21 November 2024 :
A Thai court on November 20, 2024 sentenced Sararat Rangsiwuthaporn, known as Am Cyanide, to death for the premeditated murder of one of the 15 victims she is accused of poisoning, only one of whom survived.
According to the verdict, the convicted woman, described by the media as Thailand’s first female serial killer, deliberately poisoned 32-year-old Siriporn Khanwong with cyanide during a trip to the western province of Ratchaburi in April 2023 to attend a religious ceremony, Thai public broadcaster PBS said.
Siriporn collapsed and died by a river where she had gone with Sararat, 37, to release fish back into the wild, a Buddhist practice to generate good karma.
Siriporn’s relatives reported her death to the police, who found cyanide in the victim’s body and began receiving other reports of deaths allegedly linked to Sararat, who maintains her innocence.
This suspicious death was the first clue in the subsequent police investigation of Sararat’s alleged crimes.
Sararat now faces 13 other charges of murder and one of attempted murder.
The alleged murders of friends and acquaintances of the Thai woman, who was arrested when she was four months pregnant but later miscarried, began in 2015.
Police said the motive for the crimes was robbery, as many of the victims had sent the accused five- to six-figure sums of money.
Among the possible victims was her boyfriend, Sutthisak Phoonkhwan, who died in March 2023.
