Rich woman scorned, oath works magic, beating regret

She can have the lot

Malika Kolaka

A millionairess in Pathum Thani hopes her ailing husband can live with his decision after he left her for another woman.

Malika Kolaka, 57, alerted Muang police and the media last week after her husband of 10 years, Sarayut “Yut” Yingcharoen, 53, left home with a handful of gold and cash for a former employee of hers.

Ms Malika said she was worried the other woman, Sai Fon, or Fon (no surname supplied), 44, perhaps working in cahoots with others, had tricked him into leaving, which could put her husband’s precarious health at risk. Mr Sarayut, she said, had suffered debilitating strokes and lost the use of half of his body and may not have known what he was doing.

He left home with a gold necklace worth three baht gold weight, gold amulets worth two baht in gold weight, and 10,000 baht in cash. He had also transferred money to Fon’s brother-in-law, she said. Ms Malika offered a 20,000 baht reward for information leading to her husband being found.

By Wednesday, however, she was singing a different tune after her husband and Fon reported to Muang police to clear the air and declared he wanted nothing more to do with his wife. He said he was not lured away from Ms Malika, but in fact left of his own free will, as she cared for him poorly, and abused him.

“She would say things like, ‘When are you finally going to die?’ ” he told the media, adding that he left home to be with Fon, who understood him and took better care of him.

Mr Sarayut said he called a taxi to his home on March 5 and later met Fon at a local hotel. The next day, they left for a van terminal opposite the Future Park Rangsit shopping mall, where CCTV cameras apparently failed to capture where they went next.

Speaking to police, he denied any improper conduct in his marriage, insisting Fon had cared for him as a former employer. Ms Malika, according to a contorted backstory she gave the media, had employed Fon at her laundry business at one time, but noticed she and her husband growing close and apparently making furtive phone calls.

Sarayut ‘Yut’ Yingcharoen

Mr Sarayut said he didn’t come forward earlier after his wife alerted police and the media, as he didn’t want to talk to her. He had sold the gold to help him make a new start. The money transfer was to discharge a debt for travel expenses.

He had wanted to flee for the past two years, he said. “My muscles are wasting but my wife treats me like a burden,” he added.

Fon told police that Ms Malika pressured her elder brother, elder sister, and even her daughter at school to get her to come forward after Mr Sarayut left home.

When Ms Malika turned up at the station while Mr Sarayut clearing the air, the two sides had to be separated after Ms Malika apparently started abusing her.

Ms Malika talked to her husband, while Fon waited outside. The two sides agreed to part ways, with Mr Sarayut renouncing any future stake in earnings or assets they had accrued together.

Media reports said he gave up any interest in the couple’s house and land in Muang district; a 9mm calibre gun; two Uea Athon housing estate units, also in Muang district, and several life insurance policies.

He would take up work as a driver for an officer in the armed forces, as he could still drive despite his illness.

Speaking on the Hone Krasae TV show, Ms Malika said she hoped her husband could live with the consequences, now he had made his choice. “He is at risk of another stroke, and will need close care,” she said. “On the day he falls, I hope he realises he made the decision himself.”

Phoning into the show, Mr Sarayut told her not to meddle in his life again, and if he died first, not to bother coming to the funeral. “Don’t worry, I won’t be there for sure,” she said bitterly.

Missing temple cash angst

Luang Ta Tu

Roi Et locals are asking police to re-open inquiries into the disappearance of 400,000 baht from a Muang district temple after a monk’s daughter admitted to theft.

The daughter of a monk at Wat Chockchai Non Kwang temple last week owned up to taking 186,00 baht of the temple’s funds, all of which she spent.

Mystery surrounds the fate of the rest, despite suspects, including the accused, having taken an oath before an image of the temple’s founder, Luang Pu Chockchai, agreeing to submit to whatever grisly fate awaited them if they took it but failed to come forward.

On March 9, after intense questioning, Punyanuch Intakhot, 44, daughter of aling monk Luang Ta Tu, admitted taking two bundles of cash from the top of two safes in her father’s quarters on Feb 18-19.

Senior monks and local body bigwigs who took responsibility for the funds, donated by temple faithful for building works and a planned fund-raising concert, put the security safes in Luang Ta Tu’s quarters. However, he was not given a key, and simply told to watch over the money.

Ms Punyanuch said she was cleaning the place when she spotted the cash. She put it in her apron and took it home.

The cow that Punyanuch bought with the stolen money.

She spent the cash on one baht’s weight of gold jewellery; a cow; and an air con unit which she fitted to her house. 

She also spent the ill-gotten gains paying off debts and personal expenses until there was nothing left. Police sent her to court to be detained on charges of theft.

Ms Punyanuch came forward after almost 10 original suspects including herself took a sacred vow before Luang Pu Chokchai’s image to submit to hellish punishment if they were guilty but did not confess to the theft, within a deadline of three days to a week. She came forward before deadline, prompting triumphant news headlines that the holy vow had worked its magic.

Entertainingly, abbot Phrakru Pithun Anantho said he was in two minds about the vow, as drinking holy water before such a sacred figure could invite disaster upon those who did wrong.

But assembled locals outvoted him and decided the vow should go forward, no doubt thinking: “That’s precisely the point.” The holy water was taken from a water jug in the temple founder’s image hall.

The suspects included the ex-president of the tambon local authority, who kept the key; the village headman who opened the safe and withdrew funds; Luang Ta Tu, the safe’s custodian; his daughter; and others connected to the saga.

Resident Amornrat Pathumnet said temple faithful want to know what happened to the rest of the money, and if they can get it back. They have asked police to expand their probe.

A dismayed Luang Ta Tu said his daughter had never shown any signs of being a thief.

She had gone to Bangkok to find work and came back to Roi Et after starting a family, he said. “I gave her money whenever she asked for it; she wasn’t hard up.”

As for himself, he never touched money. Even when someone dropped it, he would give it to the abbot.

“I can’t read, and have been a monk here for more than 10 years,” he said, insisting on his innocence. Police are mulling the request.

Druggie’s tearful regrets

Yothin

A Nakhon Pathom druggie says he regrets beating his 11-year-old son after the boy lost five ya ba pills he ordered him to buy.

Muang police nabbed Yothin (no surname given), 45, after an incident in which he beat his son savagely with a PVC pipe.

The boy, left with injuries to his left cheek, back, and nape of his neck, was seen in media images crying by the side of the road. Onlookers, some of whom filmed the assault on their phone, alerted police.

Yothin, who said he takes several ya ba pills a day, admitted sending his son into the housing community nearby to buy a stash of five pills.

The boy’s injuries.

Earlier, he had told the boy, unnamed in news reports, to go to a local temple to get fed. This drew scorn from newsreaders who noted the boy’s drug-addled father was evidently unable to support him so asked the monks to do it.

On his way back from buying the drugs, he lost the pills after the plastic bag which held them came free from his motorbike.

Yothin beat his son in anger over the loss. In tears, Yothin told police later that he didn’t want to hit the boy, but his son was often misplacing things.

A handyman by trade, he said he raises the boy alone. He also collected old goods for sale to help make ends meet, as the boy’s mother was in jail on drugs charges.

The boy said his father would often beat him if he lost his pills, or when he had taken them but forgotten, and assumed the boy was at fault.

Following news of the attack, the lad’s grandmother came forward to say she will take care of the boy. Police have charged Yothin with assault.