Knife-wielding burglar arrested

PHUKET: Police have arrested a burglar who broke into a home near Tesco-Lotus Sunday night and repeatedly slashed its female occupant with a knife before fleeing.

Pol Capt Supachai Petchsakul of Phuket City Police said that the attack happened about 11 pm in a residential area off Songkhla Rd in Tambon Rassada, near the Tesco-Lotus intersection.

The attacker, later identified as Rawai resident Chawinwat Darakai, 23, was arrested by Phuket City Police for the stabbing 35-year-old Phusanisa “Oy” Makmai, who runs a laundry service from her small, one-story flat.

K. Oy told the Gazette that the attack occurred when she returned home. “I entered through my front door. As I walked to the rear door of my flat, he came at me suddenly from near the back door with a knife I kept in the house.

“He first tried to slash me in the stomach, but the blade didn’t penetrate the skin. Then he began slashing my right arm. I screamed and he ran towards the back door, but my neighbors were already there. So he ran behind me out the front door and I ran to a nearby noodle stand for help,” said K. Oy.

Chawinwat, who was wearing only shorts at the time of the attack, fled barefoot carrying his jeans and the victim’s Nokia 3230 mobile. K. Oy discovered her attacker’s sandals outside her bathroom when she returned the following day, she said.

Her neighbors caught the man and held him until police arrived while she was rushed to Vachira Phuket Hospital for treatment for six knife wounds, she said.

Capt Supachai told the Gazette that Chawinwat had confessed that he had entered the woman’s home to steal valuables, but he had denied that a woman’s bra found in his pocket at the time of his arrest belonged to the victim, as reported by one newspaper.

K. Oy today told the Gazette that her attacker had been charged at Phuket Provincial Court with assault, theft and drug possession, after marijuana was discovered in his pocket.

Chawinwat is being detained at Phuket Provincial Prison, she added.