Jim Algie

by Bizarre Thailand Tales of Crime, Sex,and Black Magic

  What she relished talking about most was the science of death and the cases she has worked on. Khunying Porntip first became a household name in Thailand in 1998 when she was working at Bangkok’s Ramathibodi Hospital and Faculty of Medicine as a pathologist investigating unnatural deaths and as a consultant for medical students. When a female student disappeared for a week, the doctor theorised that her boyfriend, Serm, another medical student with very high grades, had killed her.

  “The chief of the police forensic department knew that I had knowledge of DNA; it was the first time in Thailand that we used DNA testing on a case. There was blood in Serm’s car, so I asked the police to give the bloodstain to me to do the DNA test, but they told me they believed Serm’s statement that this was the blood of a fish because his mother worked in the market.”

  The bloodstain matched the DNA of the missing woman, Janjira. So did another droplet of dried blood found in the bathroom of Serm’s apartment. These clues led to a ghastly discovery: the medical student had indeed killed his girlfriend and, with a surgeon’s skill, dissected her and flushed her remains down the toilet. Photos in local papers, and video footage on TV, showing Dr. Porntip trawling through the drains in search of the young woman’s remains became indelible images in the public eye, and soon led to a series of true-crime books about her cases, such as Sop Phut Dai (‘Corpses Can Speak’). All of them have been bestsellers in Thailand.

  Ever since she showed up the notoriously corrupt police by providing the body of evidence for Serm’s conviction, Dr. Porntip has had numerous roadblocks put in front of her crime-scene investigations. “I don’t have a problem with the police, but they have a problem with me,” she said, smiling in a manner that seemed both mischievous and a little arrogant. “When they claim a man has committed suicide and then we find two bullets in his skull, what should we believe? That he was a bad shot?”

  This was why, as the director of the CIFS, she wanted to set up mobile labs for crime-scene analyses so her department can conduct investigations that are independent from those of the police. Her motives for doing so were selfless; it’s not like she needs to win any more popularity contests in Thailand, where she was named the country’s ‘Most Trusted Person’ in a survey by the Asian edition of Reader’s Digest in 2010. “I’m already popular enough with the Thai public,” she said.

  So it seems unlikely we’ll get to see her hosting any pop concerts or being captured by TV cameras dancing enthusiastically with her husband to the tunes of Thailand’s most enduring pop star, Thongchai ‘Bird’ McIntyre.

  ***

  The doctor’s growing fame in the rest of Asia and the West, where she has been dubbed ‘Dr. Death’, is an outgrowth of forensic medicine’s rise from basement morgues to the mainstream media. Bestselling novels by Patricia Cornwall and Kathy Reichs, along with mega-popular TV shows like CSI, have proven that the first commandment of TV news producers, ‘If it bleeds, it leads’, has been a ‘blood bank’ for the makers and merchants of pop culture.

  In late 2002, while she was doing a promotional tour for her gruesome thriller Grave Secrets, I interviewed Kathy Reichs in the plush Author’s Lounge of the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok. As one of only 50 forensic anthropologists certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology at the time, Kathy Reichs toiled at ‘Ground Zero’ in the aftermath of the World Trade Center conflagration; testified at the United Nations Tribunal on Genocide in Rwanda, and sifted through the remains of Guatemalans butchered by government soldiers and buried in makeshift bone-yards. The latter experience inspired the first chapter in Grave Secrets.

  Like Porntip, and like the heroine of Kathy’s novels (forensics expert Temperance Brennan), discussing the emotional hangover of the job is too close to the bone. “It’s hard... especially when what you’re digging up are women and children who were shot and macheted [in Guatemala]. Another colleague who was interviewed for a documentary down there had a very good answer when he was asked about this: ‘If you have to cry, you cry at night when you’re home alone. During the day, you have a job to do.’”

  Kathy noted that people now have a better understanding of the world of forensic pathology than they did in the early 1980s, when she started out in the profession. But while the science of CSI is realistic, “one of the downsides of those shows is that there’s always an answer and an explanation, so unsophisticated viewers think that’s reality. CSI is also not realistic in the way that it shows crime-scene technicians doing all the work—at least not in the jurisdictions where I work.”

  Dr. Porntip, on the other hand, is a fan of CSI, partly because she said it’s inspired many young Thais to consider taking up the career. At present, Thailand only has five forensic pathologists and 50 lab technicians. Most of them are women. Many Thais are afraid of working with the dead, she said, because they fear ghosts. Yet another disincentive is lousy pay.

  But is CSI realistic?

  “Thailand is so far behind the West in forensics that the question isn’t really important,” she said, a smile flickering across her face.

  As a teenager, it was a different TV show that triggered her interest in crime-fighting: the 1970s detective series Colombo, starring Peter Falk as the cigar-smoking private investigator whose rumpled trench coat and rutted features made him look like a drunk coming off a three-day bender. At the time, her two favourite publications were National Geographic and the fashion magazine Glamour. So she was torn between becoming a doctor or an interior designer. Her father cajoled her into pursuing medicine.

  “When I finished medical school, I was an intern in the northern part of Thailand, and I wanted to dress in this style and listen to the music I like. Thailand only had a few pathologists back then. I worked up north for ten years so I could stay away from my father and he couldn’t control me. I wanted to work independently from other people, because to work for the government in Thai society means you have no power. I can dress in this style because my office is in the autopsy room and no one will complain,” said the doctor, whose stylish appearance and high profile have made her a natural model for fashion shoots, such as when she dressed up as Cleopatra for the Thai-language magazine Image. The red-haired heroine in popular Thai thriller Body of Evidence also looks like a carbon copy of the doctor.

  The country’s first lady of forensics has the slump-backed posture of a life-long academic. When seated, she slouched forward with her elbows on her knees, as if the deadweight of all those unsolved cases weighed constantly upon her shoulders. Or it may just be the constant weariness that comes with her workload, and her plans to establish a Missing Persons Bureau and another agency to investigate the thousands of unexplained deaths in Thailand each year.

  During this interview, I mentioned an anecdote Kathy Reichs had told me. At one of her book signings in America, a fan showed up with a big plastic tub containing the bones of a deceased relative. She wanted the author and forensic anthropologist to pinpoint the exact cause of death.

  Dr. Porntip smiled and nodded—she’s had many similar experiences. Every week, her office is called upon to perform autopsies for murder victims. Some have died under very suspicious circumstances—like the Buddhist monk-cum-environmental activist found dead during a land-development dispute, or the three young hilltribe men who allegedly hung themselves from the bars of a police cell with their own shoelaces. Often, she only has time to examine the bigger bones of contention. In 2004, for instance, she performed autopsies on 78 Muslim men in southern Thailand who died after being stacked on top of each other like cordwood—six deep for five hours in the back of army trucks, during the so-called ‘Tak Bai Massacre’. The soldiers had tied the victims’ hands behind their backs. Dr. Porntip’s autopsies revealed that the men died of suffocation so severe that they bled from their eyes.

  Every weekend, Dr. Porntip still heads down to the three southernmost provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, where several thousand civilians and soldiers have died since the beginning of 2004 in a spa
te of shootings, bombings, and arson attacks that the Thai government has blamed on everyone—from Muslim separatists to al-Queda terrorists to drug traffickers diverting attention away from their illicit dealings. As one of the few public figures trusted by the Southerners, the doctor tried to contact the former premier, Thaksin Shinawatra, a one-time policeman who earned a PhD in Criminal Justice from a Texas university, to tell him that the country must use forensic science to carry out proper investigations. “But the staff around him never allowed me to speak to him,” she said.

  In the entire south of Thailand, she added, there are only two forensics specialists, both based in Hat Yai, who refuse to do field work because it’s too dangerous. The fractures between the Southerners and the government have only been compounded by the fact that Muslims bury their dead quickly and don’t like autopsies to be performed on them.

  On her desk sat a copy of the book, Mass Fatality and Casualty Incidents: A Field Study. It’s a checklist for calamities, covering areas such as ‘Sustained Morgue Operations’, ‘Release of Deceased’ and ‘Coping with Response to Mass Death’. She picked it up on a trip to New Orleans, where she studied the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s rescue efforts in the aftermath of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. She tries to read for at least an hour each day to keep up with the latest developments in her field, and publishes a few medical papers each month, as well as newspaper columns on subjects such as Buddhism and even astrology (the doctor is a Sagittarius).

  Although she claims to have never had any nightmares and never been spooked by any ghosts, Dr. Porntip still believes in life after death in a Buddhist way and karma. “I believe that the spirits of the dead want me to help them, so we have to fight for justice. And when I’m faced with a problem, I will try to pray to the spirits of the dead to help me, or lead me in a good way. And every time they will help.”

  Catching up with the doctor in mid-2010, after the political tumult on the streets of Bangkok left more than 80 people dead and at least 2,000 injured, was a chance to launch an investigation into her findings. On 19 May, soldiers overran the barricades of tires fortified with bamboo stakes and brambles of barbed wire erected by red-shirt protestors around the intersection of Rajprasong. Six bodies were found on the grounds of the Wat Pathum Wanaram Buddhist temple. The morning after, Dr. Porntip and her team from the CIFS were on the case. “We were doing an ‘external examination’ of the crime scene. Since the bodies were moved by the police, we had to examine and match the DNA from blood stains to get a clearer picture of what happened. It’s standard practise to check for gunpowder residue on hands to see if the victims had been armed. In this case, some people had claimed the victims were shot because they were armed, but we didn’t find any traces of gunpowder on their hands. Some of the victims were hit many times so it was difficult to tell the trajectory of those bullets, or find out the truth about stories of snipers from different sides.”

  Yet, her team had no authority to pursue any further inquests or do the autopsies. Two weeks after the shootings, the forensics unit of the Royal Thai Police released the results of their post-mortem examinations. Among the six Thai victims at the temple, most in their 20s and 30s, there was only one female. Kamonkate Athart, a 25-year-old helping out as a volunteer nurse, and the sole rice-winner in a large, impoverished family, had been shot ten times. The autopsy report listed the cause of death as ‘damage to her brain stem. A trajectory study cannot be performed, because of excessive damage to muscles and bones’. Dr. Porntip was disappointed with these inconclusive results, referring to the police as ‘tomatoes’ (Thai slang for red-shirt sympathisers). “The police have much better equipment now [for autopsies and crime-scene investigations], but their guidelines and practices have not improved.” At the same time, she was just as disappointed with the government’s equally inconclusive probe into the shootings on once-hallowed ground. In doing a form of post-mortem on the major, multiple murders she has investigated, the doctor zeroed in on an unchanging miscarriage of justice. “It doesn’t matter whether it was the ‘war against drugs’ or the Tak Bai Massacre, or the killings during the political protests. Evidence disappears or is tampered with, so afterwards anybody can claim whatever they want. I hate to see politicians take advantage of this.”

  Many of her brainchildren—such as the Missing Persons Bureau and establishing an independent body to serve as watchdogs and coroners—are stillborn, but she is still trying to reanimate them. “I’ve been fighting for these developments for ten years, but with no progress,” she said, smiling with a weary resignation tempered by steely resolve. As always, the doctor and author refused to play partisan politics or subscribe to any party lines. “In my work I still follow a Buddhist middle way. I might work for the government, but it doesn’t mean I have to believe everything they say.” In her case, facing death threats and constant obstructions from the powers-that-be (even having to defend herself against charges—later dropped—of ‘misappropriating state funds’ to bring her team to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina), it is remarkable that her idealism and defiant streak remain intact after a decades-long career. And still, she perseveres. “I want to change the justice system in this country permanently.”

  In one corner of Dr. Porntip’s office is a shrine where she prays to a Buddha image depicting him ‘in the position of subduing evil’, imploring the spirits of the deceased to help her. Behind the doctor’s desk are statues of her other idol, King Naresuan the Great (1555–1605 AD), one of Siam’s most fabled monarchs and a phenomenal muay thai boxer who, legend has it, was captured by the Burmese but regained his freedom after beating their best fighter in a bout.

  Perhaps these conflicting images sum up the extremities of her personality and career—a kindly sister of mercy who claims that her work, no matter how grisly, ‘is all about love’; and the hard-as-bullets crusader for justice who continues to combat the most powerful politicians, policemen, businesspeople, military officers and criminals.

  It’s never easy to tell who’s who in the country

  CREATURE FEATURES

  Going Ape in Simian City

  The macaque scampered down a power pole and scurried past a convenience store, a gold shop and a tailor, before stealing into a Chinese pharmacy. Behind the counter, the monkey snatched several bottles of medicine off the shelf and ran back outside, where it drank a bottle of codeine-laced cough syrup. Several minutes later, the monkey fell asleep on the street. A car swerved around it, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with a motorcycle, but severing the thief’s tail.

  In Lopburi, 160 kilometres north of Bangkok, the city’s 1,000-plus population of monkeys are both miscreants and mascots. Some locals believe the animals are godsends from Kala, a Hindu divinity who holds sway over time and death, because many of them live around the 10th-century Khmer-style shrine devoted to him. But for most of the city’s residents, the monkeys are nothing more than pests and petty thieves.

  The old section of Lopburi, studded with ruins from the Khmer Empire, as well as a 17th-century Siamese palace, is a breeding ground for three different species of macaques—the pigtail, the rhesus and the crab-eating variety. They have lived in the city since the late 17th century, when Lopburi was Siam’s second capital. Some people believe that the monkeys are soldiers of Hanuman, the monkey god and warrior who led simian armies to great victories in the epic Indian tale, the Ramayana.

  The monkeys are divided into three different factions: those who live at the Phra Prang Samyod Temple and sleep on its roof; those who roam free around the nearby Phra Karn shrine; and their arch enemies, who loiter on the streets nearby and sleep on the tops of apartments and Chinese-style shop-houses.

  The two groups that live around the places of worship largely subsist on handouts from visitors and have it easy. As with other primates like humans, comfort does not necessarily breed content. On the contrary, it often inspires discord and in-fighting. The macaques living on the streets and buildings have to forage fo
r themselves, so they tend to be the worst troublemakers. Living in unhygienic conditions, they are also prone to a great many skin diseases and even leprosy.

  All three factions are as territorial as LA gangs. For instance, if a member of the street gang tries to gatecrash the shrine, it is immediately chased away or attacked, and vice-versa.

  In attracting foreign tourists and day-tripping Thais, the animals have been a boon for Lopburi’s economy. On any given day, you can watch visitors gawping at the macaque’s high-wire antics or having their photos taken with them at the shrine. The youngest macaques are the naughtiest. Outside the Angkor-era shrine, on a morning gilded with sunlight, Anchana had four or five of them leap on her back. She grabbed a bamboo stick, coaxed them to jump on it and then started swinging them around in circles while pulling monkey faces and cackling. Born in the Year of the Monkey, she has a similarly hyperactive, chatterbox nature. Sensing they had met their mischievous match, the juvenile macaques leapt from the stick and scampered back into the shrine. The monkeys don’t usually bite, but they are notorious for picking pockets and stealing sunglasses and cameras.

  As a tribute to the town’s mascots, and a way of fattening local coffers, the authorities prepare a huge buffet of fruit and vegetables for them in late November every year. This wacky tribute often turns into a few-hour food fight between the macaques, who sometimes pelt tourists with their foodstuffs. To prevent this from happening, local authorities have started putting the fruit and veggies in blocks of ice, so that the monkeys have to lick and scrabble their way to the goodies and visitors have some great photo ops with the shrine in the background.

  The world’s first Monkey Hospital, located in the city’s zoo, provides first aid and re-training for rogue primates—like the thieving junkie whose tail had to be amputated. The hospital also helps to spin some positive public relations for these victims of bad press, by proving they can be put to more positive uses like helping the blind.