As officials in royal uniforms placed wreaths before the door of the nursery,mourning parents of those slain laid white flowers,dropping to their knees on the gravel entryway in tears. Outside the gate,people placed infant sized juice and milk bottles and small packets of chips.
Panida Prawana,19,whose two-year-old son Kritsana Sola was among those killed,had heard shooting coming from the area while she was selling noodles at her shop nearby and raced to the centre on her motorbike.
Ringing her sister-in-law,she cried:“He killed them all,the children”.
“I rushed to try and pick up my son but it was too late,” she said on Friday,holding her other child,11-month-old daughter Kanjyapak Sola.
“I still don’t believe that it’s real,the thing that happened. I don’t want to believe it’s happened.“
The husband of one of the murdered teachers,who was eight months pregnant,said he had “cried until I had no more tears coming out of my eyes”.
“They are running through my heart,” Seksan Sriraj,28,said.
“My wife and my child have gone to a peaceful place. I am alive and will have to live. If I can’t go on,my wife and my child will be worried about me,and they won’t be reborn in the next life. That’s about it.“
The culprit,Kamrab,drove to the children’s facility after appearing in court on charges of possessing the drug crystal methamphetime and was due to have his judgment delivered in his case on Friday.
A former police sergeant,he had been discharged from the force in June after being found with drugs in January and has been described as a long-term substance abuser.
Police have speculated that he may have been stressed by the legal proceedings and having lost his job. But a motive for the slaughter – the worst by a single perpetrator in Thai history – has yet to be established.
National Police Chief Police General Damrongsak Kittiprapas said a preliminary forensic report had not found any trace of drugs in his system. Kamrab was well acquainted with the daycare building,having previously dropped off his stepson there,
“He used to be a normal guy but a couple of weeks ago he changed a lot,” said Komsan Noraboot,33,the natural father of Kamrab’s stepson,who the killer shot before committing suicide as police surrounded his house.
“He called me up and wanted to start an argument,wanted to fight me.”
Weeping at the loss of his own child,as well as his ex-wife,who Kamrab murdered in his final moments,he said of his son:“He was just a normal kid. A normal cheerful kid”.
Many relatives were gathered in front of the childcare centre to start the process of claiming compensation and psychologists were also sent to the site to help them.
Seven of the 10 people who were wounded were still hospitalised on Friday.
As family members filled out documents,a series of helicopters converged on the field next to the nursery building,carrying the national police chief and other senior officers.
They weren’t the last prominent figures due in Nong Bua Lamphu province.
Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida were reportedly to visit two hospitals treating the wounded later on Friday,and Prime Minster Prayut Chan-ocha visited the daycare centre and the hospitals.
Gun violence is prevalent in Thailand despite its strict firearms laws,but mass slayings have in the past been rare.
The deadliest incident before Thursday was in 2020,when a disgruntled soldier opened fire in a shopping centre in the city of Nakhon Ratchasima,also in north-east Thailand,killing 29 people.
Uthai Sawan’s deputy mayor Somnuek Thongtalai,who lost three children from his extended family on Thursday,could never envision such horror so close to home.
“I never thought such terrible things would happen in our area,” he said.
with Art Akkarawat and AP