CHIANG MAI: A man being treated for mental illness killed his two wives - one of them pregnant - and threatened to cut up their bodies in in Mae Ai district late on Saturday night.
Mae Ai police were informed of the murders at about 11pm. Pol Col Songkrit Ontakhrai, deputy chief of Chiang Mai police, and Pol Col Kamkaew Suyati, the Mae Ai police chief, lead a police team to a house at Ban Huay San in tambon Tha Ton of Chiang Rai's Mae Sai district.
They also called for reinforcements from the nearby ranger operational centre of the 3rd Army. The village is located near the border with Myanmar.
Police arrived to find the house locked up and a man inside shouting that he had killed his two wives and was about to cut up their bodies.
When villagers and the police tried to talk him into surrendering, he yelled that if anyone tried to enter the house, he would open fire and throw a hand grenade.
After about an hour of negotiations, the man walked out of the house and surrendered to authorities. The police quickly took him away for detention at the police station for fear that he would be harmed by angry relatives of his two wives and other villagers.
The man was later identified as Pakathu Sae Wu, 38. His first wife was Awuma Sae Lu, 39, and his second wife - in an early stage of pregnancy - was Patchari Chanu, aged 20.
An initial investigation found that Pakathu had quarrelled with his wives out of suspicions that they had been unfaithful to him and were in relationships with other men. After the quarrel, he apparently got drunk, went berserk, and stabbed both of them to death.
In a search, the police found a long pointed knife and a hammer, both with blood stains on them.
The villagers said the man had suffered from a mild mental illness. He had been under treatment but continued to drink.
