Stepfather arrested after death of 16-year-old bedridden girl

The girl was pronounced as dead at 1.30pm on Thursday at Pathum Thani Hospital after falling into a coma.
An arrest warrant for assault causing a serious injury was issued for the suspect, Ekkachai Reungrak, after the girl’s uncle filed a police complaint last Friday, but he could now face an additional charge of murder. 
The girl, who had been bedridden since birth due to autism, had been under the care of her grandmother, who fell sick on July 9. She was subsequently placed in the care of her mother who had remarried and lived with Ekkachai and their three children at Klong Chan Flat. 
After the couple failed to return the girl to her grandmother’s care on July 12 as scheduled, her uncle checked on her and found that she had been hospitalised with a serious head injury from apparently inflicted by blows to the head. He then filed a police complaint.
Ekkachai reportedly admitted to police that he had assaulted the girl on impulse and did not know that she had a particularly fragile skull due to her condition. He also apologised for the incident while insisting that he had not been inebriated on the day of the assault but had been under a lot of stress and angry. 
Ekkachai does not have a prior criminal history and his neighbours told police that there had not been incidents of domestic violence in the family before.