Wanted Singaporean over Thai girlfriend’s death

The police said they are searching for a Singaporean man seen with his Thai girlfriend near a condominium where the woman was later found dead.

Police said two women lodged a complaint at the Thong Lor station on Wednesday saying they had not heard from their friend Praopilat Paladon, 30, a Khon Kaen native, since Monday evening.

They had a police record of their complaint when they went to the Marque building on Sukhumvit Soi 39 in Watthana district at 6pm on Wednesday. When they visited Praopilat’s room on the 22nd floor, it was unlocked and the air-conditioner was switched on.

Praopilat was discovered dead on the bathroom floor. The body, naked from the waist up, was wrapped in a blanket and a bedsheet soaked with blood. The head wrapped with blood-stained bath robe.

The two friends had told police that Praopilat had a 32-year-old Singaporean boyfriend and she had complained of frequent fights and violence. He was identified as Daniel.

Security video from the condominium building captured images of the couple at an elevator at 6.42pm on Sunday as they were headed out of the building. At 9.17pm on the same evening, the Singaporean man returned her to her room.

The man went back to the condo at 12. 12am on Monday. He rode an elevator to the woman’s room and was spotted leaving the room with his luggage at 3. 15pm on Tuesday.

Two minutes later he climbed into a black Mercedes-Benz before heading out of the building. The police learned the car was registered in Bangkok to a Thai man who died previously.

The mother of the woman, who gave her name as Pla, said by phone on Thursday that she was on her way to Bangkok from Khon Kaen to collect her daughter’s body.

Ms Pla said that her daughter had not answered her phone calls since Monday, so she had asked her daughter’s friends to check.

The Singaporean man first cut off her phone call and then turned off his phone, she added. She referred to the man as her daughter’s “husband”.

Ms Pla says Praopilat had met the man in Singapore, and that they had both returned to Thailand three years ago. He told her to leave her job and said he would support her. He frequently commuted between Bangkok and Singapore.

The mother said she had seen some fights between the couple but that they had not been violent.

Ms Pla said her daughter had forwarded her photographs of injuries on her body, which Ms Pla blamed the Singaporean man. If the daughter went missing, the mother said, it would be because of him.

The investigation is ongoing.