He forced his girlfriend into a metal casket, locked her inside and left her to die in one of the most horrifying ways imaginable.
Now police say that a 12-year-old girl could be among the victims, all female, of a suspected serial killer who’s being called the “Metal Casket Killer” by the tabloids after hundreds of bone fragments were discovered at his home, four decades after his father had a teen girl butchered.
Police are trying to figure out where – and from whom – nearly 300 bone fragments came from after they were retrieved from a pond near the home of Apichai “Ice” Onkvisit in Bangkok’s Bang Khae district.
Since their discovery Friday, the family of a 12-year-old girl has come forward to say she used to play around the house before going missing in 2011.
In the meantime, forensic examinations of the bones are being carried out at Siriraj Hospital. Police believe they came from at least three people.
The horrifying case involving the scion of a wealthy family accused of following in his father’s footsteps erupted Friday when divers searching 40-year-old Apichai’s home made the grim discovery.
Their attention first turned to Apichai on a tip from a man he had hired. The man told police that he was there when Apichai killed his girlfriend. He said they were both high on drugs when Apichai hit her with a pipe and forced her into the box. To mask her cries and screams, he said that Apichai played music at a high volume.
She was identified as 22-year-old Warinthorn “Kuk-Kik” Chaiyachet. Apichai told investigators that he killed her back in August, according to Col. Jirakrit Jarunapat, by forcing her into a large metal chest. He left Kuk-Kik locked in the container overnight and returned to find she had suffocated to death.
Apichai’s confession came after officers found her body buried in a plastic bag when they first raided his home Jan. 9, but that day’s bandwidth was consumed by a robbery that escalated into a multiple homicide at a gold shop in Lopburi.
Police also found the large metal casket they believe was the one used in the murder. It’s now in the hands of investigators.
Update: 2nd metal casket found in serial killer suspect’s pond of bones
Apichai would have been a toddler back in 1983 when his father, Chalermchai Onkvisit, was arrested for murdering and dismembering a 15-year-old girl. Chalermchai, who owned what was then Bang Khae’s profitable Onkvisit Market, reportedly attacked the girl and dragged her off to kill after he saw her knocking on the glass of a fish tank at his market.
The girl, Nuanprang Bunnag, shares a family name with one of Thailand’s most storied families. After she was killed, her body was cut into pieces and put in a box left near Wat Phraya Krai area, what is now the riverside Asiatique shopping mall. Later, Chamlermchai’s brother-in-law Phayong Saentawee told the police he carried out the grisly deed on Chalermchai’s order.
Chalermchai was convicted and later gunned down in what was believed to be a hit upon his release from prison. No one was ever arrested for his death, but suspicion fell upon his wife after she left the country.
The case against his son mushroomed Friday with the discovery of at least 288 bone fragments. They were inside clothes beneath a large metal gate fastened to a chain and 5-kilogram dumbbell. Police are also investigating the objects.
Police are urging anyone whose missing family members might be connected with Apichai to contact them via hotline 191, 1599 or via the Petchkasem Police Station at 02-455-1718.
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