Transvestite parent suspected, but not charged
Preliminary autopsy results on a 2-year-old apparent-rape victim were not conclusive enough for police to arrest his transvestite guardian for the toddler’s death.
Pongpaya Promsrichan was pronounced dead at Banglamung Hospital May 21 after being brought in by his adoptive father Pornchai Promsrichan. The 34-year-old transvestite claimed the child had suffered convulsions and stopped breathing on the way to the hospital.
Hospital officials immediately called authorities after discovering the child had suffered cut and bruises to its face and had badly torn anus with what was believed to be semen still inside. The transvestite has denied raping the infant and has not been charged with any crime.
Preliminary findings from the Forensics Institute in Bangkok proved inconclusive. A full autopsy needed to be completed to determine whether the child indeed died of heart or circulatory problems as claimed.
Under repeated questioning from police, Pornchai was said to have admitted to investigators that he played roughly with the boy, sometimes squeezing the boy’s genitals and using his teeth and nails on the child. But the Udon Thani native denied killing or raping the boy.
After a May 23 interrogation, police granted a request for coroners to release the infant’s body for a funeral in Issan.
Police said they still do not have enough evidence to arrest the transvestite and acknowledged the child’s anal injuries could have come from infection or from having something inserted in the anus.
Meanwhile, police are investigating how the “woman of the second category” came to be the boy’s parent.
Pornchai claimed he was given the child by Ekachai Mungmai, 23, and Wandee Pinsap, 20, after the couple acquiesced to the transvestite’s pleas for Wandee not to have an illegal abortion for her unplanned pregnancy. He said he later formalized the adoption and changed the child’s name.
