Slain homeless woman’s DNA found on suspect’s bloody shirt
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20 -year-old Myanmar suspect now implicated in the deaths of at least four people
POLICE HAVE identified the bloodstain on the shirt of a 20-year-old Myanmar suspect identified only as “Jimmy” as belonging to a slain homeless woman whose mutilated body was found under a Bangkok U-turn overpass on Sunday, a source said yesterday.
Police have also identified the homeless woman as 58-year-old Rampa Panjapolvejpisit and officials have contacted her relatives, a police source revealed.
Initial autopsy results showed that she died from blunt force that shattered her skull, said Pol Colonel Dr Pornchai Sutheerakune, head of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Police General Hospital. There were also wounds on her body but they could not be identified as the corpse had already started decomposing, he added.
Apart from checking the body for other people’s DNA traces, including that of the captured suspect, doctors have also collected samples of the woman’s DNA to check against police records.
The suspect was arrested on Friday over allegations that he murdered three scavengers, whose bodies were found in Pathum Thani’s Thanya Buri district last week.
Police are checking to see if he was also involved in the killing of newspaper vendor Wanchai Noimontree, 56, whose body was found with 10 stab wounds on September 5 at a park in Bangkok’s Phya Thai area.
Police are also trying to link the death of the homeless woman to Jimmy as images of him riding a bicycle in the area where she was found in the early hours of last Thursday were captured on a security camera. The woman’s body was discovered on Sunday and she is believed to have been dead for four to six days before.
Meanwhile, city police chief Lt-General Sanit Mahathaworn said despite Jimmy’s denial, police are convinced that he was involved in the murder of the three Pathum Thani scavengers and the homeless woman in Bangkok because the manner of killing and evidence pointed to him.
Previous DNA tests of other bloodstains found on Jimmy’s shirt showed that they came from two slain scavengers. Sanit said more forensic evidence would be required to establish the case, including a test on partial fingerprints found on an umbrella found near the homeless woman’s corpse.
Sanit said security camera footage would be checked to see if Jimmy could be linked to Wanchai’s murder as the suspect was in a park when he was killed.
