An air-conditioning repairman had been arrested for the brutal slaying of a Thai woman at her luxury home in Korat on Tuesday night.
Natrika “Ice” Shibahara – the 29-year-old wife of a Singaporean businessman – was found stabbed in the neck in her home in an estate in Ban Mai, Muang district of Nakhon Ratchasima.
The motive appears to have been theft according to comments made by the suspect, named elsewhere as Theeraphon, aged 26.
News reports now suggest that he did not know the victim prior to the attack.
Reporters went to the victim’s hometown in the village of Non Somboon in Serng Sang district of Korat and found her distraught mother Thatsanan Phusa in front of the coffin laid out at the house.
She faced the heart-breaking task of receiving her beloved daughter’s body on Wednesday (Mothers Day).
She praised her daughter as being a reliable breadwinner and rock for the family who always provided money and paid for her sibling’s education.
She wanted to know why the murderer just didn’t take what he wanted. “Why did he have to kill her?” she asked.
She said that she didn’t want to see his face and would never forgive him.
She slammed the Thai media for suggesting and reporting rumours that her daughter was mixed up with other men. Whilst it was true that she had been married before she was divorced according to the law and got on with her life.
The body will lie at the family home for three days before cremation on Saturday.