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BELIEVED to be among the worst serial killers in Thailand's history - Sararat Rangsiwuthaporn, 36, was convicted and sentenced to death yesterday for poisoning a friend with cyanide, in the first of her 14 murder trials.
In the first of her murder trials, the online gambling addict, also known as 'Aem Cyanide' was convicted of lethally poisoning her friend with cyanide in Bangkok last year.
She is also accused of killing other friends under similar circumstances.
She was found guilty of adding potassium cyanide to either the food or drinking water of Siriporn Khanwong, 32, when they travelled together to release fish into the Mae Klong River in Ban Pong district of Ratchaburi on April 14, 2023.
Siriporn fell unconscious and died near the river.
Afterwards, Sararat hid the victim’s bag and bottles of potassium cyanide she had bought.
Police found traces of potassium cyanide at several spots in her car.
There was evidence proving that she had ordered potassium cyanide and had a motorcyclist deliver it to her.
Police were then able to link Sararat to a string of previously unsolved cyanide poisonings going back as far as 2015, officers said.
"The court's decision is just," Siriporn's mother, Tongpin Kiatchanasiri, told reporters following the verdict.
Police said Sararat funded her gambling addiction by borrowing money from her victims - in one case as much as 300,000 baht (nearly US$9,000) - before killing them and stealing their jewellery and mobile phones.
Her ex-husband — a police lieutenant-colonel — was given 16 months in prison and her former lawyer two years for complicity in Khanwong's killing, the lawyer for the victim's family said.
Bangkok Post reported that Sararat was also suspected of administering potassium cyanide to other people between 2015 and 2023, to either avoid debts she owed them or to steal their valuables.
In most cases, the poison was allegedly administered in food. In one case, it was added to diet pills. Only one of her alleged victims survived.
Sararat was arrested on April 25, 2023, and had been detained at the Central Women's Correctional Institution.
She was pregnant when caught. Police wrapped up their investigation into her criminal cases in June last year, about the time she miscarried during the fifth or sixth month of her pregnancy.
Thailand has been the scene of several sordid and high-profile criminal cases.
Earlier this year, six foreigners were found dead in a luxury Bangkok hotel after a cyanide poisoning believed to be connected to debts worth millions of baht.
Thailand is one of a few dozen nations that retains capital punishment. The last person to be executed in Thailand was in 2018. - November 21, 2024
