A 40-year-old man accused of assaulting his autistic 11-year-old stepdaughter then pawning her off on a taxi driver with orders to take her to hospital was finally arrested yesterday.
Chaiyuth Kongchareon was caught while trying to withdraw cash at a branch of Krungthai bank in Phetchaburi province, after a clerk recognized him from the news and alerted the police.
Last night, he was brought back to Samut Sakhon province — a two-hour drive from the bank where he was arrested. Police then took him to perform the traditional crime reenactment for gawking reporters on the same day, Thairath reported.
According to police, on Tuesday, Chaiyuth picked up his 11-year-old stepdaughter from school in Angthong province, where she lives with her grandparents. But instead of driving the girl to see her ill mother at the hospital in town, Chaiyuth instead drove her to Samut Sakhon province, where he usually lives with her mother.
He confessed to beating and sexually assaulting the child at a deserted house in Soi Luangbang. After that, he went back to his home — located about 10 minutes away from the scene — to take a shower, police said.
Chaiyuth then came back to check on the girl, who was nearly unconscious from blood loss by that point. He said he had intended to drive her to the hospital himself, but then came across a taxi driver, on the main road so he handed her off to the cabbie. Uh huh.
Police said that Chaiyuth claimed to be stressed out because his wife had been ill and regularly required expensive kidney dialysis treatments.
When reporters asked why he did it, Chaiyuth was quoted by Khaosod as saying: “It’s not about the kid. Everything that happened — was all her mother.”
Gotcha. Because nothing beats “stress” like sexually abusing a 11 year old child.
Meanwhile, the girl’s mother, who is staying at Po Thong Hospital, said that she had been in a relationship with Chaiyuth for nine years and that she never had suspected he was capable of such a thing.
The Ministry of Social Development and Human Security will aid the family and help the victim get the needed psychological therapy.
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