The Last Executioner
Memoirs of Thailand’s Last Prison Executioner
by Chavoret Jaruboon with Nicola Pierce
Acknowledgements
The book you’re reading right now is the result of great support from my family and the good people around me. I’m very fortunate to have met so many good people in my life.
I found it hard, when I first started, to recollect my life prior to my job at the prison, and the executions in details, and there are too many stories to tell. Luckily, I have journals, paperwork and reports that help remind me of what happened.
I guess I inherit the passion to teach people from my father, and I am glad of that.
Thanks to my friend Susan Aldous. Thanks to all at Maverick House Publishers; especially to Pornchai Sereemongkonpol and John Mooney for your great contribution in making my dream come true. Many thanks also to Nicola Pierce.
Thank YOU for choosing this book and reading it. I hope this book could teach you a thing or two about life and please don’t be tempted to make a wrong choice and end up in Bang Kwang, or any prison.
I would like to use the last paragraph to ask for forgiveness from the victims and convicts whom I mentioned in this book. May they all rest in peace and if there is any good to come out of this book, I would like to dedicate it to them.
Dedication
To my father and teacher Chum, the best father a son could ask for. Thanks for sending me to a Catholic school. Thanks for the guitar you bought me. I guess I inherit the passion to teach people from you because I am now invited to speak to students in schools and universities about crimes, so I am sort of a teacher too. I hope you are proud of me.
Prologue
23 November 1984.
There were three that day; I shot two.
The day before, I had celebrated my 36th birthday, but that day I had to prepare myself to kill a man for the first time. Ten years of experience had brought me to this defining moment. I had worked my way up from handling the prisoner, to adjusting and aiming the gun used to kill the condemned, and now I had been promoted to the most prominent position of all. I was the executioner.
The prisoners were very calm. You never know how they will react when it is their turn. When I used to escort the men from their cells to their death, I could almost smell the relief of those spared for another day. By the time I came to take them, the doomed convict would have already given away his stuff to the other inmates; all that was left to do was say his goodbyes. I was told later that Samran, one of the inmates waiting to die, kept reassuring his friends and maybe himself by chanting, ‘It’s my time bro, it’s my time’.
The convicts followed the guards out of the wing, eyes to the ground. Nobody spoke. What was there to say? You would not insult a ‘dead man walking’ by asking him again if he was really guilty—it was too late anyway for a declaration of innocence. Besides, they were guilty. We knew that and they knew that. Two of them had achieved notoriety with their gang of thieving murderers. The third one worked solo, with the same results. Each man was getting the punishment he had earned for himself, through his own actions.
I was surprised to discover that I was a little nervous. I was still feeling fresh from my nap and shower I’d had that day. You see, I wanted to look my best; it would help me concentrate. I had gotten my wife Tew to iron my second uniform. She was surprised to see me home so early that day, and even more surprised to be told that I was returning to work for an evening shift. I would tell her later—maybe.
After ten years of playing supporting roles in this execution process I was finally taking the lead part. My one desire was that they would die immediately, without pain. I had hand-picked the fifteen bullets myself. I did not expect to use them all, but I had witnessed enough errors over the years to persuade me to be fully prepared, just in case. It had to be a perfect, clean shot. There would be a lot of blood when we were finished.
I aimed the HK MP5 at the target and suddenly realised that I had forgotten to cock the gun. Trying to hide my panic I kept my face expressionless, ignoring the rest of the execution team and the officials. All eyes were on me as I carefully cocked the gun and took my aim again. The audience waited, in mute anticipation. Lhee, the condemned, was the only one unaware of my embarrassment.
I felt like I was on stage once more, dressed like Elvis Presley, and playing my guitar for the American soldiers like I had done in my younger days. Except now I was going to take a life. When people ask me if I am ever afraid of being haunted by dead convicts, I tell them I am more afraid of my wife.
My name is Chavoret Jaruboon and I am a legend. I am the last person in Thailand to execute criminals with a gun. I have shot 55 men and women, and this is my story.
Chapter 1
I was born on 22 November 1948, in Watchira Hospital, around the Sri Yan area of Bangkok. Bangkok, the City of Angels which translates as Krung Thep, is the largest city in Thailand with a population today of about 6 million. A long time ago it had a much longer name—Krungthep mahanakhon amonratanakosin mahintara ayuthaya mahadilok popnopparat ratchathani burirom udomratchaniwet mahasathan amonpiman avatansathit sakkathattiya witsanukamprasit. Fortunately you don’t have to write that on an envelope now. If you did, there would be no room for the stamp.
My mother was Vilai Cholpinthu, an Islamic woman and daughter of Laung (a title granted by the Royal family) Navavijidshoonrabanthu, who was an engineer for the Royal battleship. She was my father’s third wife. When his first wife died he married again. Then he separated from his second wife to marry my mother. It seems that he was just unlucky in the women he chose, although I do think he truly loved his first wife. In the olden days men used to collect wives and house them with their children under one roof. The more dependants you had the more of a man you were. The downside of this was that it could lead to battles of epic proportions that no man had any business involving himself in. After nearly 40 years of marriage, personally, I think one wife is enough for any man!
Thankfully, there was never any fighting in our house but, all the same, when I was four or five years old my parents divorced, leaving my father to raise me and my older brother Oud. It is strange but even today I don’t know what happened between them. Nothing was explained to me at the time because I was just a child, and then, as I got older, it never came up as a topic with my father. Maybe he thought it was none of my business. His motto was, ‘Silent tongue means wise heart,’ and he was always a quiet man anyway.
In hindsight I imagine that there could have been an issue about religious differences with my mother’s family since my father was a Buddhist. I don’t remember much about my mother’s family. I may have just met them once or twice. I do remember thinking though that it was quite an achievement for her father, who was an ordinary man, to become a high-ranking officer in the Navy.
My mother would visit me from time to time but we were never that close. I much preferred Chum Jaruboon, my father. His people were from Banggruay in Nonthaburi. He was one of three kids. By the time his mother passed away there was only himself and his younger sister left. Typically of my father, he gave his entire inheritance to his little sister because he thought that he should be able to support himself, being a proud man. He was never a wealthy man and had no great financial acumen. Shortly before I was born, he had sold some property that he owned and used the money to open up a taxi business. Unfortunately the business never took off and he was forced to shut it down.
He was already on the wrong side of 50 by the time I came along bu
t I could talk to him about anything, except the time that I got beaten up by the school bully. I kept that to myself because it would have upset him too much. He was a teacher, and I decided that I wanted to be one too—it was cool to see his students bowing to him. Education was very important to him and he made it important for me too.
In many ways, he was ahead of his time. He taught art, drama and was also a photographer. I learned English by listening to his Frank Sinatra and Eddie Williams records. Unlike my friends’ fathers he didn’t push me to join the army and believed in letting me decide for myself what I would do with my life. He probably spoilt me a little, to compensate for the divorce. I always had more toys than my friends. When it came to pocket money he gave me more than I deserved. He used to give me money every day but then he decided that I should learn to save, so he paid me a weekly rate on a Monday morning. However, when I ran through my money by Thursday I knew he was good for extra baht to keep me going until the ‘official’ pay day. He wasn’t too strict either, and trusted me, so it wasn’t a problem when I wanted to stay in town with my friends after school to eat noodles and window shop. He understood that I had a private life away from home and school.
He also wanted to encourage my interest in music and sent me to a Catholic school; Saint Joan of Arc. Most of the kids went to the Thai school, so I felt very privileged. I enjoyed school and was frequently top of the class. I suppose you could say that I was the teacher’s pet, but I also got on well with my class mates. I never got involved in fights and understood from a young age that some kids felt they had to act tough in order to be accepted by their peers. But that wasn’t for me. I wasn’t afraid of being unpopular with certain people.
One day I gave Chan, my teacher, a hard time. I’m afraid that, in my youth, I could be prone to showing off. I argued with her, in front of the whole class, over the spelling of Wednesday, which I pronounced Wednesday. Her face got redder and redder as I obstinately argued my case for my version—the correct one. I thought she would surely tell me to get out of the room; I would have if I was her. Instead she scowled and said, ‘Fine! If you don’t believe me, your teacher, then go learn some place else.’ Well, I was absolutely offended. Being sure to maintain my boyish dignity, I picked up my bag and books and, without a second glance at that unreasonable woman, I walked out of the room with my nose in the air. She probably thought that I would stand outside the door, as was the usual procedure, but I was so angry I just kept walking, down the corridor, out of the door, and down the street. I was rather smug when I heard later that she had been really worried and looked everywhere for me—even taking my brother out of his class to help her.
Unfortunately my school days weren’t all like this. I remember being heartily laughed at by my peers when I was confronted by another teacher, Pao, about the dirty dead skin behind my ears. Maybe the pipes were broken at home, or maybe I put up too good a fight over bathing for a while, but Pao pounced on me during a class inspection and loudly asked if I was storing up the dead skin to eat. I was mortified and timidly replied, ‘No eat’, speaking so softly that everyone just heard me say ‘eat’. I wasn’t allowed to forget that for quite a long time. And if I was really unlucky one of the kids might remind everyone else of my shitting my pants in grade two; I had diarrhoea and kept having to ask the teacher for permission to go to the toilet. In exasperation she told me to stay where I was and let it all out. Perhaps she didn’t believe me—but she certainly did ten minutes later when she had to replace my soiled trousers.
When I was in grade four I committed my one and only crime, which I feel safe to confess now. There were two Chinese boys in my class, Surasak and Kriengsak, and their father ran a printing business. On New Year’s Eve they brought packs of greeting cards to school to present to all the students. I was fascinated by them; they were all brightly coloured, some of them were of movie stars, some had beautiful rural landscapes and some of them were of the Royal family. Fortunately, for me, our classmates didn’t seem that bothered with them. The two boys had carefully placed one greeting card on each desk, making sure that everyone got one. Some were allowed to fall to the floor and most didn’t command much attention after an initial glance. I decided that the cards were wasted on these heathens, and at the first opportunity I took them; all of them. I worried for a couple of weeks that I would end up in jail, and as I’ve said I never did anything like that again, but at least I got to gaze at those beautiful pictures whenever I wanted to.
***
I suppose I was a good child but I didn’t have a sheltered upbringing at Soi 1, my father’s house. We lived between the wealthy and the poor, high-ranking officials and junkies, at Sri Yan junction. I could see the slum, brothel and porn theatres at one end of the Soi, which means street, while at the other end were the big houses and gardens of the judges, colonels and president of the Privy Council. All the prominent men had their own private car and chauffeur, a far cry from the prostitutes and their clientele. You could see the brothel from our house; it was nothing more than a shack built on marshy ground. I think I must be one of the few Thai men who has never gone to a brothel—my father always warned me about how dirty they are. I would peer through the entrance, from a safe distance, fascinated by the stained walls and utter degradation. It was also an opium house and there were always Chinese addicts hanging around. Opium was still legal then and my father would worry about me, but I was never tempted to try drugs of any kind. There was always a tension between the rich and poor, and evening battles between the different mobsters were a regular occurrence. My father would constantly warn me against losing sight of who I was, saying, ‘Don’t be phlegm or people will look down on you.’
I left Saint Joan of Arc in 1958, and started my fifth grade at Wat Rachathiwas School, under the tutelage of Pikul Saengthong. Looking at my report cards today I am reminded that I was quite a good student. I had a high average percentage and my best subject was English, with Mathematics being my weakest. My aptitude for English could probably be explained by the focus on the subject at my previous school. In Thailand, private schools started to teach English almost immediately, while the public school would only start teaching it in grade 5. It was no wonder then that I was way ahead of my less privileged class mates. No doubt I exploited my superiority over them. Showing off was my only motivation to do well, and I was always in the top ten.
There was an emphasis on sport at this school. Prasit Ampanseang, a Thai boxing judge was my gym teacher. However, sport was one of a long list of things that I did not excel in. I did not enjoy the constant training or the possibility of getting hurt. The school was well-known, albeit locally, for its prowess in basketball and takraw. Sepak takraw is an ancient sport and is a mixture of soccer, volleyball, gymnastics and kung fu. It involves using a tremendous amount of energy to prevent a ball, the size of a grapefruit, from touching the ground. You can use any part of your body except your hands—a brilliant spectator sport, and I should know since I wasn’t selected to play on the school team!
I kept a good average score throughout the years and grew up happy with my own learning. I was very much just like any other boy, and wanted the same things. I kept my head down and listened to my father and my teachers, for the most part, but kept a vague sense of moving on, not sure what exactly I wanted to do when I left.
***
During the summer break I got my first job. A friend of my brother asked me to work as a doorman at a bar in Patpong. The pay was a paltry 300 baht a month but at least I got to practice my English. I perfected sentences like, ‘Good evening sir,’ ‘What can I do for you?’ and, ‘Bye bye sir.’ When I gained a bit more confidence, I would start conversations about music. The owner of the bar was a pregnant woman called Deang. I didn’t like her or her bar which never did much business. I waited until I received my pay packet and then quietly quit, in that I didn’t inform her—I just never went back. I reasoned that there must be a more pleasa
nt way of making money. Back home I proudly showed off my first wages to my father and immediately used them to buy a pair of fashionable shoes. I was very into my clothes and liked to look as well as I, or my father, could afford.
Chapter 2
My world was transformed in 1966 when I got my first guitar. My father bought two second-hand guitars; one for me and one for my friend. I taught myself to play, with a little help from my friends, in particular my friend Nui. I hadn’t harboured any particular ambition towards becoming a musician, but then again I was one of those kids who just muddled through from one day to the next, without focus or plan. I certainly wasn’t a natural; I merely spent many, many weeks with a throbbing thumb, strumming away badly. My father also made me a 15 watt amplifier which I managed to lose at a fair. Instead of being angry with me he went out to sell ornaments that he collected, from the horns of buffalo, and a wild pig’s head so that he could make me another one. That was the type of man he was.
After a lot of practice, I formed a band with my friends and we called ourselves Victory. We played our first gig on Children’s Day, at the invitation of a teacher. This holiday takes place in January, on the second Saturday. Schools organize special activities, and there are special TV programmes laid on for kids that day, plus they can ride the buses and go into the theme parks for free. We couldn’t get on to the stage fast enough. There was no payment, but I loved the girls screaming at us.
Our fourth gig at a private party finally provided us with a wage—30 baht each—a tiny amount that I was very proud of. Meanwhile, my friend’s band, Mitra, was competing at Suan Amporn near Suan Dusit Palace, which had a rotating stage that I thought was very cool. As usual my father was very supportive of my new hobby and would give me money so that I could dress like my heroes Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard, an opportunity I took up quickly.
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