Two Burmese men were arrested on Thursday for the alleged murder of a friend whose body was then abandoned in a bin left in the boot of a taxi by a passenger early on Tuesday.

Police later identified the the dead man as a Burmese national, Tun Naibut, and located and went to his rented house in tambon Bang Nam Jued of Samut Sakhon’s Muang district. There they found blood stains and signs of fighting.

Police later arrested Chit San Muang at a house in Nonthaburi’s Bang Yai distirct and then another man, an accomplice identified only as Tajee who lived in the same house as the dead man. They also seized a steel bar and wire as evidence.

Pol Maj Gen Wittaya Prayongphun, deputy commissioner of provincial police region 7, said the two men confessed to killing Tun Naibut. They said they had been drinking alcohol together and got into an argument in which Tajee accused Naibut of stealing 17,000 baht (US$530). They hit Naibut with a steel bar and stabbed him with a piece of heavy gauge steel wire until he was dead.

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They then called another friend, known only as Fujee, to ride a motorcycle to get a taxi. The two men helped stuff the body in a black bin and put it in the taxi’s boot. Fujee then went in the taxi to the Rama 2 area, where he paid the bill, got out and walked away, leaving the body behind early Tuesday morning.

Police said the two men would be charged with murder, and they would try to track down the taxi “passenger”.

Cab driver Uthai Phetseekaew reported to police about 1am on Tuesday that he had found a body stuffed in a bin left in his taxi’s boot after he picked up a man in the Bang Nam Jued area. The passenger directed him to the Rama 2 area, paid the meter fare and walked away.

He realised the man had forgotten his baggage so he returned to look for him, without success. The driver decided to check out what was left in the boot, and found a dead body in the bin. He went to the police.

 

This article was originally published in the Bangkok Post on 26 June 2014.