41-year-old Apichai Ongwisit, an heir to a property empire who lived in a mansion, had a father who is also believed to have murdered a 15-year-old girl in 1983. He has also admitted to beating his 22-year-old girlfriend at home with a stick in August 2019 and locking her in a metal casket to die. Police later found other remains including on another metal casket with human remains in a fish pond within his demesne reportedly, according to fearful locals, filled with carnivorous fish.
One of Thailand’s most feared criminal monsters was handed down another prison term by the Thonburi Criminal Court last Wednesday which will see him behind bars for another 11 years and four months on top of a sentence of 10 years and 5 months imposed last March. Known to the public as ‘Ice Metal Casket’, 41-year-old Apichai Ongwisit is suspected of being a sadistic serial murderer who, for years, terrified locals into silence near his home in the Bang Khae district of Bangkok.
One of Thailand’s most notorious criminals, believed to be a serial killer, was sentenced by the Thonburi Criminal Court this week, to 11 years and 4 months in prison for the rape, using a gun, of a young woman in December 2019 at his extensive home in the Bang Khae area of Bangkok.
Known on local and national media as ‘Ice Metal Casket’ the story of 41-year-old Apichai Ongwisit, an admitted murderer and drug addict, made the headlines in January last year after a security guard who worked for him and who was later arrested for drug dealing, told police that his boss had murdered his 22-year-old girlfriend, a noted beauty named Warinthorn Chaiyachet in August 2019.
Former employee and security guard offered his story to police after being charged with drug dealing
The security guard, 41-year-old Chaloemchon Ngabua, offered up the information to police in the hope of getting a lighter sentence after he was charged with serious drug offences.
It is also known that Mr Apichai was actively engaged in the drug dealing business after police found 1,100 yaba pills at his home when they subsequently raided it on suspicion of drug dealing.
In March last year, he was first sentenced to a prison term of 10 years and five months on these charges.
At least two more bodies found in the ‘murder pond’ last January after extensive police searches
More serious charges await the murderer who has already admitted to police that he murdered his girlfriend in August 2019 and after police found the bodies of two more people in a pond within the precincts of his home during an extensive search in January last year when Ms Warinthorn’s body was found in the killer’s garden.
One of the bodies is believed to be that of a 17 to 18-year-old girl. It is suspected that the pond may have contained the remains of at least one more person and probably more.
The search of the ‘murder pond’ involved local diving volunteers as well as trained police units. The police operation was covered extensively by Thai media in January last year.
Told police he locked his beautiful girlfriend in a metal casket each night and that she died by accident
In August 2019, he told police that he was so sexually jealous of his attractive girlfriend that he used to lock her every night in a metal casket. He tried, at first, to insist that the woman had died of asphyxiation by accident but later admitted to her murder.
His employee, Mr Chaloemchon, had given evidence to the police that he had beaten his girlfriend with a wooden stick and then locked her in the casket.
When she was later found dead, the woman’s body was wrapped in plastic and bedclothes to be later buried in his garden.
22 year old also known as ‘Kuk Kik’ filed a police complaint earlier in 2019 with Mr Apichai
22-year-old Ms Warinthorn, also known as Kuk Kik, was being looked for by police after both she and Mr Apichai had earlier filed a complaint against a third party for sexual harassment of the woman. Police had been following up on that complaint but after August 2019, they could not locate her.
After Mr Apichai was arrested, in December 2019, neighbours began to come forward to police to report more sinister happenings at the mansion, which to locals was regarded as a house of horror at the end of Soi Phetkasem 47 in Bang Khae.
Local people feared ‘Ice Metal Casket’
Rumour had it that Mr Apichai had killed many more people including women and used to threaten neighbours with burial in his pond which he claimed to have filled with carnivorous fish to eat the flesh of the bodies he dumped there.
A search of the pond later revealed the skeletal remains of a torso section from a young teenage girl determined to be a 17 to 18 year old together with other bones, believed to be the remains of another person, wrapped in packaging. The body was weighted down by dumbbells.
Police also found another metal casket container containing bone fragments.
Father investigated by police for murder in 1983 but was later shot dead, mother reportedly fled Thailand
Mr Apichai’s father was also investigated by local police as a murderer. He was the successful owner of a property centre known as the Ongwisit Market but police believed him to be responsible for the murder of a 15-year-old girl and the dismemberment of her body.
This was in 1983 but the investigation was cut short when Mr Apichai’s father was subsequently shot dead.
Mr Apichai’s mother then fled Thailand with his sister. Police suspected that his mother was the mastermind behind the grisly crime.
LINE message saved woman raped by Mr Apichai
On December 23rd 2019, a terrified young woman who had been ordered by Mr Apichai to travel to his house at gunpoint managed to send out a LINE message to a friend seeking help.
Police at Phetkasem station responded and rescued the woman from his home on Soi Phetkasem 47.
She subsequently filed a formal complaint against him. Although he initially denied the charges, he subsequently confessed to the crime and settled a compensation claim with the woman for ฿100,000 instead of the ฿510,000 demanded.
Sentence handed down by video link to prison
On Wednesday last, the Thonburi Criminal Court handed down its judgment in that case via a video link to Thonburi Remand Prison where Mr Apichai is serving his sentence.
In addition to possible charges for murder, there are already two further cases before the courts which will see Mr Apichai gradually lose sight of ever tasting freedom again.
One is another charge in connection with drugs and the other is a charge relating to the concealment of the body of his girlfriend in 2019.
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