Somkid Pumpuang, “Kid the Ripper”

The women whose lives were taken

Somkid Pumpuang (his surname is also romanised as Phumphuang or Poompuang) is one of the most notorious criminals in modern Thailand. Over the first half of 2005 he killed five women in five different provinces, and Thai media gave him the nickname "Kid the Ripper", later echoed in English-language reports as "Thailand's Jack the Ripper". The women he targeted in 2005 worked as singers and masseuses, and investigators said he had won their trust before killing them in private.

His sixth victim was Ratsami Mulichan, a 51-year-old divorced hotel maid from Kranuan district in Khon Kaen province in the northeast. Her son later told reporters she believed she had found a new partner who worked as a lawyer. She was killed in December 2019, roughly six months after Somkid walked out of prison.

The 2005 killings and the first conviction

According to Thai reporting, the first killing took place in Mukdahan on January 30, 2005. The others followed in rapid succession that June, in Lampang, Trang, Udon Thani and Buriram. Police caught him on June 27, 2005, in Chaiyaphum province, where he was in the company of another young woman.

He was convicted of murder and theft over the five deaths. Accounts of his original sentences differ in detail: some reports say he was first sentenced to death and that this was later reduced to life imprisonment, with one outlet attributing the reduction to his confession, while another says one case carried a death sentence and the rest life terms. By the end of the appeals process he was serving life. He was held at Bang Kwang Central Prison and later transferred to a prison in Nong Khai.

Early release

Inside prison Somkid was rated a model inmate. Under the rules then in force, nothing about the nature of his crimes stopped him from receiving repeated sentence reductions, which came through mass royal pardons, his prisoner classification and his earlier confession. After serving about 14 years he left Nong Khai Provincial Prison in May 2019. English-language outlets have variously described the release as parole and as the result of a royal pardon, which reflects the several mechanisms that combined to shorten his term. Royal pardons in Thailand are granted to large groups of inmates on occasions such as the King's birthday, but officials decide who qualifies.

The Khon Kaen killing and manhunt

Ratsami met Somkid through Facebook. He presented himself as a lawyer from the south and did not disclose his convictions, and he moved into her home earlier in December 2019. Neighbours reported hearing an argument on Sunday, December 15, and her body was discovered at the house the following morning. Police said she had been suffocated.

A court approved a murder warrant, police offered a 50,000-baht reward, and immigration officers were alerted in case he tried to cross into Laos. On December 18, 2019, passengers on a Surin-to-Bangkok train recognised him from photos circulated by police, partly because of a distinctive mark on his forehead. He was arrested without resistance at Pak Chong in Nakhon Ratchasima province.

Second trial and death sentence

Somkid confessed after his arrest when confronted with the evidence, but at trial he denied the charges and contested the case. On March 17, 2021, the Khon Kaen Provincial Court convicted him of premeditated murder and sentenced him to death, and also set prison terms for theft and for concealing the body. The judges found he had committed the same type of crime in six cases, showed no remorse and had no fear of the law, and they declined to treat his initial confession as a reason to reduce the sentence. The ruling was afterwards posted publicly outside the court. No later appeal ruling in the 2019 case has been publicly reported.

Why the case matters in Thailand

The killing of Ratsami became a turning point in Thailand's argument over early release. Her sister publicly asked why the system had let him go so easily. Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha ordered the justice minister to review sentence-reduction rules for violent offenders, and Justice Minister Somsak Thepsutin set up a committee to monitor inmates and former inmates convicted in serious cases, citing roughly 100 such people. Corrections Department chief Naras Savestanan acknowledged a loophole and pointed to severe prison overcrowding as a pressure to release eligible prisoners.

The debate has not gone away. In August 2026, after a man freed from prison in May of that year was linked by police to a series of killings around Pattaya, for which he has not been convicted, Thai commentators again cited Somkid's case. Members of the Judicial Administration Commission proposed a specialist committee on how punishments are enforced, including repeat offending and serious violent crime, while some public figures called for mandatory minimum sentences and a resumption of executions.