Bangkok's Ratchadaphisek Criminal Court sentenced a man...

Bangkok's Ratchadaphisek Criminal Court sentenced a man to death and three others to life for their involvement in the 2009 armed robbery and murders of a Bang Kapi furniture-factory owner, his wife, daughter, son and housemaid. The four men, Wanchai Anpan, 61, Parithat Numnoi, 55, Tharayuth Saensuk, 50, and Amnat Paradonpitak, 30, broke into Thanayos Pathumwassana's house on April 4, 2009. They killed the home's five occupants and took Bt3 million in valuables, including two desktop computers, a laptop computer, five cellphones and a van. After their arrest, three of the defendants confessed that Wanchai hired them for the robbery. Wanchai had given an alibi that he was elsewhere, but the court was not convinced. Thanayos and his 17-year-old daughter Sasima were fatally shot while the 15yearold son Thanawat was strangled with a belt. The maid was brutally killed. The court was told that Wanchai threatened Thanayos's wife Kanokkan to tell him the password to the safe, but she said only Thanayos, who was dead, knew it. So they strangled her too. Seeing the defendants' actions as premeditated and brutal, the court sentenced all of them to death but then reduced three of the defendants' sentences to life because of their confessions.