Police seek hotel driver after staffer feared dead
Police believe that a missing female employee of a luxury hotel in Bangkok is dead and suspect one of the hotel's chauffeurs of murdering her.
Sukanda Mekloy, 27, a financial officer at the Novotel Bang Na, has been missing, along with Bt400,000 of the hotel's money, since 1pm on March 26, Assistant National Police Commissioner Lt-General Jongrak Juthanont said yesterday. He said Novotel chauffeur Pakinai Chantaviman, 46, was suspected of causing her death, with robbery as the motive. "What we need now is an eyewitness who saw Sukanda in the car with Pakinai so that we can ask for an arrest warrant for him," Jongrak said. The Police Office of Forensic Science has been examining bloodstains, hair and fingerprints found in a hotel vehicle and will carry out DNA tests. The results will be available in a few days. Sukanda's co-workers told police that, to their knowledge, Sukanda and Pakinai had no conflict and were not involved in an affair. Police are searching for Sukanya's body within a 20-kilometre radius of the hotel. Pakinai was once a border police officer in Yala, but he was fired in 1991 after being absent from duty for more than 15 days. He was also once charged with robbery. Pakinai told police that he drove the car alone on the day Sukanda went missing. At Pakinai's residence in Bangkok, where he opened a karaoke and snooker club, his wife Reian Boonnam said that she had gone with him to give evidence to the police about the missing woman, after which they had returned home. He then told her that he would go out to a visit a friend and never came back. "He was irritable, moody and aggressive. He only has a few friends," Reian said. "However, I believe he is innocent. I want him to return and prove his innocence. He gets a monthly income of about Bt30,000, so it's unbelievable that he would commit such a crime. It's not worthwhile to trade his future for only Bt400,000." She said Pakinai worked for an insurance company before he became a driver at the Novotel seven years ago. Jongrak believed Pakinai went into hiding in his hometown in Yala after he was questioned. Another police source suspected that Pakinai had tried to flee to Malaysia.
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