February 7, 2024 • 67 mins
Thailand's authorities recently closed an investigation on the most notorious serial killer in the country's history: Sararat Rangsiwuthaporn, commonly called "Am Cyanide," poisoned more than 14 people in a murder spree that left local police baffled -- until they learned the full story.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noel.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
They called me Ben.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
We're joined with our super producer Ball mission controlled decands.
Most importantly, you are here, and that makes this the
stuff they don't want you to know. Brought to you
by four people who have never been to Thailand. Tonight's
tale is a strange one and may not be appropriate
for all audiences due to the at times graphic descriptions
(00:51):
of violence involved. Earlier in Strange News, we shared an
ongoing story that rocked the nation of Thailand to the core.
We're returning to this tale tonight. Here are the facts.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
How do you know I haven't been to Thailand.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I asked you a few years back to something change.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
He's just presumptive of you, sir, okay.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
All right, Well, not to put you in a box, Matt.
So three people who have not been to Thailand and
one person who does.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Either confirm or can I right, Yeah, I've been there
in my mind and in my heart. I really like
Thai food. That doesn't count. No, I have not been
to Thailand, Ben, I can confirm, Matt, that's up to you.
Do what you will.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
You're You're not the only mysterious one over here.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Ben, I've never been to Thailand.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
That that is definitely, that's definitely on record, and everybody,
everybody is a mystery, right.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
We can tay multitudes.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
As Whitman said, speaking of multitudes, there are gonna be
a lot of Thai names and places in tonight's show.
We are not native speakers. Maybe that's the first thing,
so please bear with us. But we can't say, like
any country, Thailand's home to stunning beauty, innovation, and some
very troubling imperfections. Have you guys heard you know one
(02:08):
of the one of the monikers of Thailand is the
land of smiles.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
I have not heard that, But I'm a big fan
of the history of Thai like electronic music and like
disco and stuff. You know that band Krang Been. They
are not native Thai individuals, but they take a lot
of influence from that sound. If you're into that. There's
some really cool deep cut kind of records you can
(02:33):
find from Thai artists from the sixties and seventies really cool,
kind of psychedelic, jazzy sort of dance music. Pretty cool stuff.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Yeah, I've been getting really into Turkish psychedelic music from
the same time period too, But yeah, krongben is perfect.
It's nice writing studying music. It's very low, fine and chill,
and krongbin is a Thai phrase or Thai word. But
I think for a lot of folks who haven't been
to Thailand, it's easy to forget that, like any other country,
(03:04):
there's a lot more at play beneath the surface.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Right.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
It is a different culture, it is a different part
of the world. We're talking about this a little bit
off air. Their government is extremely different from the West,
especially in their practice of helping with the French pronunciation
here the Les mageste or Les majeste the rights of
the king.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Gessie for a silent s there. But that's my only critique.
I think the rest was perfect, But who's to say.
I'm not sure I think you nailed it. So what
is this idea? Right?
Speaker 4 (03:39):
It's like, if you in any way are seen defaming
or insulting or threatening the monarchy, you can be locked
up in jail for three to fifteen years.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Jeez, it's not very smiley behavior. That's the pretty frowning
stuff right there. That's a good point.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
I mean, it's not the main topic of our conversation,
but it is baffling because it affects freedom of the press.
It is broadly enforced. Like one example would be you
can go to jail for three years if you step
on a newspaper that has a picture of the king
on it, or if you like a social media comment,
(04:20):
you can be prosecuted.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Do you think you could call a witness to say
that it was an accident that you stepped on that
newspaper featuring the king and like get out of it.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Or his majesty, the King of Thailand does not care
if it was an axident.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
There are no accidents when it comes to defaming the king, right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
I imagine you can mitigate it and say something like, hey,
I'm just I'm a foreigner, I'm a fullong, I didn't
know I was just walking in a hurry, right. But
but it is it is weaponized to persecute political opponents
and activists. I mean, it's it's not the topic of
our conversation today, but It's a good example of how
(05:00):
people can stereotype, exoticize, or simplify images of another place
without realizing that there's a complicated reality for the people
actually living there. I mean that goes back to, you know,
the perception of Thailand as like a party city country,
not the store, but like a country where people go
to party and do drugs.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
And well, the drug laws are really strict, right you
already mentioned that, but I mean no, I don't think so.
They're like very draconian. Yes, yes, sir, you to mess around.
Absolutely not, No, absolutely not. And foreign sex tourism is
a thing. Human trafficking is a problem. One thing I
didn't know much about that plays a role in our
(05:42):
show tonight. Consumer debt is out of control in Thailand.
It's like ninety something percent of the total GDP. People
have all kinds of debt. And there's also a complicated
relationship with gambling. It as just like the drug laws.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
They have very very strict gambled laws, but it's not
stopping anything.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah, I'd love to explore this a little more, but
I'm familiar with the term, I think from the Big
Lebowski tie stick, and it referred to a really like
powerful strain of marijuana and even like a way that
it was like bundled up and sold. And I just
looked it up and it's totally a thing like there
was in the sixties and seventies. Thailand was responsible for
some of the highest quality marijuana out there in the seventies,
(06:28):
grown by the hill tribes of Thailand, and they use
these like silk lines to tie these buds on, literally
tie them to a stick. I wonder if that is
part of the complicated, you know, relationship with drugs, is
that it had this you know, reputation, and the government
decided we don't want that to be part of our
legacy or whatever, so they got nasty about it. But
(06:49):
also maybe it's okay to export but not for the
citizens to use. I'm curious. I'm sorry, I'm just bring
a bunch of questions. Those are great questions.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Yeah, I mean, you could we could see that as
a react because you know, the recreational drug use is
heavily vilified right in all of Southeast Asia. We're not kidding,
do not do drugs in Thailand. But it makes sense
what you're saying, No, that it could be a reaction
(07:18):
even if it's not like a moral imperative to stop
people from smoking cannabis. Maybe it's more of something like
we need to prove we need to deny drug cartel's
income streams for sure.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
And last thing on this, because I know it's not
really the topic today, but I'm just seeing in an
article that I found that at the time in the
seventies it was largely run by surfers, by Tai surfers,
and surfers as a culture at the time in the
seventies were considered draft dodgers because they were like shiftless
layabouts who were trying to avoid military service, and they
were responsible for these very complex smuggling operations that led
(07:56):
to the stuff being available in the States. So I
don't know, Sorry, this is interest to me, but maybe
worth the exploration down the line.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
Oh yeah, and check out the hippie trail through the
fifties and seventies. That's another big piece of history here.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
And if you find yourself in Thailand, one of the
things you have to do is get a little religious,
or at least go to the religious sites that are
out there. Buddhists, some of the Hindu temple.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Shrines, and the.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Dude well, some of the watts, some of them that
are not. Some of them, like the Sanctuary of Truth,
which is the largest wooden building that's entirely magical place
it does. If you see it, you would think it's
even more magical than the name implies. There's so many
there's so many sites in Thailand that are just they
defy the imagination, I think when it comes to their architecture,
(08:45):
in the detailing.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
And the jungles, just I mean the absolute lushness of
their kind. I guess you call them rainforest kind of,
but there there's certainly a lot of really absolutely spectacular
you know forests and you know country side things like that.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Biodiversity is huge as well, and it's important that we
mention these really positive things that are unique to Thailand
that not every country has. But the gambling laws themselves.
To get back to this, this is a setup the
gambling laws themselves, because gambling is so heavily regulated. There
(09:21):
are only two exceptions to gambling laws in Thailand. The
first is horse racing and the second is the state
supported lottery, and anything other than that is illegal. However, Yeah, however,
like more than fifty seven percent of the population is
into online gambling in some way, and these a lot
(09:43):
of these gambling outfits are run by shadowy cartels like
you remember Specter from the James Bond series. Of course,
there's like a Specter basically for some of this online gambling.
A transnational group named the Outlaws, not the most creative name,
but they get other stuff doing going on. Another thing
(10:04):
that the West doesn't really talk about when it comes
to Thailand is the number of serial killers that have
been active at some point there. And part of that
goes back to what you're talking about with ty stick
or the drug trade, the hippie trayal these vulnerable populations
were targeted by people who leveraged the criminal underground to
(10:26):
get away with crimes that would not be reported right
or would be ignored because powerful people weren't getting targeted.
That's where our story starts tonight because recently last year,
Thai authorities, now it's something new and disturbing, they'd caught
what they were calling the most notorious known serial killer
in the entire history of the country. A woman in
(10:48):
her thirties named Saurat Wrongsiwuthapun good Job, wore on to
her friends.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
That was impressive and I'm not blown Smoke's barely started
with that. That was very well well.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Apologies, apologies again to all Native Tie speakers. She was
known as AHM to her friends. That's what we're going
to call her tonight. At least her friends called her
that until she murdered them allegedly.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Cool. Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
While we while we are not Native Tie speakers, we
can speak to previous research on the phenomenon of serial killers, right, guys,
It's much more rare than perceived in fiction. And there's
a kind of demographic of serial killers who tend to
get apprehended, right.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
The dumb ones, now I'm just shooking. I'm the ones,
the ones that, yeah, the ones that escalate too quickly.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
The ones that get caught tend to overwhelmingly be male
or male identifying, and they have a lot of behaviors
conforming to the controversial McDonald triad theory, which I no,
I think in previous episodes we've talked about this, but
the more I look into it, there's not a ton
(12:08):
of there's not a ton of later research validating this theory.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
No, that's this is like the behavioral sciences at quantico
kind of thinking, you know, early on, but you know
there's there's weird stuff in there, especially harming animals early on.
That that, to me is one of the biggest the
whole bed winning thing. I don't know, I don't know
how much water that holds. He But what's the third one?
Speaker 4 (12:36):
Arson, Yeah, or fascination with fire. I mean fire is fascinating.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Though, Yeah, like a harming something else that is living
with a perceived callousness, right, and then watching like viewing destruction,
watching it occur with the fire, and then at like
having some kind of uncontrollable part of your physical body.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
I always thought, Yeah, that's a better way to phrase it.
I always wondered whether the persistent bed wedding thing was
a psyop meant to like get in the heads of
the criminals being hunted.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Maybe.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
So anyway, if you are looking at news about this person,
you will you will run into the name Sauraat, But
you are more likely to run into the ghoulish nickname
the media gave her, which is om Cyanide.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
And we don't know a whole heck of a lot
about her early life, but the court documents in reporting
do give us some basic information. Am who how we're
going to refer to her, because I don't think it
either matter. I could nearly as good a job as
Ben did on that pronunciation, but am as a graduate
of Nakhon pathom oh geez I said that now I
(13:55):
have to say this Rajabat University, which is west of Bangkok,
and her some of her teachers lectures profits seemed to
have a similar sense of her personality, And it's kind
of stuff we hear often about serial killers that nothing
out of the ordinary about her looks or behavior, just
(14:18):
you know, kind of kept to herself, you know, not
really anything to write home about. She did major in
public relations and graduated in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Yeah, that's an interesting thing, right, the interior lives of everybody.
It does seem like when you get when you hear
that about someone that stands out like this as someone
who's done a lot of harm and has kind of
a secret life that they're living, it is this weird
like there's not a big outward show of anything because
(14:52):
so much is going on in the background, the stuff
that nobody else gets to see. It is a pretty
common thing.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Agree, what's that old lying lives of quiet desperation.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Right.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
We know that she was married and divorced with a
guy named reported sometimes as Vitune or witun Rang Siopon.
He was a senior police official in their province, Rachabury.
He is no longer a police official, and although their
marriage was dissolved, they continued to see each other and
(15:32):
live together. It's very again, like you're saying the complicated stories, right.
Everybody has stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Well, and it's going to come in later. Just her
connection to the police department, which is really fishy to me,
I think everybody else. It's just it's a little weird
because she did have two children with that person, right,
But then she also has this other thing going on,
a common law husband.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
And then we'll see that two police officers also die
in the course of this. So fast forward to the arrest.
Police arrest Am on Tuesday, April twenty fifth. It's twenty
twenty three, and they arrest her after a friend of
hers collapses on a road trip earlier that month, April fourteenth,
(16:22):
Om was traveling with her friend, a thirty two year
old businesswoman named Syrpan Quan Wong, and they were west
of Bangkok. They took part in a pretty common thing,
a Buddhist protection ritual, which sounds pretty cool. They went
to a place called Banpong Pier and they were releasing
fish into the river. And that feels like a wholesome
(16:44):
hangout time to me. Sure until you see the CCTV
footage where Am is the last person seeing with Kwang
Wong before she faints and she dies.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
That's sorry. This was a detail that really stuck out
to me. I think in the initial reporting that we
looked at, you know, when this case kind of came
full circle. Yeah, and she was. She was initially just
charged with stealing and the death was believed to have
been of natural causes, but later charges began to really
(17:22):
pile up, and according to Deputy National Police Commissioner General
uh Sura, shot big joke, Hawkparn big joke. I don't know, okay,
Maybe maybe it's cultural difference. This is like a sort
of a dis nickname. Maybe he just got a good
sense of humor. But there was a later autopsy that
then found traces of cyanide in Sirah Porn's system.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
Yeah, the victim's mother is part of the reason. How
is part of the reason that Am gets caught at all.
So the mother's name is Thong Piniri and files a
police report. She says, I don't believe that these are
natural causes, right, and I demand that there'd be an
autopsy done because my daughter's money and jewelry have gone missing.
(18:13):
I suspect murder and I'm pretty sure that AHM did it.
And if you look at that footage, the CCTV footage,
which you can find easily on YouTube or wherever you
look for videos, you see that Coi Cooi is the familiar,
familiar name people use for kwand Wong. So kwand Wong
(18:34):
goes to the pier where she's going to release the fish,
and Om goes apparently to the restroom. When Am comes back,
she sees her friend has collapsed. She waves bystanders over
to come help, but then she leaves the scene and
she takes her friend's cash, her friend's mobile phone, and
(18:55):
design her handbag.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
It runs away.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, she doesn't stick around at all to help her
friend that you know she was on that trip with, right,
which is very strange, sus Af. Yeah, and it's also
it's the moment you're talking about there, Ben, where the
two of them separate and Koy goes down to the water,
which is where they're headed and what they're going to do.
And it gets even weirder when you start here where
(19:19):
this is only one case out of a bunch of
them we're going to talk about. But there's something similar
here with like sharing something that is ingestible. It can
be many one of many things, but sharing something or
taking something to drink or eat, it's.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
The same kind of red flag that we saw around
that Australian case that you brought initially, Matt, I believe
with the mushrooms and the was it like a beef
Wellington or something like. It was some you know again
shared food items that and then all of a sudden
people are falling ill or dying, you know. I mean
that was obviously one situation, but this is many. But yeah,
(19:55):
I think that was what initially caught our attention about
that story too, or as hmmm, something funny is going
on here.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
What we're going to find in this is it like
I didn't I didn't even think about possibly giving somebody
a pill and telling them, hey, this is a vitamin, yeah, supplement.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
Also, yeah, don't take pills from people no, unless it's
in a package, right, and that is clearly be Hey,
by the way, folks, we are just because we might
be paranoid doesn't mean we're wrong. And guys, I did
buy the three the three pack of fire extinguishers. Yeah, yeah,
(20:32):
So so the next time we hang out, they should
be here. And it has nothing to do with anything unless
you've heard at earlier conversation.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
We had about this. Anyway, Yes, it goes, it goes deeper,
and I think you're right. No, there are similarities. There
are similarities that Australian case stood out to me as well.
The mother has some juice. The mother Cooy's mom has
some juice. She knows people, know people, so she is
able to get the case directly to the Deputy Police
(21:03):
Chief General Surachat Big Joe Kuckball, and she says, look,
I'm afraid that if this goes to the local Ratchaburi
police it'll be buried or it'll be ignored because she
knows this family and she knows that sauraat or AM's
former husband was at the time the deputy superintendent at
(21:27):
the local police station. So wheels within wheels, you know,
and you have to wonder like what kind of vibe
did the mom get that made her escalate it like this?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
You know, Yeah, well I wonder that a lot. I
think just I think just the fact that this supposed
friend definitely took money and belongings. Right, And then when
you hear I don't, I wonder if she had any
contact with any of the other victims, like families, because
(21:58):
there is a pattern, and I think if those victims'
families or relatives were talking amongst themselves, you would start
to see that pattern emerging.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
That's true pretty quickly too, right. So that's a good point.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
So a when question denies any involvement in the theft,
like you said, Nol, she's originally arrested for stealing, which
is not a hard thing to apprehend her for because
she does rut off with these belongings.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
It's on video. It's not a deep fake. It happened.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
But then, like you said, Matt, investigators start putting together
pieces of a puzzle, a puzzle that seems to only
grow larger and more disturbing with each new discovery. Here's one,
they fight a bottle of side Eyed at ALM's house
during her arrest.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Yeah, the bit of a red flag not really a
standard household item.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
Don't think it's not a staple spice in the spice rack.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah, Well, and the big question that we've had in guys,
I went ahead and sacrifice to my Google search, say
where where do I where? How can I procure cyanide?
How could I make cyanide? You know, like it's over
for me? But yeah, I'm not actually interested in that.
If anyone's out to.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Late, that's exactly what someone would say.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Dang it, it's funny.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
I put that later some of our notes because I
was I was having a similar feeling. Is researching some
of this over the over the past few weeks, and yeah,
I thought, I was like, damn, look at what Look
at what I'm doing. I'm doing bought to dollar conversions.
I'm checking on side eyed regulation and Thailand. I'm checking
on flights to Thailand. I'm looking up Google maps, you know, and.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
How do I set up a post office box and
another name? Exactly?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Isn't that crazy though, because it'll it's all controlled by
an algorithm that just sees those as points on a map.
And then it's like, oh, I see where this guy's going.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
Our search histories are the digital version of egregious faced at.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
This point, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
But the big question remains, how did how did she
get a bottle of cyanide?
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Right right?
Speaker 4 (24:10):
What kind of parties does she go to? Well, investigators
say her, oh, she also claimed later she would go
on to claim, look, I had nothing to do with
my friend's death, but she probably took illegal drugs that
were laced with side eye sort of an accidental fetanyl
overdose argument totally by the way, Yeah, her. It turns
(24:32):
out that's sister in law owns a pharmacy also in Ratchaburi,
where police found what they called a collection of suspicious capsules.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Wait, so is she implicated in this now too, or
was it maybe just a case of her not knowing
and sort of taking advantage of that relationship?
Speaker 4 (24:52):
Open open ended at this point, We're not sure, or
at least the police have not specifically stated this.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
We that they have been.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
They have been since twenty twenty three doing the thing
where they're trying to track down all possible sources of
cyanide in the country, like where you know where you
could buy where you could buy this stuff or where
you could make it. You know the number isn't number
(25:22):
isn't certain yet, and also the number of victims isn't
certain yet. People like other families are coming forward, and
it seemed multiple people connected with Ahm at some point
that also died under eerily similar mysterious circumstances. It went
from like eight victims to ten victims, then at least twelve,
(25:45):
the number rows to fourteen, and then fifteen is what
is in the courts right now. But the number speculated
unproven has gone to eighteen, possibly twenty to this day,
no one's sure.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Well the big deal. It's almost like with Zodiac killer
some of these other major serial killers, trying to find
that first victim date, right, and then you start there
and then you move that number rises as you move
towards present day. But then if you start to go
back a little further, you're like, oh, wait a second,
there actually might be more this time in Riverside or whatever.
(26:19):
That's just like the way these things go. And I
wouldn't be surprised if there are twenty people.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
I mean, yeah, that first date victim is one of
the big questions, Like it says, it's tough to answer,
is it twenty fifteen? Like ty authoritieser said, is it
two thousand and five, because we're going to have to
discuss a little bit about the science of autopsies and
the bureaucracy and just the chemical nom the group name cyanide.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Right, maybe the big question is when what was the
inciting incident that made that escalation to of the first poisoning,
Like when what is that thing that pushed her there?
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Right?
Speaker 2 (26:59):
If she is in fact the serial killer that's killing
people with cyanide, because I was just trying to I
was thinking back because she graduated in two thousand and nine, right, right,
so if it started at college, that would kind of
match up, right, two thousand and five date.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
Yeah, if the two thousand and five date is is
our date? You know?
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Yeah? Anyway, this is fun. Would I would I would
want to go as deep as possling down as rabbit hole.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
But okay, yes, for sure, and we will go at
least as far as the information we have currently leads us.
After a quick word from our sponsor and we have returned.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
Other families are coming forward, other civilians coming forward as
soon as the news of suspected cyanide poisoning breaks, and
a lot of these people are saying a lot of
these people are saying, you know, we have a loved one,
a family member who died and died the same way,
and the last person who kicked it with them was
(28:05):
omb There's another thing we mentioned right before the break
that I think we also have to point out, which
is in cases like this or like Zodiac, when things escalate,
there are also going to be some false positives. Just logically.
There are people who lost a loved one in a
way that might seem similar, and they they will rightly ask,
(28:30):
is my loved one's death part of it? And the
answer is not always yes. But that's why there's sometimes
a fog of war and speculation around the numbers. We
do know, however, that in at least one case, OM
allegedly tried to kill someone who survived.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Yeah, And that's something that you do see from time
to time and hunts for serial killers. Is the one
that got away, that makes some report or something that
tends to trigger things, or maybe isn't even a red
flag until after the fact, and then it's used as
a way of kind of backtracking and finding more about
the person's m O.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
Right right, like the like a serial assaulter or killer
who inexplicably at some point kidnaps someone and lets them go,
or chases them but or tries to shoot them but
doesn't shoot them fatally.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Well, like at the time, it might not match a pattern,
so the report might not set off any you know,
alarm bells. But then after their suspicion and then maybe
cross reference for that type of report, you know, then
you see, oh what about this, It's in the right area.
Let's go talk to that person. I'm not saying that
happen in this case, but it certainly could have been
a break.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
Yeah, and there definitely is that kind of that break
in the in the case here when after this initial reporting,
a thirty six year old woman at the time named
Katima Passeyard known as Plaw to her friends, she comes
to the police and she says, I was poisoned in
twenty twenty, but I made it to a hospital where
(30:05):
doctors resuscitated me. She was at a mall and she
got a pill offered to her by her friend Om,
and they parted ways. She felt a tightness in her chest,
she lost feeling in her hands. She was calling Om.
The story goes to pick her up, but Om got
(30:25):
lost and so someone contacted emergency services and they were
able to keep her alive.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Well, yeah, the way I've read the story was that
she was trying to call an am was kept like
canceling the phone call basically, you know what I mean,
Like someone sees there's an incoming call, just hits decline.
That's what she was saying. Happy, but she got through
to there's a hotline number sixteen sixty nine there that
she called and was able to get through, which thank goodness.
(30:55):
But she at the beginning, she was unsure that it
was poisoning. She thought, oh, well, something is just wrong
and I'm having a medical emergency. Sure, and then she
sees some of the reporting and other events occurring and thinks,
oh wait a second.
Speaker 4 (31:09):
Yeah, she didn't put it together. She thought she just
had a close call, you know, and got lucky. She
also told the police as she is putting these pieces together,
that she loaned two hundred and fifty thousand bought to earlier.
Bought is the currency of Thailand, that is right now,
that's probably it's a little bit north of seven thousand
(31:31):
dollars US seven forty eight dollars and change. So there
was a financial incentive, it appeared.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
So we're thinking that it would be a tap. If
I'm on I'm taking money from someone, I'm barring that money.
Then I'm killing that person, so I don't owe her anymore, right,
She's some.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Seems like a plan that could go awry really quickly.
I am shocked, frankly that it went on as long
as it did. Agreed.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
I mean, and let's pause here as as we set
up previously to talk a little bit about the nature
of cyanide and have a moment of silence for our
search histories. Paul, could you hit some sad music.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
There we go, you know the I think this is
an area where in our initial conversations about this, we
all had questions about like how cinide acts on the body,
what kind of traces does it leave behind, how long
does the stick around in the body? So this is
I think exciting for all of us to kind of
get to the bottom of it. I think we're on
the fly kind of answered some of those questions at
the time, but this is a much deeper dive here.
(32:42):
So this is very cool.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I mean, it's not cool, it's well, we're talking about
sources of cinide poising first, right, so how does it
actually get in your system? I think we've probably heard
that cigarettes can often contain cyanide. We've heard that, but
often I think it's it's like, how much of that
is the anti smoking I don't I don't want to
say propaganda, but it's the anti smoking message.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
Right, like saying it contains jet fuel or whatever.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
You know, we know there are additives to cigarettes, but
I think sinide is just one of those, like, oh wow, okay,
that's scary, but I've heard that.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
We also know there are allowable levels of mercury and
fish that people can consume.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
So yeah, anyway, yeah, mercury doesn't like kill you.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Well, that's the thing, right.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
Like in fiction and in those atrocious spy novels and
all that stuff, cyanide is often portrayed as this super secret,
fast acting thing only am I, six no and Nazis
know about it or whatever. But to your point, Matt,
it might be surprising for love or fellow conspiracy realists
to know that you can be exposed to this toxin
(33:48):
from everyday chemicals and even common food stuff like lima beans, yucca, cassavas, almonds,
apple seeds, burning plastic spoil from a house fire.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Yeah, is that one of those things where you is
m of beans is one of those things where you
can cook it down in a certain way and get
an extract some bad things from it, like the breaking
bad thing with the whatever the ricin brought to you
by the Anarchist cookbook.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
I see, Okay, God, I knew about pits right in
some fruit right specifically cherry, the stones and cherries, and
how dangerous that's. Yeah, but I've heard that's really dangerous,
But I never really understood. I guess that you could
weaponize it in a way. I thought it would just
be careful with it. Oh man, quick cursory Google. Most
(34:37):
cooking research related to sinide removal has been conducted on cassava.
Boiling in water for long periods of time greater than
thirty minutes in a large excess of water is the
most effective method for reducing sinide. Eighty percent of the
original SIGNI.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
Will be removed. So that's extraction in terms of making
it safe to eat. But I guess what do you
do with the extract? Man?
Speaker 1 (34:57):
You know?
Speaker 2 (34:58):
But is that like with all root vegetables where it
absorbed like they absorb things in the ground or are
we saying cassava and like yuka, it just has that
in it.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Yeah, yeah, they got that dog in them man. But
the also, your own dry beans is something you got
to be a little bit careful about. Like if you're
not using jarred or whatever canned beans that are pre cooked,
if you're doing it from the raw beans, soaking them
and stuff, you do have to be thoughtful about that
because you can't accidentally not do it right. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
And and one common misconception that the fictional stories miss
is that cyanide in general refers to any chemical that
contains a carbon nitrogen bond. The issue is that lots
of stuff contains cyanide, but they're not automatically deadly poisons
as a results.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
So we're not trying to also be alarmist about beans.
Just it's just to put that out there. No one
needs to be scared about eat eating their vegetables, right,
Oh you should.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
You should follow the directions though, Yeah. Sure, we don't
take vegetables for strangers. Don't take vegetables or pills from strangers.
If someone says, hey, you want a pill and you
say no, and they say, hey, do you want this
handful of lina beans also say no.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
It sounds like a jack in the beanstock kind of scenario. Exactly,
it really does.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
Yeah, So like sodium cyanide, potassium cyanide, hydrogen cyanide, these
kind of things are they all have that carbon nitrogen bond,
and those things can be lethal. But there are a
bunch of other compounds called nitrils. You've probably ingested them.
That's the stuff in the cassava, the almonds and so on.
(36:40):
If you do have a case of sinaide poisoning and
acute sinai poisoning, it does kill people quickly.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
It works.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
It doesn't like two to five minutes and then they're
dead heart failure. But it's not a silent killer. That's
that's why it's it's weird for it to be so
commonplace in espionage fiction because if you are a medical professional,
you know what you're looking for. It is pretty much
impossible to hide sinai poisoning in a legal dose. That
(37:12):
stuff is readily apparent in a corpse for several months
after death.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
That's what you mean by silent Caroll like you undetectable?
I guess right, Okay, Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
Yeah, And it's also a very painful death, right, I mean,
so it's an effective poison if you want someone out
of the picture, but it's not something you would realistically
use if you want to avoid getting caught. So it's
kind of amateur hour to use it.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Well, unless it's in your fake tooth, right and you're
getting tortured or you're.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
Killing yourself, right, Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly, which also I
don't know. Apparently it's something that chemists have used historically
when they commit suicide. But the reason they do it
is not because it's painless. It's because it's one of
the most certain ways to do it, like to end
(38:02):
your life. It's just an ugly thing to think about.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Unfortunately, Well I feel better, Yeah, so fun at parties.
Speaker 4 (38:13):
Okay, let's get back to the investigation though. So that's
a little bit of cyanide science, right, that's a little
bit why this is unusual. One of the first questions
we could all have is, Okay, so guys, you're saying
this kind of poisoning is readily apparent in an autopsy
of people know what they're looking for. So how did
someone do this for so long?
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Right?
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Or with so many people we'll get to that towards
the end, but right now, maybe we talk a little
bit about about the the unfolding of the investigation. Authorities said, hey,
owed a lot of these victims' money, she also had
started businesses with them or kind of lows.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Yeah, that's is interesting because it's not like you would
necessarily turn that up from say a credit check or
something like so to oh individuals, multiple individuals money. To
find that out takes a little detective work, you know.
I mean, that's you got to give props there for
them to figuring out that that particular pattern because it
is in a way kind of smart because it's not
(39:19):
something that there's just like a uniform record of necessarily.
Some of the business is sure, but you know, in general,
just like taking out a loan from an individual, she
must have ingratiated herself to a lot of these people
to even be in a position where they would have
done that for her. You know, it's very interesting the manipulation.
The levels of manipulation really start to kind of you know,
(39:40):
show through here. I think public relations degree. Right, Oh yes, you're.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Right, Ben, tell me correct me if I'm wrong here.
I had read that there are even instances where it
wasn't like a formal loaning of money to on but
just meeting with somebody that I guess she assumed is
going to have a lot of money on them and
then taking them or attempting to take them out, or
(40:05):
allegedly attempting to poison them, like at a restaurant or
at an outing kind of like she did when they
were feeding the fish, things like that, Like did you
find that too or was it all like loans?
Speaker 4 (40:19):
Yeah, a lot of thanks to the National out of
Thailand for some great, great reporting on this, and of
course the public statements of Big Joke, and we have
a bit of an epilogue about Big Joke at the
end of this. But yeah, you're on the money there,
because she would target people, according to prosecutors hashtag allegedly
allegedly allegedly, she would befriend people she perceived as wealthy,
(40:43):
earn their trust, and then say, you know, like, hey,
we should hang out more often, classic manipulation moves, and
then get them to consume food, drinks, or herbs, and
then search them for money or to deprive them of possessions.
And then it goes to the idea of accomplices, because
(41:06):
if you are, if you are moving hard cash below
a certain amount, not that difficult to move. Possessions, especially
bespoke things or relatively rare things like very high end
designer autrement, that's a little bit tougher, right if you're
if they're only x amount of you know, just for example,
(41:28):
they're only x amount of uh Erme's bags in this town, right,
then the people have those bags know who else has
the bags, so it's all harder to sell it.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Can we talk about one specific case that happen in
twenty fifteen without chivid too far ahead?
Speaker 3 (41:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Okay, So there's this one case where OM well, a
person died who was close to AM, and then OMS
seemed to swoop in to try and take over the
finances of this person that died sketch Monta tepe Cowen
or something like that. This person who was who had
(42:10):
left Thailand for quite a while, like I think, got
married somewhere and then came back and when she arrived
back died very soon after, and saraat Om jumped in
to like handle all the post death finances for this person,
which is really weird.
Speaker 4 (42:28):
Yeah, let me handle this in your time of grieving,
and unfortunately con artists do that all the world round.
You know, you find somebody at the worst moment in
their life, having lost a loved one, You're a rock
for them to lean on, your purported safe space, and
dangerous things can happen there if people have ill intent.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
We know that.
Speaker 4 (42:51):
A week after that initial arrest, when all this stuff
has started to come together, the authorities also arrest Ahm's
ex husband, the senior police official, and he gets charged.
This is okay, this is still confusing to me. He
gets charged with fraud and embezzlement, both related to and
not related to the deaths.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Yeah, but because I think there's more going on there,
And again why I brought up the common law husband
that she had. And then also do we mention that
she was four months pregnant when she was picked up
when she was arrested.
Speaker 4 (43:29):
We haven't, We haven't she and it is and I'm
glad you brought that up because that is crucial to
other events in the story. She was it's the term
of her pregnancy gets reported at different months to pay
on where you look. But she was definitely She's definitely
pregnant at the time of Houoy's death.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Well, and so it just for me, it brings up
this issue of interpersonal pressures. So if you think about
on pressuring potential victims, alleged victims to you know, do
what she wants to end up getting things from them
for her, I wonder if she has or has had
(44:11):
people in her life that are pressuring her to do
things right as well, because often it's not just a
lone wolf actor doing something like this, right, So I
don't know, I wonder, like, whose father who fathered that child?
Is it the ex is it the common law? Is
it somebody else? And what are those relationships like, right?
Speaker 3 (44:32):
And did she have accomplices? Spoiler?
Speaker 4 (44:36):
The Thai courts concluded, yes she does or the type
police did.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
We already kind of red flagged her sister in law
a little bit with that, you know, pharmacy. Yeah, well
the pharmacy suspicious capsules or whatever. And so police say
that this gentleman who's now I'm not going to try
to pronounce because you've already done such a great job,
turned himself into police after authorities issued a warrant. He's
(45:00):
just like here I am. The couple though they were
divorced were actually still living together, and police said that
mister rangsa utha porn it's not too bad, was most
likely involved in the alleged murder of an ex boyfriend
by the name of Suthi Sak Pun Kwan, Yes, and
(45:24):
that he also helped destroy evidence of Kwan Wang's murder. Dude,
that's quite yea quite yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Yeah, but we didn't even really talk about that that
this is the common law husband, the pun Quan. This
suitisak that you just said. So this person died March twelfth,
I think, twenty twenty three. But this person was potentially
a poisoning victim. Well, at least the reporting that I
was reading in May of last year, twenty twenty three,
(45:55):
they kept saying potentially another one of the victims. I
think it's I think it's pretty certain at this point
that this person was a victim. But they're also reporting
we're talking about the husband, the ex husband now who
was just arrested. That we mentioned this person I saw
as a lieutenant colonel. But this is also like the
(46:16):
what did you call him, ben or his title at
the police station.
Speaker 4 (46:19):
Oh, I just used a senior police official because he
had he had he was a high level police officer
at one point, and it gets a little confusing for
us because Thai police is the Tai police are a
little bit more militarized than Yes police.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
That's why I was so confused when I saw lieutenant
colonel okay, interesting, I wonder what that actually means. And
then was used in a different like he was given
a different standing in another piece of reporting I saw,
but I didn't know, and it didn't say if he
was still an officer employed at the time when he
turned himself or if he had like retired.
Speaker 4 (47:02):
No, he was still an officer. He got he got fired.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
Got it?
Speaker 4 (47:09):
He got fired for this or a life He's like
in very shortcuver of that, you know, because you can't
have you know. It's like, yes, yes, statistically there are
more arsenists in the fire department than there are in
other jobs. But if they find out you're an arsonist,
(47:30):
then you're out of a job, right, They just can't.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
That's not very nice. Just think about how much they
love that job.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
Are you looking at? Why are you taking the side
of the arsonists.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
I'm just saying it, like that's like dream job for.
Speaker 4 (47:44):
Why Another disturbing statistic from a while back when people
still went to breaking mortar stores, something like twelve percent
of shoe store employees are working entirely because they have
a foot fetish.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
Sick jeers speaking of I saw an Instagram video earlier
today where a fan met Quentin Tarantino on the street
in la and asked him to sign her foot and
also to rate her foot. Did he do it? He didn't.
He refused to rate the foot, but you could tell
he got a kick out of him. There we go,
(48:20):
it's worth it.
Speaker 4 (48:21):
So this is going to lead us to other people
who charged his accomplices. Her lawyer, ALM's lawyer gets accused.
They say the lawyer knowingly helped destroy or conceal evidence.
They're saying she couldn't have gotten away with it for
as long as she did. But they also discovered something
very important about the motive. And we're going to take
a quick break for word from our sponsors in return
(48:44):
will break it down. We're back in May of twenty
twenty three. Police discover what they believed to be the
primary motive. We danced around it a little bit earlier.
Here money again the great reporting that the nation shows
us that police these stats are astonishing that police discovered
(49:10):
was in possession of seventy eight million bots. That's almost
two point two million dollars spread over Get this, one
hundred and eighty separate bank accounts.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
No, she had a system because think about how many
times that Maybe maybe they're all set up online, but
I mean that the passwords.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
Alone, WHOA and Ben. I think you did a great
job of teasing it and really not quite getting to
what it was about. We were talking at the beginning
of the show about the laws in Thailand and about
the cultural issue with gambling and Thailand, and it was
apparently a lot of these accounts, or many of them,
(49:52):
maybe most of them, had been linked to various gambling
sites and accounts. Do you want to do that?
Speaker 4 (50:00):
That quote from Big Joke. Sorry, we know he has
a real title, it's just the name.
Speaker 3 (50:06):
It's hard. It's hard to shake a nickname like that.
That is wild Man before Luke, I just wanted to
say to ask, is it sick that in my mind?
I'm like, well, money, that's boring. I want my serial
killers to only kill for abject pleasure or divine Yeah,
I'm joking, but it is the way we've been conditioned
(50:28):
to think about serial killers, you know, and this is
basically an elaborate and deadly grift, you know, series of them.
If if everything is as it's as it's said here,
so big joke had this to say. She was gambling
to the tune of about one million bot per day.
The investigators also found that these accounts received money that
(50:50):
had been transferred from directly from some of the victim's accounts.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
Oh what, what's that? Translated to one million bots?
Speaker 3 (50:59):
That's out twenty eight nine dollars A y go. Do
we know what kind of this matters? Do we know
what kind of games she was playing?
Speaker 5 (51:09):
Like?
Speaker 3 (51:09):
What? Like?
Speaker 2 (51:10):
As you said, no, I don't know, because you had
said that there's a lot of very specific guidelines or
guardrails around gambling, with horse racing being one of the
only like physical versions.
Speaker 3 (51:23):
I just wonder if there are similarly guardrails around what
kind of you know, virtual games are allowed to be
played online.
Speaker 4 (51:29):
Gambling is illegal, but it's just it's impossible to see,
it's impossible to stop it.
Speaker 3 (51:35):
I see.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
Do we think she was laundering money for someone? Don't know,
because if you're spending that much money a day, pushing
it through various whatever gambling sites, casinos, whatever it is.
I imagine that you're actually moving that money for somebody.
Speaker 3 (51:53):
It just seems like a risky way to move money. Though,
if you're because you got to place bets, you know,
I mean, like you can lose it. You would be.
Speaker 2 (52:00):
Well, why would you have one hundred and eighty accounts? Like,
what is the reason for one hundred and eighty accounts?
Speaker 3 (52:04):
Just maybe just maybe they're under different names to obscure
how much money you have by spreading it around.
Speaker 4 (52:10):
Maybe there's a limit that one online outlet has allow you.
Speaker 3 (52:14):
To do per day, that's per account. And also, you
gotta wonder too, it seemed like she was really keen
on quote unquote taking over people's accounts and finances. You
gotta wonder if she maybe just did that too with
someone I don't know.
Speaker 4 (52:28):
I mean, that's true, that's possible, right because what they
they they're not they're saying that the accounts belonged to her,
But that's not quite the same thing as saying that
she used her real name on all of these And
this leads to two other big issues in Thai society.
This online gambling thing that we've mentioned Uh, it doesn't
(52:48):
seem to have the same sort of in practice regulation
they'd be familiar with in other countries. It is apparently
an open secret that a significant portion of these operations
are touched by, or indeed run by transnational crime cartels
like Spector Level stuff, possibly with the assistance from corrupt
(53:10):
government officials. In twenty twenty two alone, the one we
have the most recent numbers for fifteen hundred people were
arrested for some version of fraud and online gambling.
Speaker 3 (53:21):
Good.
Speaker 4 (53:22):
It really makes you think about the you know, the
folks on this side of the pond who cheat at
multiplayer games, right, little hacker guys on Call of Duty
or whatever.
Speaker 3 (53:32):
I can't remember.
Speaker 4 (53:33):
Yeah, sure, what if one of them is what if
one of them is working for an international crime ring
and they're just in the test case where they have
to try out, try it out and see whether there's
money to be made cheating a Call of Duty or
Tech and eight which just came out and slaps and
it's fun and everyone should play it.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
I don't believe that you're playing Tech and eight for
a second, Ben, you do not have time to be
playing Tech and eight.
Speaker 3 (53:59):
Trust Come on, I'll tell you what I got recently,
just to light in them a little bit. I think
it's street Fighter five Championship Edition, which gives you all
of the street Fighter games up to five and has
like intense online capabilities. Really fun. Those games are so
fun still and hold up really beautifully to this day.
Speaker 2 (54:21):
Does they have street Fighter Alpha?
Speaker 3 (54:23):
I think it does. Yeah. I mean, I think it's
got all the ITAs leading up to five if I'm
not mistaken, but I haven't really exported, but it's pretty
big package. That's so crazy.
Speaker 4 (54:31):
Why did it take street Fighter ten, like more than
ten years to learn to count to three?
Speaker 3 (54:36):
You know what I mean? It's unfortunate, but.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
Well because they had better words like turbo, you know.
Speaker 3 (54:44):
Well, I guess it's one of those things sort of
like with Mario Kart eight. You know where we've been
on Rock and Mario Kart eight for going on a
decade now, and they just keep kind of upgrading the
game because they don't need to release another iteration if
the previous one's still killing it. That was the case
with street Fighter too. It was just like blockbuster game
for Capcom, you.
Speaker 4 (55:02):
Know, yeah, and these blockbuster games, like gaming makes a
lot of money spoiler. Folks, you can probably tell we're
gearing up for some episodes on gaming in the future,
I think.
Speaker 3 (55:12):
Especially with everything that's going on in China. We got
a email recently. I listened to mail kind of breaking
down some of that stuff about the regulations of online
gaming and how it actually pertains to another cultural seeming
cultural issue with you know, this kind of stuff. I mean,
I don't know, it's hard to say, like we certainly
have that here too, but I think it's different. I
think it varies from culture to culture, the relationship with
(55:34):
gambling and even with just like screens and stuff, you know.
Speaker 4 (55:37):
And then there's also the question of whether prohibition works
and if so, degree right, the biggest question. Yeah, So
this in twenty twenty two alone, fifteen hundred people arrested
for some sort of online gambling thing. Did a little
bit of digging and found that there's a group called
(55:58):
International out Laws who are known for their work in
online gambling in Thailand. Their other work includes human trafficking
and the drug trade. So this is like when the
cartels got involved in avocados, you know what I mean,
they count an income stream. And the second thing this
triggers in Thailand, which is going on today still is
(56:21):
a national concern among the Taie public. Concern that we
share here, which is how easy is it to get
cyanide or make cyanide?
Speaker 3 (56:31):
How easy? Why does it.
Speaker 4 (56:32):
Seem so easy for the average person to use it
repeatedly in a multi year killing spree? Why didn't the
coroner catch any of this stuff?
Speaker 3 (56:42):
Right?
Speaker 4 (56:42):
We don't even know how far back it went, So
we have some things to return back to at the
end here. First, the public was also horrified to learn
that would not receive the death penalty. Thailand does have
capital punishment, they do have a heart justice system. Again,
never do drugs in Thailand. We cannot emphasize that enough.
(57:06):
But the law there does not allow for the death
penalty in the case of pregnancy.
Speaker 3 (57:11):
In jew I would argue that's humane and appropriate. I
would also question as to whether she knew that yeah,
and acted accordingly. Wouldn't you say this is someone who
lacks remorse if everything is as it's being alleged. This
(57:31):
is like, you know, for people throw around the black widow.
Maybe that's sexist. I don't know, It's just a term
pop culture has sort of you know, thrown around for
years the idea of someone using poison to kill people
who are close to them, whether it be a spouse
or you know, a loved one, or someone who's trust
they've earned. But it seems to me this is someone
who absolutely, whether feeding an addiction to gambling or just
(57:56):
out of callousness and lack of remorse, is is doing
this to people. You know, This is someone who is
not not a good person.
Speaker 2 (58:06):
Well, yeah, it's really weird to me that her ex
husband lived and then her new common law husband died fight, which.
Speaker 3 (58:17):
Maybe he didn't have any money, maybe he wasn't a
worthwhile target, you know.
Speaker 2 (58:21):
Well, and then she's allegedly still hanging out with her
ex husband, so I you know, it just the fact
that he's a police officer, that there was so much
suspicion that there would be some kind of information leaking
or you know, something fishy going on, if that local
police department was involved in her prosecution or arrest and
(58:43):
all that stuff. It does it just makes me wonder,
like what was that relationship actually?
Speaker 3 (58:50):
Like I have a hot, wild prediction, y'all. There's going
to be a movie, probably a few varying degrees of quality.
Speaker 4 (59:00):
It's also surprising, as we were talking about off here,
it's also surprising just how little exploration this story has gotten,
considering conservas.
Speaker 3 (59:10):
Of mainstream media.
Speaker 4 (59:11):
Yeah, I had to, like, I had to come of
people who speak tay, you explain this to me just
in general.
Speaker 3 (59:20):
When it came up as a strange news it was
almost like it was mega under the radar feeling, you know.
I mean, there are stories about American technology malfunctioning that
gets more press than this, right, and this is a
huge story in Thailand.
Speaker 4 (59:35):
Of course, we don't have there is more news. In
June of twenty twenty three, al was sent to the
Police General Hospital in Bangkok after prison officials failed to
detect the heartbeat of her child. The child was lost.
Medical staff performed the abortion, so she is no longer pregnant.
Speaker 3 (59:56):
We don't know. Wait, what does that mean? Does that
mean there can be a change on your zone?
Speaker 4 (01:00:00):
No, okay, I mean in the penalty right, unknown and
social media already in Thailand already had you know, quite
an adverse reaction to the idea that this person was
possibly going to escape the death penalty by virtue of
carrying a child. So it has changed the conversation. We
don't know the full updates. By the way, the reason
(01:00:22):
we kept saying allegedly Alm has not been officially convinced.
Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
She hasn't been sentenced, right, so then absolutely could change.
It would change. I would think this would change everything
in terms of what's on the table. I don't know
how different the tie legal system is than ours, but
you'd think there would be similar prosecutor type things seeking
the death penalty.
Speaker 4 (01:00:39):
You know, yeah, well, I mean we're talking about when
the police concluded their investigation. She's going to trial for
fourteen murders. But as happens often in the cases of
alleged improven serial killers, those are only the murders they
feel they can prove in court. That does not mean
it's the entirety and she is. These murders occurred across
(01:01:03):
eight different provinces. This creates a grand total of eighty
separate charges. That is the highest for a single person
in the entire history of Thailand.
Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
Can we talk? Can we just how did that go
on for so long? Guys?
Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
Yeah, that's my question top of mind. I think for
all of us throughout here.
Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
How expensive is it and how time consuming is it
to test for cyanide or poisoning in general. Right when
you're when you're looking at a victim or someone who
has died, right and they're going through the system, would
it be that bad to just let's just test everybody's
blood a little bit, just to see, just to see, right,
Because I guess you wouldn't order a toxicology report for everybody,
(01:01:44):
for everybody that you come upon, you know, in any
provincial police department. But my goodness, maybe we just should do.
Speaker 4 (01:01:52):
That right there are I mean there there should always
be an autopsy, even when even when the cause of
death seen is readily apparent. I believe under tie law,
I was reading about this got my search history, guys,
rip I was reading about Thie law for autopsies as well,
right after searching for some specifics about cyanide and autopsies
(01:02:15):
are supposed to be the standard operating procedure.
Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
No matter what.
Speaker 4 (01:02:20):
Okay, right, But the coroner's office had a lot of
controversy with this because it goes back to what do
we mean when we say autopsy? Does that include toxicology?
Speaker 3 (01:02:29):
Right?
Speaker 4 (01:02:30):
And then there are cases. The thing that stood out
is the family relatives can request that an autopsy not
be done and requests just automatic cremation instead. So some
of the reason I think the murder count may be
higher the alleged murder count account is because there were
(01:02:52):
several people who apparently died under similar suspicious circumstances, but
their bodies were cremated in accordance to their religious beliefs.
Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
I think that goes on the suspicious list. The moment
a family member says, no autopsy please go yeh, the
police can.
Speaker 4 (01:03:09):
Say, the police can say, with all due respect, sorry, man,
you know you are you just.
Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
Say okay, and then you go do the autopsy.
Speaker 4 (01:03:19):
Right, But you know it's it's up to the discretion
of them. It's like, you know, if you're standing by
a burned down house with a can full of gas
and a handful of matches, right.
Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
So, yeah, you don't need to this is just a
natural fire. Do you no need to look into this one?
Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
Yeah? I think it was the wiring anyway.
Speaker 4 (01:03:36):
Yeah, so this this leaves us with more questions. One
of the last updates you can find in the West
is that and Olm filed a defamation case against a
guy who is a prominent coordinator for claims of the
victims kind of an organizer for group statements from them
(01:03:56):
or from their families. And that defamation suit. You know,
Thailand again takes those very seriously, even if you're not
the king. But that defamation suit was dismissed by the
courts about four months ago, so things are moving forward.
There's a huge concern in Thailand overall about autopsy procedures
and that big question how did one person, a troubled
(01:04:18):
civilian with no training, get away with these horrendous acts
so often for so long? Perhaps most troubling, is it
possible someone else could be doing the same.
Speaker 3 (01:04:28):
Well, I mean, nothing really indicated this along the way,
but it does make me wonder if there is an
inside person with law enforcement, even you know, like someone
helping cover the trail or whatever. I don't know. It
just doesn't seem like it makes sense for this to
be able to have gone on for so long.
Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
Who was that seventy eight million bought four right? Who
is it for? Why would she need to go and
take more victims to get small amounts of cash like
that because she didn't get huge amounts from every victim.
What is she using that money to fuel? And who's
benefiting from it. Besides her, that's the big question.
Speaker 4 (01:05:06):
I think kind of like the kind of like the
question about the various strings leading off from the story
about the two Oklahoma guys who got busted for cannabis tracking.
And we've received some excellent correspondence about that folks quite recently.
So thank you for the letters. Keep them coming, give
us new leads on different episode topics you think your
(01:05:28):
fellow conspiracy realist would enjoy. Let us know what you
think about this case, because again we're being fully transparent.
We don't have all the answers here. This person has
not been convicted in court, but there are deeply, profoundly
disturbing things about this case, even aside from the headlines.
So tell us where you think these puzzle pieces go.
(01:05:51):
We can't wait to hear from you. We try to
be easy to find online.
Speaker 3 (01:05:54):
That's right, and we hope that we succeed. And you
can find it to the handle Conspiracy Stuff on Facebook,
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Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
Hey. You can find our voicemail system by dialing one
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Speaker 4 (01:06:34):
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Speaker 2 (01:06:56):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
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Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noel.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
They called me Ben.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
We're joined with our super producer Ball mission controlled decands.
Most importantly, you are here, and that makes this the
stuff they don't want you to know. Brought to you
by four people who have never been to Thailand. Tonight's
tale is a strange one and may not be appropriate
for all audiences due to the at times graphic descriptions
(00:51):
of violence involved. Earlier in Strange News, we shared an
ongoing story that rocked the nation of Thailand to the core.
We're returning to this tale tonight. Here are the facts.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
How do you know I haven't been to Thailand.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I asked you a few years back to something change.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
He's just presumptive of you, sir, okay.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
All right, Well, not to put you in a box, Matt.
So three people who have not been to Thailand and
one person who does.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Either confirm or can I right, Yeah, I've been there
in my mind and in my heart. I really like
Thai food. That doesn't count. No, I have not been
to Thailand, Ben, I can confirm, Matt, that's up to you.
Do what you will.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
You're You're not the only mysterious one over here.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Ben, I've never been to Thailand.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
That that is definitely, that's definitely on record, and everybody,
everybody is a mystery, right.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
We can tay multitudes.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
As Whitman said, speaking of multitudes, there are gonna be
a lot of Thai names and places in tonight's show.
We are not native speakers. Maybe that's the first thing,
so please bear with us. But we can't say, like
any country, Thailand's home to stunning beauty, innovation, and some
very troubling imperfections. Have you guys heard you know one
(02:08):
of the one of the monikers of Thailand is the
land of smiles.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
I have not heard that, But I'm a big fan
of the history of Thai like electronic music and like
disco and stuff. You know that band Krang Been. They
are not native Thai individuals, but they take a lot
of influence from that sound. If you're into that. There's
some really cool deep cut kind of records you can
(02:33):
find from Thai artists from the sixties and seventies really cool,
kind of psychedelic, jazzy sort of dance music. Pretty cool stuff.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Yeah, I've been getting really into Turkish psychedelic music from
the same time period too, But yeah, krongben is perfect.
It's nice writing studying music. It's very low, fine and chill,
and krongbin is a Thai phrase or Thai word. But
I think for a lot of folks who haven't been
to Thailand, it's easy to forget that, like any other country,
(03:04):
there's a lot more at play beneath the surface.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Right.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
It is a different culture, it is a different part
of the world. We're talking about this a little bit
off air. Their government is extremely different from the West,
especially in their practice of helping with the French pronunciation
here the Les mageste or Les majeste the rights of
the king.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Gessie for a silent s there. But that's my only critique.
I think the rest was perfect, But who's to say.
I'm not sure I think you nailed it. So what
is this idea? Right?
Speaker 4 (03:39):
It's like, if you in any way are seen defaming
or insulting or threatening the monarchy, you can be locked
up in jail for three to fifteen years.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Jeez, it's not very smiley behavior. That's the pretty frowning
stuff right there. That's a good point.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
I mean, it's not the main topic of our conversation,
but it is baffling because it affects freedom of the press.
It is broadly enforced. Like one example would be you
can go to jail for three years if you step
on a newspaper that has a picture of the king
on it, or if you like a social media comment,
(04:20):
you can be prosecuted.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Do you think you could call a witness to say
that it was an accident that you stepped on that
newspaper featuring the king and like get out of it.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Or his majesty, the King of Thailand does not care
if it was an axident.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
There are no accidents when it comes to defaming the king, right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
I imagine you can mitigate it and say something like, hey,
I'm just I'm a foreigner, I'm a fullong, I didn't
know I was just walking in a hurry, right. But
but it is it is weaponized to persecute political opponents
and activists. I mean, it's it's not the topic of
our conversation today, but It's a good example of how
(05:00):
people can stereotype, exoticize, or simplify images of another place
without realizing that there's a complicated reality for the people
actually living there. I mean that goes back to, you know,
the perception of Thailand as like a party city country,
not the store, but like a country where people go
to party and do drugs.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
And well, the drug laws are really strict, right you
already mentioned that, but I mean no, I don't think so.
They're like very draconian. Yes, yes, sir, you to mess around.
Absolutely not, No, absolutely not. And foreign sex tourism is
a thing. Human trafficking is a problem. One thing I
didn't know much about that plays a role in our
(05:42):
show tonight. Consumer debt is out of control in Thailand.
It's like ninety something percent of the total GDP. People
have all kinds of debt. And there's also a complicated
relationship with gambling. It as just like the drug laws.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
They have very very strict gambled laws, but it's not
stopping anything.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah, I'd love to explore this a little more, but
I'm familiar with the term, I think from the Big
Lebowski tie stick, and it referred to a really like
powerful strain of marijuana and even like a way that
it was like bundled up and sold. And I just
looked it up and it's totally a thing like there
was in the sixties and seventies. Thailand was responsible for
some of the highest quality marijuana out there in the seventies,
(06:28):
grown by the hill tribes of Thailand, and they use
these like silk lines to tie these buds on, literally
tie them to a stick. I wonder if that is
part of the complicated, you know, relationship with drugs, is
that it had this you know, reputation, and the government
decided we don't want that to be part of our
legacy or whatever, so they got nasty about it. But
(06:49):
also maybe it's okay to export but not for the
citizens to use. I'm curious. I'm sorry, I'm just bring
a bunch of questions. Those are great questions.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Yeah, I mean, you could we could see that as
a react because you know, the recreational drug use is
heavily vilified right in all of Southeast Asia. We're not kidding,
do not do drugs in Thailand. But it makes sense
what you're saying, No, that it could be a reaction
(07:18):
even if it's not like a moral imperative to stop
people from smoking cannabis. Maybe it's more of something like
we need to prove we need to deny drug cartel's
income streams for sure.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
And last thing on this, because I know it's not
really the topic today, but I'm just seeing in an
article that I found that at the time in the
seventies it was largely run by surfers, by Tai surfers,
and surfers as a culture at the time in the
seventies were considered draft dodgers because they were like shiftless
layabouts who were trying to avoid military service, and they
were responsible for these very complex smuggling operations that led
(07:56):
to the stuff being available in the States. So I
don't know, Sorry, this is interest to me, but maybe
worth the exploration down the line.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
Oh yeah, and check out the hippie trail through the
fifties and seventies. That's another big piece of history here.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
And if you find yourself in Thailand, one of the
things you have to do is get a little religious,
or at least go to the religious sites that are
out there. Buddhists, some of the Hindu temple.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Shrines, and the.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Dude well, some of the watts, some of them that
are not. Some of them, like the Sanctuary of Truth,
which is the largest wooden building that's entirely magical place
it does. If you see it, you would think it's
even more magical than the name implies. There's so many
there's so many sites in Thailand that are just they
defy the imagination, I think when it comes to their architecture,
(08:45):
in the detailing.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
And the jungles, just I mean the absolute lushness of
their kind. I guess you call them rainforest kind of,
but there there's certainly a lot of really absolutely spectacular
you know forests and you know country side things like that.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Biodiversity is huge as well, and it's important that we
mention these really positive things that are unique to Thailand
that not every country has. But the gambling laws themselves.
To get back to this, this is a setup the
gambling laws themselves, because gambling is so heavily regulated. There
(09:21):
are only two exceptions to gambling laws in Thailand. The
first is horse racing and the second is the state
supported lottery, and anything other than that is illegal. However, Yeah, however,
like more than fifty seven percent of the population is
into online gambling in some way, and these a lot
(09:43):
of these gambling outfits are run by shadowy cartels like
you remember Specter from the James Bond series. Of course,
there's like a Specter basically for some of this online gambling.
A transnational group named the Outlaws, not the most creative name,
but they get other stuff doing going on. Another thing
(10:04):
that the West doesn't really talk about when it comes
to Thailand is the number of serial killers that have
been active at some point there. And part of that
goes back to what you're talking about with ty stick
or the drug trade, the hippie trayal these vulnerable populations
were targeted by people who leveraged the criminal underground to
(10:26):
get away with crimes that would not be reported right
or would be ignored because powerful people weren't getting targeted.
That's where our story starts tonight because recently last year,
Thai authorities, now it's something new and disturbing, they'd caught
what they were calling the most notorious known serial killer
in the entire history of the country. A woman in
(10:48):
her thirties named Saurat Wrongsiwuthapun good Job, wore on to
her friends.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
That was impressive and I'm not blown Smoke's barely started
with that. That was very well well.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Apologies, apologies again to all Native Tie speakers. She was
known as AHM to her friends. That's what we're going
to call her tonight. At least her friends called her
that until she murdered them allegedly.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Cool. Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
While we while we are not Native Tie speakers, we
can speak to previous research on the phenomenon of serial killers, right, guys,
It's much more rare than perceived in fiction. And there's
a kind of demographic of serial killers who tend to
get apprehended, right.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
The dumb ones, now I'm just shooking. I'm the ones,
the ones that, yeah, the ones that escalate too quickly.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
The ones that get caught tend to overwhelmingly be male
or male identifying, and they have a lot of behaviors
conforming to the controversial McDonald triad theory, which I no,
I think in previous episodes we've talked about this, but
the more I look into it, there's not a ton
(12:08):
of there's not a ton of later research validating this theory.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
No, that's this is like the behavioral sciences at quantico
kind of thinking, you know, early on, but you know
there's there's weird stuff in there, especially harming animals early on.
That that, to me is one of the biggest the
whole bed winning thing. I don't know, I don't know
how much water that holds. He But what's the third one?
Speaker 4 (12:36):
Arson, Yeah, or fascination with fire. I mean fire is fascinating.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Though, Yeah, like a harming something else that is living
with a perceived callousness, right, and then watching like viewing destruction,
watching it occur with the fire, and then at like
having some kind of uncontrollable part of your physical body.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
I always thought, Yeah, that's a better way to phrase it.
I always wondered whether the persistent bed wedding thing was
a psyop meant to like get in the heads of
the criminals being hunted.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Maybe.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
So anyway, if you are looking at news about this person,
you will you will run into the name Sauraat, But
you are more likely to run into the ghoulish nickname
the media gave her, which is om Cyanide.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
And we don't know a whole heck of a lot
about her early life, but the court documents in reporting
do give us some basic information. Am who how we're
going to refer to her, because I don't think it
either matter. I could nearly as good a job as
Ben did on that pronunciation, but am as a graduate
of Nakhon pathom oh geez I said that now I
(13:55):
have to say this Rajabat University, which is west of Bangkok,
and her some of her teachers lectures profits seemed to
have a similar sense of her personality, And it's kind
of stuff we hear often about serial killers that nothing
out of the ordinary about her looks or behavior, just
(14:18):
you know, kind of kept to herself, you know, not
really anything to write home about. She did major in
public relations and graduated in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Yeah, that's an interesting thing, right, the interior lives of everybody.
It does seem like when you get when you hear
that about someone that stands out like this as someone
who's done a lot of harm and has kind of
a secret life that they're living, it is this weird
like there's not a big outward show of anything because
(14:52):
so much is going on in the background, the stuff
that nobody else gets to see. It is a pretty
common thing.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Agree, what's that old lying lives of quiet desperation.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Right.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
We know that she was married and divorced with a
guy named reported sometimes as Vitune or witun Rang Siopon.
He was a senior police official in their province, Rachabury.
He is no longer a police official, and although their
marriage was dissolved, they continued to see each other and
(15:32):
live together. It's very again, like you're saying the complicated stories, right.
Everybody has stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Well, and it's going to come in later. Just her
connection to the police department, which is really fishy to me,
I think everybody else. It's just it's a little weird
because she did have two children with that person, right,
But then she also has this other thing going on,
a common law husband.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
And then we'll see that two police officers also die
in the course of this. So fast forward to the arrest.
Police arrest Am on Tuesday, April twenty fifth. It's twenty
twenty three, and they arrest her after a friend of
hers collapses on a road trip earlier that month, April fourteenth,
(16:22):
Om was traveling with her friend, a thirty two year
old businesswoman named Syrpan Quan Wong, and they were west
of Bangkok. They took part in a pretty common thing,
a Buddhist protection ritual, which sounds pretty cool. They went
to a place called Banpong Pier and they were releasing
fish into the river. And that feels like a wholesome
(16:44):
hangout time to me. Sure until you see the CCTV
footage where Am is the last person seeing with Kwang
Wong before she faints and she dies.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
That's sorry. This was a detail that really stuck out
to me. I think in the initial reporting that we
looked at, you know, when this case kind of came
full circle. Yeah, and she was. She was initially just
charged with stealing and the death was believed to have
been of natural causes, but later charges began to really
(17:22):
pile up, and according to Deputy National Police Commissioner General
uh Sura, shot big joke, Hawkparn big joke. I don't know, okay,
Maybe maybe it's cultural difference. This is like a sort
of a dis nickname. Maybe he just got a good
sense of humor. But there was a later autopsy that
then found traces of cyanide in Sirah Porn's system.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
Yeah, the victim's mother is part of the reason. How
is part of the reason that Am gets caught at all.
So the mother's name is Thong Piniri and files a
police report. She says, I don't believe that these are
natural causes, right, and I demand that there'd be an
autopsy done because my daughter's money and jewelry have gone missing.
(18:13):
I suspect murder and I'm pretty sure that AHM did it.
And if you look at that footage, the CCTV footage,
which you can find easily on YouTube or wherever you
look for videos, you see that Coi Cooi is the familiar,
familiar name people use for kwand Wong. So kwand Wong
(18:34):
goes to the pier where she's going to release the fish,
and Om goes apparently to the restroom. When Am comes back,
she sees her friend has collapsed. She waves bystanders over
to come help, but then she leaves the scene and
she takes her friend's cash, her friend's mobile phone, and
(18:55):
design her handbag.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
It runs away.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, she doesn't stick around at all to help her
friend that you know she was on that trip with, right,
which is very strange, sus Af. Yeah, and it's also
it's the moment you're talking about there, Ben, where the
two of them separate and Koy goes down to the water,
which is where they're headed and what they're going to do.
And it gets even weirder when you start here where
(19:19):
this is only one case out of a bunch of
them we're going to talk about. But there's something similar
here with like sharing something that is ingestible. It can
be many one of many things, but sharing something or
taking something to drink or eat, it's.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
The same kind of red flag that we saw around
that Australian case that you brought initially, Matt, I believe
with the mushrooms and the was it like a beef
Wellington or something like. It was some you know again
shared food items that and then all of a sudden
people are falling ill or dying, you know. I mean
that was obviously one situation, but this is many. But yeah,
(19:55):
I think that was what initially caught our attention about
that story too, or as hmmm, something funny is going
on here.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
What we're going to find in this is it like
I didn't I didn't even think about possibly giving somebody
a pill and telling them, hey, this is a vitamin, yeah, supplement.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
Also, yeah, don't take pills from people no, unless it's
in a package, right, and that is clearly be Hey,
by the way, folks, we are just because we might
be paranoid doesn't mean we're wrong. And guys, I did
buy the three the three pack of fire extinguishers. Yeah, yeah,
(20:32):
So so the next time we hang out, they should
be here. And it has nothing to do with anything unless
you've heard at earlier conversation.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
We had about this. Anyway, Yes, it goes, it goes deeper,
and I think you're right. No, there are similarities. There
are similarities that Australian case stood out to me as well.
The mother has some juice. The mother Cooy's mom has
some juice. She knows people, know people, so she is
able to get the case directly to the Deputy Police
(21:03):
Chief General Surachat Big Joe Kuckball, and she says, look,
I'm afraid that if this goes to the local Ratchaburi
police it'll be buried or it'll be ignored because she
knows this family and she knows that sauraat or AM's
former husband was at the time the deputy superintendent at
(21:27):
the local police station. So wheels within wheels, you know,
and you have to wonder like what kind of vibe
did the mom get that made her escalate it like this?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
You know, Yeah, well I wonder that a lot. I
think just I think just the fact that this supposed
friend definitely took money and belongings. Right, And then when
you hear I don't, I wonder if she had any
contact with any of the other victims, like families, because
(21:58):
there is a pattern, and I think if those victims'
families or relatives were talking amongst themselves, you would start
to see that pattern emerging.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
That's true pretty quickly too, right. So that's a good point.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
So a when question denies any involvement in the theft,
like you said, Nol, she's originally arrested for stealing, which
is not a hard thing to apprehend her for because
she does rut off with these belongings.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
It's on video. It's not a deep fake. It happened.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
But then, like you said, Matt, investigators start putting together
pieces of a puzzle, a puzzle that seems to only
grow larger and more disturbing with each new discovery. Here's one,
they fight a bottle of side Eyed at ALM's house
during her arrest.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Yeah, the bit of a red flag not really a
standard household item.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
Don't think it's not a staple spice in the spice rack.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah, Well, and the big question that we've had in guys,
I went ahead and sacrifice to my Google search, say
where where do I where? How can I procure cyanide?
How could I make cyanide? You know, like it's over
for me? But yeah, I'm not actually interested in that.
If anyone's out to.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Late, that's exactly what someone would say.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Dang it, it's funny.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
I put that later some of our notes because I
was I was having a similar feeling. Is researching some
of this over the over the past few weeks, and yeah,
I thought, I was like, damn, look at what Look
at what I'm doing. I'm doing bought to dollar conversions.
I'm checking on side eyed regulation and Thailand. I'm checking
on flights to Thailand. I'm looking up Google maps, you know, and.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
How do I set up a post office box and
another name? Exactly?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Isn't that crazy though, because it'll it's all controlled by
an algorithm that just sees those as points on a map.
And then it's like, oh, I see where this guy's going.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
Our search histories are the digital version of egregious faced at.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
This point, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
But the big question remains, how did how did she
get a bottle of cyanide?
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Right right?
Speaker 4 (24:10):
What kind of parties does she go to? Well, investigators
say her, oh, she also claimed later she would go
on to claim, look, I had nothing to do with
my friend's death, but she probably took illegal drugs that
were laced with side eye sort of an accidental fetanyl
overdose argument totally by the way, Yeah, her. It turns
(24:32):
out that's sister in law owns a pharmacy also in Ratchaburi,
where police found what they called a collection of suspicious capsules.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Wait, so is she implicated in this now too, or
was it maybe just a case of her not knowing
and sort of taking advantage of that relationship?
Speaker 4 (24:52):
Open open ended at this point, We're not sure, or
at least the police have not specifically stated this.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
We that they have been.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
They have been since twenty twenty three doing the thing
where they're trying to track down all possible sources of
cyanide in the country, like where you know where you
could buy where you could buy this stuff or where
you could make it. You know the number isn't number
(25:22):
isn't certain yet, and also the number of victims isn't
certain yet. People like other families are coming forward, and
it seemed multiple people connected with Ahm at some point
that also died under eerily similar mysterious circumstances. It went
from like eight victims to ten victims, then at least twelve,
(25:45):
the number rows to fourteen, and then fifteen is what
is in the courts right now. But the number speculated
unproven has gone to eighteen, possibly twenty to this day,
no one's sure.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Well the big deal. It's almost like with Zodiac killer
some of these other major serial killers, trying to find
that first victim date, right, and then you start there
and then you move that number rises as you move
towards present day. But then if you start to go
back a little further, you're like, oh, wait a second,
there actually might be more this time in Riverside or whatever.
(26:19):
That's just like the way these things go. And I
wouldn't be surprised if there are twenty people.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
I mean, yeah, that first date victim is one of
the big questions, Like it says, it's tough to answer,
is it twenty fifteen? Like ty authoritieser said, is it
two thousand and five, because we're going to have to
discuss a little bit about the science of autopsies and
the bureaucracy and just the chemical nom the group name cyanide.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Right, maybe the big question is when what was the
inciting incident that made that escalation to of the first poisoning,
Like when what is that thing that pushed her there?
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Right?
Speaker 2 (26:59):
If she is in fact the serial killer that's killing
people with cyanide, because I was just trying to I
was thinking back because she graduated in two thousand and nine, right, right,
so if it started at college, that would kind of
match up, right, two thousand and five date.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
Yeah, if the two thousand and five date is is
our date? You know?
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Yeah? Anyway, this is fun. Would I would I would
want to go as deep as possling down as rabbit hole.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
But okay, yes, for sure, and we will go at
least as far as the information we have currently leads us.
After a quick word from our sponsor and we have returned.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
Other families are coming forward, other civilians coming forward as
soon as the news of suspected cyanide poisoning breaks, and
a lot of these people are saying a lot of
these people are saying, you know, we have a loved one,
a family member who died and died the same way,
and the last person who kicked it with them was
(28:05):
omb There's another thing we mentioned right before the break
that I think we also have to point out, which
is in cases like this or like Zodiac, when things escalate,
there are also going to be some false positives. Just logically.
There are people who lost a loved one in a
way that might seem similar, and they they will rightly ask,
(28:30):
is my loved one's death part of it? And the
answer is not always yes. But that's why there's sometimes
a fog of war and speculation around the numbers. We
do know, however, that in at least one case, OM
allegedly tried to kill someone who survived.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Yeah, And that's something that you do see from time
to time and hunts for serial killers. Is the one
that got away, that makes some report or something that
tends to trigger things, or maybe isn't even a red
flag until after the fact, and then it's used as
a way of kind of backtracking and finding more about
the person's m O.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
Right right, like the like a serial assaulter or killer
who inexplicably at some point kidnaps someone and lets them go,
or chases them but or tries to shoot them but
doesn't shoot them fatally.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Well, like at the time, it might not match a pattern,
so the report might not set off any you know,
alarm bells. But then after their suspicion and then maybe
cross reference for that type of report, you know, then
you see, oh what about this, It's in the right area.
Let's go talk to that person. I'm not saying that
happen in this case, but it certainly could have been
a break.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
Yeah, and there definitely is that kind of that break
in the in the case here when after this initial reporting,
a thirty six year old woman at the time named
Katima Passeyard known as Plaw to her friends, she comes
to the police and she says, I was poisoned in
twenty twenty, but I made it to a hospital where
(30:05):
doctors resuscitated me. She was at a mall and she
got a pill offered to her by her friend Om,
and they parted ways. She felt a tightness in her chest,
she lost feeling in her hands. She was calling Om.
The story goes to pick her up, but Om got
(30:25):
lost and so someone contacted emergency services and they were
able to keep her alive.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Well, yeah, the way I've read the story was that
she was trying to call an am was kept like
canceling the phone call basically, you know what I mean,
Like someone sees there's an incoming call, just hits decline.
That's what she was saying. Happy, but she got through
to there's a hotline number sixteen sixty nine there that
she called and was able to get through, which thank goodness.
(30:55):
But she at the beginning, she was unsure that it
was poisoning. She thought, oh, well, something is just wrong
and I'm having a medical emergency. Sure, and then she
sees some of the reporting and other events occurring and thinks,
oh wait a second.
Speaker 4 (31:09):
Yeah, she didn't put it together. She thought she just
had a close call, you know, and got lucky. She
also told the police as she is putting these pieces together,
that she loaned two hundred and fifty thousand bought to earlier.
Bought is the currency of Thailand, that is right now,
that's probably it's a little bit north of seven thousand
(31:31):
dollars US seven forty eight dollars and change. So there
was a financial incentive, it appeared.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
So we're thinking that it would be a tap. If
I'm on I'm taking money from someone, I'm barring that money.
Then I'm killing that person, so I don't owe her anymore, right,
She's some.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Seems like a plan that could go awry really quickly.
I am shocked, frankly that it went on as long
as it did. Agreed.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
I mean, and let's pause here as as we set
up previously to talk a little bit about the nature
of cyanide and have a moment of silence for our
search histories. Paul, could you hit some sad music.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
There we go, you know the I think this is
an area where in our initial conversations about this, we
all had questions about like how cinide acts on the body,
what kind of traces does it leave behind, how long
does the stick around in the body? So this is
I think exciting for all of us to kind of
get to the bottom of it. I think we're on
the fly kind of answered some of those questions at
the time, but this is a much deeper dive here.
(32:42):
So this is very cool.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I mean, it's not cool, it's well, we're talking about
sources of cinide poising first, right, so how does it
actually get in your system? I think we've probably heard
that cigarettes can often contain cyanide. We've heard that, but
often I think it's it's like, how much of that
is the anti smoking I don't I don't want to
say propaganda, but it's the anti smoking message.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
Right, like saying it contains jet fuel or whatever.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
You know, we know there are additives to cigarettes, but
I think sinide is just one of those, like, oh wow, okay,
that's scary, but I've heard that.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
We also know there are allowable levels of mercury and
fish that people can consume.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
So yeah, anyway, yeah, mercury doesn't like kill you.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Well, that's the thing, right.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
Like in fiction and in those atrocious spy novels and
all that stuff, cyanide is often portrayed as this super secret,
fast acting thing only am I, six no and Nazis
know about it or whatever. But to your point, Matt,
it might be surprising for love or fellow conspiracy realists
to know that you can be exposed to this toxin
(33:48):
from everyday chemicals and even common food stuff like lima beans, yucca, cassavas, almonds,
apple seeds, burning plastic spoil from a house fire.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Yeah, is that one of those things where you is
m of beans is one of those things where you
can cook it down in a certain way and get
an extract some bad things from it, like the breaking
bad thing with the whatever the ricin brought to you
by the Anarchist cookbook.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
I see, Okay, God, I knew about pits right in
some fruit right specifically cherry, the stones and cherries, and
how dangerous that's. Yeah, but I've heard that's really dangerous,
But I never really understood. I guess that you could
weaponize it in a way. I thought it would just
be careful with it. Oh man, quick cursory Google. Most
(34:37):
cooking research related to sinide removal has been conducted on cassava.
Boiling in water for long periods of time greater than
thirty minutes in a large excess of water is the
most effective method for reducing sinide. Eighty percent of the
original SIGNI.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
Will be removed. So that's extraction in terms of making
it safe to eat. But I guess what do you
do with the extract? Man?
Speaker 1 (34:57):
You know?
Speaker 2 (34:58):
But is that like with all root vegetables where it
absorbed like they absorb things in the ground or are
we saying cassava and like yuka, it just has that
in it.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Yeah, yeah, they got that dog in them man. But
the also, your own dry beans is something you got
to be a little bit careful about. Like if you're
not using jarred or whatever canned beans that are pre cooked,
if you're doing it from the raw beans, soaking them
and stuff, you do have to be thoughtful about that
because you can't accidentally not do it right. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
And and one common misconception that the fictional stories miss
is that cyanide in general refers to any chemical that
contains a carbon nitrogen bond. The issue is that lots
of stuff contains cyanide, but they're not automatically deadly poisons
as a results.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
So we're not trying to also be alarmist about beans.
Just it's just to put that out there. No one
needs to be scared about eat eating their vegetables, right,
Oh you should.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
You should follow the directions though, Yeah. Sure, we don't
take vegetables for strangers. Don't take vegetables or pills from strangers.
If someone says, hey, you want a pill and you
say no, and they say, hey, do you want this
handful of lina beans also say no.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
It sounds like a jack in the beanstock kind of scenario. Exactly,
it really does.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
Yeah, So like sodium cyanide, potassium cyanide, hydrogen cyanide, these
kind of things are they all have that carbon nitrogen bond,
and those things can be lethal. But there are a
bunch of other compounds called nitrils. You've probably ingested them.
That's the stuff in the cassava, the almonds and so on.
(36:40):
If you do have a case of sinaide poisoning and
acute sinai poisoning, it does kill people quickly.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
It works.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
It doesn't like two to five minutes and then they're
dead heart failure. But it's not a silent killer. That's
that's why it's it's weird for it to be so
commonplace in espionage fiction because if you are a medical professional,
you know what you're looking for. It is pretty much
impossible to hide sinai poisoning in a legal dose. That
(37:12):
stuff is readily apparent in a corpse for several months
after death.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
That's what you mean by silent Caroll like you undetectable?
I guess right, Okay, Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
Yeah, And it's also a very painful death, right, I mean,
so it's an effective poison if you want someone out
of the picture, but it's not something you would realistically
use if you want to avoid getting caught. So it's
kind of amateur hour to use it.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Well, unless it's in your fake tooth, right and you're
getting tortured or you're.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
Killing yourself, right, Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly, which also I
don't know. Apparently it's something that chemists have used historically
when they commit suicide. But the reason they do it
is not because it's painless. It's because it's one of
the most certain ways to do it, like to end
(38:02):
your life. It's just an ugly thing to think about.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Unfortunately, Well I feel better, Yeah, so fun at parties.
Speaker 4 (38:13):
Okay, let's get back to the investigation though. So that's
a little bit of cyanide science, right, that's a little
bit why this is unusual. One of the first questions
we could all have is, Okay, so guys, you're saying
this kind of poisoning is readily apparent in an autopsy
of people know what they're looking for. So how did
someone do this for so long?
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Right?
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Or with so many people we'll get to that towards
the end, but right now, maybe we talk a little
bit about about the the unfolding of the investigation. Authorities said, hey,
owed a lot of these victims' money, she also had
started businesses with them or kind of lows.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Yeah, that's is interesting because it's not like you would
necessarily turn that up from say a credit check or
something like so to oh individuals, multiple individuals money. To
find that out takes a little detective work, you know.
I mean, that's you got to give props there for
them to figuring out that that particular pattern because it
is in a way kind of smart because it's not
(39:19):
something that there's just like a uniform record of necessarily.
Some of the business is sure, but you know, in general,
just like taking out a loan from an individual, she
must have ingratiated herself to a lot of these people
to even be in a position where they would have
done that for her. You know, it's very interesting the manipulation.
The levels of manipulation really start to kind of you know,
(39:40):
show through here. I think public relations degree. Right, Oh yes, you're.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Right, Ben, tell me correct me if I'm wrong here.
I had read that there are even instances where it
wasn't like a formal loaning of money to on but
just meeting with somebody that I guess she assumed is
going to have a lot of money on them and
then taking them or attempting to take them out, or
(40:05):
allegedly attempting to poison them, like at a restaurant or
at an outing kind of like she did when they
were feeding the fish, things like that, Like did you
find that too or was it all like loans?
Speaker 4 (40:19):
Yeah, a lot of thanks to the National out of
Thailand for some great, great reporting on this, and of
course the public statements of Big Joke, and we have
a bit of an epilogue about Big Joke at the
end of this. But yeah, you're on the money there,
because she would target people, according to prosecutors hashtag allegedly
allegedly allegedly, she would befriend people she perceived as wealthy,
(40:43):
earn their trust, and then say, you know, like, hey,
we should hang out more often, classic manipulation moves, and
then get them to consume food, drinks, or herbs, and
then search them for money or to deprive them of possessions.
And then it goes to the idea of accomplices, because
(41:06):
if you are, if you are moving hard cash below
a certain amount, not that difficult to move. Possessions, especially
bespoke things or relatively rare things like very high end
designer autrement, that's a little bit tougher, right if you're
if they're only x amount of you know, just for example,
(41:28):
they're only x amount of uh Erme's bags in this town, right,
then the people have those bags know who else has
the bags, so it's all harder to sell it.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Can we talk about one specific case that happen in
twenty fifteen without chivid too far ahead?
Speaker 3 (41:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Okay, So there's this one case where OM well, a
person died who was close to AM, and then OMS
seemed to swoop in to try and take over the
finances of this person that died sketch Monta tepe Cowen
or something like that. This person who was who had
(42:10):
left Thailand for quite a while, like I think, got
married somewhere and then came back and when she arrived
back died very soon after, and saraat Om jumped in
to like handle all the post death finances for this person,
which is really weird.
Speaker 4 (42:28):
Yeah, let me handle this in your time of grieving,
and unfortunately con artists do that all the world round.
You know, you find somebody at the worst moment in
their life, having lost a loved one, You're a rock
for them to lean on, your purported safe space, and
dangerous things can happen there if people have ill intent.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
We know that.
Speaker 4 (42:51):
A week after that initial arrest, when all this stuff
has started to come together, the authorities also arrest Ahm's
ex husband, the senior police official, and he gets charged.
This is okay, this is still confusing to me. He
gets charged with fraud and embezzlement, both related to and
not related to the deaths.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Yeah, but because I think there's more going on there,
And again why I brought up the common law husband
that she had. And then also do we mention that
she was four months pregnant when she was picked up
when she was arrested.
Speaker 4 (43:29):
We haven't, We haven't she and it is and I'm
glad you brought that up because that is crucial to
other events in the story. She was it's the term
of her pregnancy gets reported at different months to pay
on where you look. But she was definitely She's definitely
pregnant at the time of Houoy's death.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Well, and so it just for me, it brings up
this issue of interpersonal pressures. So if you think about
on pressuring potential victims, alleged victims to you know, do
what she wants to end up getting things from them
for her, I wonder if she has or has had
(44:11):
people in her life that are pressuring her to do
things right as well, because often it's not just a
lone wolf actor doing something like this, right, So I
don't know, I wonder, like, whose father who fathered that child?
Is it the ex is it the common law? Is
it somebody else? And what are those relationships like, right?
Speaker 3 (44:32):
And did she have accomplices? Spoiler?
Speaker 4 (44:36):
The Thai courts concluded, yes she does or the type
police did.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
We already kind of red flagged her sister in law
a little bit with that, you know, pharmacy. Yeah, well
the pharmacy suspicious capsules or whatever. And so police say
that this gentleman who's now I'm not going to try
to pronounce because you've already done such a great job,
turned himself into police after authorities issued a warrant. He's
(45:00):
just like here I am. The couple though they were
divorced were actually still living together, and police said that
mister rangsa utha porn it's not too bad, was most
likely involved in the alleged murder of an ex boyfriend
by the name of Suthi Sak Pun Kwan, Yes, and
(45:24):
that he also helped destroy evidence of Kwan Wang's murder. Dude,
that's quite yea quite yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Yeah, but we didn't even really talk about that that
this is the common law husband, the pun Quan. This
suitisak that you just said. So this person died March twelfth,
I think, twenty twenty three. But this person was potentially
a poisoning victim. Well, at least the reporting that I
was reading in May of last year, twenty twenty three,
(45:55):
they kept saying potentially another one of the victims. I
think it's I think it's pretty certain at this point
that this person was a victim. But they're also reporting
we're talking about the husband, the ex husband now who
was just arrested. That we mentioned this person I saw
as a lieutenant colonel. But this is also like the
(46:16):
what did you call him, ben or his title at
the police station.
Speaker 4 (46:19):
Oh, I just used a senior police official because he
had he had he was a high level police officer
at one point, and it gets a little confusing for
us because Thai police is the Tai police are a
little bit more militarized than Yes police.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
That's why I was so confused when I saw lieutenant
colonel okay, interesting, I wonder what that actually means. And
then was used in a different like he was given
a different standing in another piece of reporting I saw,
but I didn't know, and it didn't say if he
was still an officer employed at the time when he
turned himself or if he had like retired.
Speaker 4 (47:02):
No, he was still an officer. He got he got fired.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
Got it?
Speaker 4 (47:09):
He got fired for this or a life He's like
in very shortcuver of that, you know, because you can't
have you know. It's like, yes, yes, statistically there are
more arsenists in the fire department than there are in
other jobs. But if they find out you're an arsonist,
(47:30):
then you're out of a job, right, They just can't.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
That's not very nice. Just think about how much they
love that job.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
Are you looking at? Why are you taking the side
of the arsonists.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
I'm just saying it, like that's like dream job for.
Speaker 4 (47:44):
Why Another disturbing statistic from a while back when people
still went to breaking mortar stores, something like twelve percent
of shoe store employees are working entirely because they have
a foot fetish.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
Sick jeers speaking of I saw an Instagram video earlier
today where a fan met Quentin Tarantino on the street
in la and asked him to sign her foot and
also to rate her foot. Did he do it? He didn't.
He refused to rate the foot, but you could tell
he got a kick out of him. There we go,
(48:20):
it's worth it.
Speaker 4 (48:21):
So this is going to lead us to other people
who charged his accomplices. Her lawyer, ALM's lawyer gets accused.
They say the lawyer knowingly helped destroy or conceal evidence.
They're saying she couldn't have gotten away with it for
as long as she did. But they also discovered something
very important about the motive. And we're going to take
a quick break for word from our sponsors in return
(48:44):
will break it down. We're back in May of twenty
twenty three. Police discover what they believed to be the
primary motive. We danced around it a little bit earlier.
Here money again the great reporting that the nation shows
us that police these stats are astonishing that police discovered
(49:10):
was in possession of seventy eight million bots. That's almost
two point two million dollars spread over Get this, one
hundred and eighty separate bank accounts.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
No, she had a system because think about how many
times that Maybe maybe they're all set up online, but
I mean that the passwords.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
Alone, WHOA and Ben. I think you did a great
job of teasing it and really not quite getting to
what it was about. We were talking at the beginning
of the show about the laws in Thailand and about
the cultural issue with gambling and Thailand, and it was
apparently a lot of these accounts, or many of them,
(49:52):
maybe most of them, had been linked to various gambling
sites and accounts. Do you want to do that?
Speaker 4 (50:00):
That quote from Big Joke. Sorry, we know he has
a real title, it's just the name.
Speaker 3 (50:06):
It's hard. It's hard to shake a nickname like that.
That is wild Man before Luke, I just wanted to
say to ask, is it sick that in my mind?
I'm like, well, money, that's boring. I want my serial
killers to only kill for abject pleasure or divine Yeah,
I'm joking, but it is the way we've been conditioned
(50:28):
to think about serial killers, you know, and this is
basically an elaborate and deadly grift, you know, series of them.
If if everything is as it's as it's said here,
so big joke had this to say. She was gambling
to the tune of about one million bot per day.
The investigators also found that these accounts received money that
(50:50):
had been transferred from directly from some of the victim's accounts.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
Oh what, what's that? Translated to one million bots?
Speaker 3 (50:59):
That's out twenty eight nine dollars A y go. Do
we know what kind of this matters? Do we know
what kind of games she was playing?
Speaker 5 (51:09):
Like?
Speaker 3 (51:09):
What? Like?
Speaker 2 (51:10):
As you said, no, I don't know, because you had
said that there's a lot of very specific guidelines or
guardrails around gambling, with horse racing being one of the
only like physical versions.
Speaker 3 (51:23):
I just wonder if there are similarly guardrails around what
kind of you know, virtual games are allowed to be
played online.
Speaker 4 (51:29):
Gambling is illegal, but it's just it's impossible to see,
it's impossible to stop it.
Speaker 3 (51:35):
I see.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
Do we think she was laundering money for someone? Don't know,
because if you're spending that much money a day, pushing
it through various whatever gambling sites, casinos, whatever it is.
I imagine that you're actually moving that money for somebody.
Speaker 3 (51:53):
It just seems like a risky way to move money. Though,
if you're because you got to place bets, you know,
I mean, like you can lose it. You would be.
Speaker 2 (52:00):
Well, why would you have one hundred and eighty accounts? Like,
what is the reason for one hundred and eighty accounts?
Speaker 3 (52:04):
Just maybe just maybe they're under different names to obscure
how much money you have by spreading it around.
Speaker 4 (52:10):
Maybe there's a limit that one online outlet has allow you.
Speaker 3 (52:14):
To do per day, that's per account. And also, you
gotta wonder too, it seemed like she was really keen
on quote unquote taking over people's accounts and finances. You
gotta wonder if she maybe just did that too with
someone I don't know.
Speaker 4 (52:28):
I mean, that's true, that's possible, right because what they
they they're not they're saying that the accounts belonged to her,
But that's not quite the same thing as saying that
she used her real name on all of these And
this leads to two other big issues in Thai society.
This online gambling thing that we've mentioned Uh, it doesn't
(52:48):
seem to have the same sort of in practice regulation
they'd be familiar with in other countries. It is apparently
an open secret that a significant portion of these operations
are touched by, or indeed run by transnational crime cartels
like Spector Level stuff, possibly with the assistance from corrupt
(53:10):
government officials. In twenty twenty two alone, the one we
have the most recent numbers for fifteen hundred people were
arrested for some version of fraud and online gambling.
Speaker 3 (53:21):
Good.
Speaker 4 (53:22):
It really makes you think about the you know, the
folks on this side of the pond who cheat at
multiplayer games, right, little hacker guys on Call of Duty
or whatever.
Speaker 3 (53:32):
I can't remember.
Speaker 4 (53:33):
Yeah, sure, what if one of them is what if
one of them is working for an international crime ring
and they're just in the test case where they have
to try out, try it out and see whether there's
money to be made cheating a Call of Duty or
Tech and eight which just came out and slaps and
it's fun and everyone should play it.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
I don't believe that you're playing Tech and eight for
a second, Ben, you do not have time to be
playing Tech and eight.
Speaker 3 (53:59):
Trust Come on, I'll tell you what I got recently,
just to light in them a little bit. I think
it's street Fighter five Championship Edition, which gives you all
of the street Fighter games up to five and has
like intense online capabilities. Really fun. Those games are so
fun still and hold up really beautifully to this day.
Speaker 2 (54:21):
Does they have street Fighter Alpha?
Speaker 3 (54:23):
I think it does. Yeah. I mean, I think it's
got all the ITAs leading up to five if I'm
not mistaken, but I haven't really exported, but it's pretty
big package. That's so crazy.
Speaker 4 (54:31):
Why did it take street Fighter ten, like more than
ten years to learn to count to three?
Speaker 3 (54:36):
You know what I mean? It's unfortunate, but.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
Well because they had better words like turbo, you know.
Speaker 3 (54:44):
Well, I guess it's one of those things sort of
like with Mario Kart eight. You know where we've been
on Rock and Mario Kart eight for going on a
decade now, and they just keep kind of upgrading the
game because they don't need to release another iteration if
the previous one's still killing it. That was the case
with street Fighter too. It was just like blockbuster game
for Capcom, you.
Speaker 4 (55:02):
Know, yeah, and these blockbuster games, like gaming makes a
lot of money spoiler. Folks, you can probably tell we're
gearing up for some episodes on gaming in the future,
I think.
Speaker 3 (55:12):
Especially with everything that's going on in China. We got
a email recently. I listened to mail kind of breaking
down some of that stuff about the regulations of online
gaming and how it actually pertains to another cultural seeming
cultural issue with you know, this kind of stuff. I mean,
I don't know, it's hard to say, like we certainly
have that here too, but I think it's different. I
think it varies from culture to culture, the relationship with
(55:34):
gambling and even with just like screens and stuff, you know.
Speaker 4 (55:37):
And then there's also the question of whether prohibition works
and if so, degree right, the biggest question. Yeah, So
this in twenty twenty two alone, fifteen hundred people arrested
for some sort of online gambling thing. Did a little
bit of digging and found that there's a group called
(55:58):
International out Laws who are known for their work in
online gambling in Thailand. Their other work includes human trafficking
and the drug trade. So this is like when the
cartels got involved in avocados, you know what I mean,
they count an income stream. And the second thing this
triggers in Thailand, which is going on today still is
(56:21):
a national concern among the Taie public. Concern that we
share here, which is how easy is it to get
cyanide or make cyanide?
Speaker 3 (56:31):
How easy? Why does it.
Speaker 4 (56:32):
Seem so easy for the average person to use it
repeatedly in a multi year killing spree? Why didn't the
coroner catch any of this stuff?
Speaker 3 (56:42):
Right?
Speaker 4 (56:42):
We don't even know how far back it went, So
we have some things to return back to at the
end here. First, the public was also horrified to learn
that would not receive the death penalty. Thailand does have
capital punishment, they do have a heart justice system. Again,
never do drugs in Thailand. We cannot emphasize that enough.
(57:06):
But the law there does not allow for the death
penalty in the case of pregnancy.
Speaker 3 (57:11):
In jew I would argue that's humane and appropriate. I
would also question as to whether she knew that yeah,
and acted accordingly. Wouldn't you say this is someone who
lacks remorse if everything is as it's being alleged. This
(57:31):
is like, you know, for people throw around the black widow.
Maybe that's sexist. I don't know, It's just a term
pop culture has sort of you know, thrown around for
years the idea of someone using poison to kill people
who are close to them, whether it be a spouse
or you know, a loved one, or someone who's trust
they've earned. But it seems to me this is someone
who absolutely, whether feeding an addiction to gambling or just
(57:56):
out of callousness and lack of remorse, is is doing
this to people. You know, This is someone who is
not not a good person.
Speaker 2 (58:06):
Well, yeah, it's really weird to me that her ex
husband lived and then her new common law husband died fight, which.
Speaker 3 (58:17):
Maybe he didn't have any money, maybe he wasn't a
worthwhile target, you know.
Speaker 2 (58:21):
Well, and then she's allegedly still hanging out with her
ex husband, so I you know, it just the fact
that he's a police officer, that there was so much
suspicion that there would be some kind of information leaking
or you know, something fishy going on, if that local
police department was involved in her prosecution or arrest and
(58:43):
all that stuff. It does it just makes me wonder,
like what was that relationship actually?
Speaker 3 (58:50):
Like I have a hot, wild prediction, y'all. There's going
to be a movie, probably a few varying degrees of quality.
Speaker 4 (59:00):
It's also surprising, as we were talking about off here,
it's also surprising just how little exploration this story has gotten,
considering conservas.
Speaker 3 (59:10):
Of mainstream media.
Speaker 4 (59:11):
Yeah, I had to, like, I had to come of
people who speak tay, you explain this to me just
in general.
Speaker 3 (59:20):
When it came up as a strange news it was
almost like it was mega under the radar feeling, you know.
I mean, there are stories about American technology malfunctioning that
gets more press than this, right, and this is a
huge story in Thailand.
Speaker 4 (59:35):
Of course, we don't have there is more news. In
June of twenty twenty three, al was sent to the
Police General Hospital in Bangkok after prison officials failed to
detect the heartbeat of her child. The child was lost.
Medical staff performed the abortion, so she is no longer pregnant.
Speaker 3 (59:56):
We don't know. Wait, what does that mean? Does that
mean there can be a change on your zone?
Speaker 4 (01:00:00):
No, okay, I mean in the penalty right, unknown and
social media already in Thailand already had you know, quite
an adverse reaction to the idea that this person was
possibly going to escape the death penalty by virtue of
carrying a child. So it has changed the conversation. We
don't know the full updates. By the way, the reason
(01:00:22):
we kept saying allegedly Alm has not been officially convinced.
Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
She hasn't been sentenced, right, so then absolutely could change.
It would change. I would think this would change everything
in terms of what's on the table. I don't know
how different the tie legal system is than ours, but
you'd think there would be similar prosecutor type things seeking
the death penalty.
Speaker 4 (01:00:39):
You know, yeah, well, I mean we're talking about when
the police concluded their investigation. She's going to trial for
fourteen murders. But as happens often in the cases of
alleged improven serial killers, those are only the murders they
feel they can prove in court. That does not mean
it's the entirety and she is. These murders occurred across
(01:01:03):
eight different provinces. This creates a grand total of eighty
separate charges. That is the highest for a single person
in the entire history of Thailand.
Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
Can we talk? Can we just how did that go
on for so long? Guys?
Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
Yeah, that's my question top of mind. I think for
all of us throughout here.
Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
How expensive is it and how time consuming is it
to test for cyanide or poisoning in general. Right when
you're when you're looking at a victim or someone who
has died, right and they're going through the system, would
it be that bad to just let's just test everybody's
blood a little bit, just to see, just to see, right,
Because I guess you wouldn't order a toxicology report for everybody,
(01:01:44):
for everybody that you come upon, you know, in any
provincial police department. But my goodness, maybe we just should do.
Speaker 4 (01:01:52):
That right there are I mean there there should always
be an autopsy, even when even when the cause of
death seen is readily apparent. I believe under tie law,
I was reading about this got my search history, guys,
rip I was reading about Thie law for autopsies as well,
right after searching for some specifics about cyanide and autopsies
(01:02:15):
are supposed to be the standard operating procedure.
Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
No matter what.
Speaker 4 (01:02:20):
Okay, right, But the coroner's office had a lot of
controversy with this because it goes back to what do
we mean when we say autopsy? Does that include toxicology?
Speaker 3 (01:02:29):
Right?
Speaker 4 (01:02:30):
And then there are cases. The thing that stood out
is the family relatives can request that an autopsy not
be done and requests just automatic cremation instead. So some
of the reason I think the murder count may be
higher the alleged murder count account is because there were
(01:02:52):
several people who apparently died under similar suspicious circumstances, but
their bodies were cremated in accordance to their religious beliefs.
Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
I think that goes on the suspicious list. The moment
a family member says, no autopsy please go yeh, the
police can.
Speaker 4 (01:03:09):
Say, the police can say, with all due respect, sorry, man,
you know you are you just.
Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
Say okay, and then you go do the autopsy.
Speaker 4 (01:03:19):
Right, But you know it's it's up to the discretion
of them. It's like, you know, if you're standing by
a burned down house with a can full of gas
and a handful of matches, right.
Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
So, yeah, you don't need to this is just a
natural fire. Do you no need to look into this one?
Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
Yeah? I think it was the wiring anyway.
Speaker 4 (01:03:36):
Yeah, so this this leaves us with more questions. One
of the last updates you can find in the West
is that and Olm filed a defamation case against a
guy who is a prominent coordinator for claims of the
victims kind of an organizer for group statements from them
(01:03:56):
or from their families. And that defamation suit. You know,
Thailand again takes those very seriously, even if you're not
the king. But that defamation suit was dismissed by the
courts about four months ago, so things are moving forward.
There's a huge concern in Thailand overall about autopsy procedures
and that big question how did one person, a troubled
(01:04:18):
civilian with no training, get away with these horrendous acts
so often for so long? Perhaps most troubling, is it
possible someone else could be doing the same.
Speaker 3 (01:04:28):
Well, I mean, nothing really indicated this along the way,
but it does make me wonder if there is an
inside person with law enforcement, even you know, like someone
helping cover the trail or whatever. I don't know. It
just doesn't seem like it makes sense for this to
be able to have gone on for so long.
Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
Who was that seventy eight million bought four right? Who
is it for? Why would she need to go and
take more victims to get small amounts of cash like
that because she didn't get huge amounts from every victim.
What is she using that money to fuel? And who's
benefiting from it. Besides her, that's the big question.
Speaker 4 (01:05:06):
I think kind of like the kind of like the
question about the various strings leading off from the story
about the two Oklahoma guys who got busted for cannabis tracking.
And we've received some excellent correspondence about that folks quite recently.
So thank you for the letters. Keep them coming, give
us new leads on different episode topics you think your
(01:05:28):
fellow conspiracy realist would enjoy. Let us know what you
think about this case, because again we're being fully transparent.
We don't have all the answers here. This person has
not been convicted in court, but there are deeply, profoundly
disturbing things about this case, even aside from the headlines.
So tell us where you think these puzzle pieces go.
(01:05:51):
We can't wait to hear from you. We try to
be easy to find online.
Speaker 3 (01:05:54):
That's right, and we hope that we succeed. And you
can find it to the handle Conspiracy Stuff on Facebook,
on YouTube, and also on the social media platform formerly
known as Twitter. People call it x some people. You
can also find It's a Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram
and TikTok.
Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
Hey. You can find our voicemail system by dialing one
eight three three st d WYTK. When you call in,
you've got three minutes. Give yourself a cool nickname and
let us know if we can use your message and
voice on the air. If you've got a links or
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especially cat pictures, send them to send them to us.
Speaker 4 (01:06:34):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:06:56):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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