The Global Cyber Journal of Wit & Wisdom @ Thaiskale.com

As my 30 baht plate of Grapow Basil Stir fry was being cooked at the neighborhood eatery, I did what I and most Thais typically do while waiting–I grabbed the latest copy of Thai Rath newspaper to catch up on the latest action. Indifferent to the featured political headline giving hype to Thailand’s current Prime Minister, Samak, I scrolled the smaller pictures, disappointed to find no raw corpses as is the norm. So, I went to the next best thing, a man in hand cuffs.

In contrary to the west where the front page features one or two of the most crucial world or national stories, Thai newspapers’ front pages are flooded with at least half a dozen different stories, usually domestic and almost always to do with some type of crime–murder, rape, drugs, and scandals are the most marketable to Thai audiences, who are lured and aroused by graphic and controversial pictures that contain brief explanations with the page reference for full story to read more.

As is the focus of this entry, the guy in cuffs, Samarn Surairum, a 35 year old Bangkok taxi driver from Buriram was being escorted from his Sentencing where he was fortunate to be handed a mere eight years for the strangling and burning his 20 year old wife and mother of their son in March of 2005. The confessed murderer had received various praises in his career as an honest taxi driver, including a reward from the Ministry of Tourism five years ago when he returned 300,000 baht that was left in his cab by Russian tourists.

Good deeds aside, the Thai Rath report has it that the murder was in a jealous rage when he suspected his wife, a local Karaoke Bar hostess was having an affair. Apparently the court had taken into account his past deeds and clean record when they reduced the original sentance from 15 years down to only eight.

There were some other gory details in the Thai Rath Thai language report such as after he suffocated her with a pillow and strangled her to her demise with a towel, he was remourceful yet in denial, sleeping with the corpse all night until the smell was so unbearable, when he finally decided to get rid of the evidence, burning it right there on the bed before going to drive his taxi as usual. He apparently wasn’t planning for the entire house to catch on fire, though, and when forensics test revealed that the corpse was long dead before the fire, Samarn was hiding out in his home province of Burirum. He later turned himself in, after all there wasn’t likely chance he was gonna hang for what he did.

I’m not sure what lessons can be drawn here: Don’t marry bar hostesses? Don’t deal with cab drivers, even if they seem nice? Or perhaps, what the court of law is suggesting to us: Murder is not a big deal as long as it’s justified by suspicions and the perpetrator has a credible record…So if you are the jealous type in Thailand and planning to get involved in a shady relationship, make sure you do something good in the eyes of any ministry before you kill her/him–too insure your light sentance will be even lighter. Though, if you’re considering any kind of drugs trade, be forewarned, the state is prone to murder you.

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