead

PATONG: A 15-year-old boy, sleeping peacefully at home, was killed in the early hours of Saturday in what police say appears to have been an accidental shooting. Pol Col Kokiat Wongworachart, Superintendent of Kathu Police Station, told the Gazette that Suchart Duangjamlong, 15, was asleep when two bullets, fired from outside, went through the wooden wall of the boy’s home. One bullet hit Suchart in the left shoulder and the other in his right arm. “The bullet that went into his left shoulder continued on and severed one of the carotid arteries,” Col Kokiat said. “Whoever fired the shots was about three meters away from the house, based on where we found one of the bullet casings. Judging from the size of the bullet, the weapon used was a 9mm pistol,” he said. Suchart’s mother told the police that, shortly before dawn, she heard two gunshots, so she got up to see what had happened. In her son’s room, she found the boy lying on his bed in a pool of blood. She immediately took him to Patong Hospital, but Suchart died in the emergency room shortly thereafter. “It seems like someone was playing with a gun, then fired it – whether accidentally or not we don’t yet know. Suchart was just very unlucky to be in the line of fire. Col Kokiat thought it unlikely that Suchart’s death was deliberate. “You would have to be a real expert,” he said, “to be able to shoot in the dark like that and hit the target, never mind hitting the target through a wooden wall.” The Kathu police are investigating various possibilities but their inquiries so far have failed to indicate that Suchart had any conflicts with anyone. Suchart moved to Phuket from Phitsanulok about four months ago to help his mother sell silks and batiks on Patong Beach.