Police bring confessed killer Wandee Sanghtong
back to the scene of the crime for her to fill in the details of what
happened that night.
Teerarak Suthathiwong
Police have arrested the lesbian lover of a married Pattaya woman
who allegedly killed her in a fit of jealous rage outside the house of the
victim’s foreign husband.
Wandee Sanghtong, 34, was captured Aug. 30 at a market in her hometown of
Klongyai in Trat, near the Cambodian border. A search her brother’s home
found a 20cm knife and a missing motorbike.
Wandee was charged with the murder of Kullanit Benjamas, 37, whose bloody
body was found in the front seat of her Toyota pickup truck on Soi
Praphanimit Aug. 26. She had been stabbed five times in the chest and once
in the back.
Despite the wounds, the victim apparently had tried to drive herself to the
hospital, but crashed the truck and died, not to be discovered until hours
later.
Luan Phingphakwaen, 57, who worked as a maid for Kullanit and her
73-year-old husband Christopher Davisson, told police the victim had come
home around 7 p.m. on Aug. 25, ordered her to cook some rice, then went out
again, never to return.
Housing development security guard and friend Suriya Sodchuen, 42, told
police he suspected Kullanit’s lesbian girlfriend, Wandee, in the killing.
The two had begun a relationship a month earlier and Wandee was very jealous
and possessive, he said.
Suriya told police the two women’s relationship had
developed at a torrid pace, with Kullanit attempting to replace Luan as maid
with her new lover. The plan failed when Davisson objected, he said.
Undaunted, the new couple opened a barber shop together on Soi Huay Yai.
Khatcha said Wandee cleaned out the business of valuables before fleeing
Pattaya.
The police commander said witnesses reported that Kullanit picked up two
“tomboy” women at the end of her street the evening she died. One is assumed
to be Wandee.
Police said Wandee confessed to arguing with Kullanit over the love
triangle. In a flash of anger, she said, she stabbed her lover, only
intending to injure her. After realizing she’d died, Wandee told police she
hatched a plan to flee to Koh Kong in Cambodia, but was arrested before she
could leave.
