The former police sergeant behind the Thailand nursery massacre was a troubled, hot-tempered man who battled drug issues. Panya Khamrap, 34, was a user of methamphetamine, also known as yaba, and was fired from his job in January for drug possession, said a report.
However, police officials said they did not find any trace of drugs in Panya's system on the day of the killings last Thursday, reported Reuters.
According to Thailand's deputy police chief General Surachate Hakparn, the violence resulted from "exploded emotion", caused by his dismissal from service and legal, money, and family troubles.
The report, which traced Khamrap's movements on the fateful day which ended with him murdering 36 people, including 22 nursery children, revealed that the former officer used to spend nights firing guns in his backyard.
The villager, who grew up in the remote village of Tha Uthai and graduated from a top Bangkok university, faced personal issues following the breakdown of his marriage. He shifted from Bangkok's wealthiest neighbourhoods to his home village after a divorce in 2020.
Soon, Khamrap moved in with a woman who worked at a karaoke bar and her son. Both were killed last Thursday.
The villagers knew of his temper and the village chief too had warned Khamrap several times, but the latter was too scared to do anything, according to Suwan Tonsomsen, Khamrap's neighbour.
On the day of the massacre, neighbours heard him arguing with his girlfriend, who told him that she was leaving him. Khamrap also had a court appointment on drug charges the same day, the verdict of which was expected the next day.
On Thursday, around midday, Khamrap left in a white pick-up truck. He reportedly crashed into a man on a motorcycle outside a shop before shooting the rider. After that, Khamrap drove to an intersection where he rammed into a group of people. He left his truck and stabbed them. Three died and several were wounded, according to the Reuters report.
It was from there that Khamrap drove into the administrative complex where the Uthai Sawan Child Development Centre, a pink, one-storey building, is located. The children were on their afternoon nap when the murderer arrived.
What ensued was a rampage with Khamrap attacking people, shooting some and slashing others. "Everything happened so quickly and there was blood everywhere. I saw the wounded and dead sitting together at a table as if nothing had happened," office worker Kittisak Polprakap told Reuters.
He then entered the nursery, kicked it open and went on a murderous spree for the next 20 minutes. Besides the 22 children, two teachers, one eight-months pregnant, too were brutally murdered.
He then drove back to his neighbourhood where his neighbour approached him. "What are you doing?" the man asked. "I'm here to fucking kill you," Khamrap replied. He killed two people there. He walked back to his house where, at around 3 p.m., he burned his truck, and shot his girlfriend, her son and then himself.
Meanwhile, his neighbour Suwan Tonsomsen recalls frantically calling the police. "They said there were not enough police," she said, and they had to wait for a commando unit. "It took them a while," she said.
Police chief Surachate Hakparn too acknowledged that the police response had been slow and officers arrived too late to stop the killing.