Natcha Boonruam’s mother initially claimed her 2-year-old son had fallen down stairs, but suspicious relatives sounded the alarm after noticing bruises and welts covering the boy’s body.
Thai police have have charged a man in the death of his 2-year-old stepson after security camera video him viciously attacking the child spread rapidly on social media.
The man, identified on Thai news websites as 28-year-old Anon Phimnu, was arrested by police for physical assault occasioning death. The attack occurred on Thursday in the fire escape of the apartment building the pair lived in along with the boy, named Natcha Boonruam, and his mother in Bangkok’s Khlong Sam Wa district.
The Bangkok Post reports Phimnu and the boy’s mother had lived together for around two months, and relatives of the child say Phimnu is a drug addict who had a history of beating him.
Toward the end of the video, another man appears in the stairwell. Moments later Phimnu snatches the motionless child from the ground and leaves. The boy was later taken to a hospital but died from swelling to the brain and injuries to internal organs.
The mother initially claimed her son had fallen down stairs but suspicious relatives sounded the alarm after noticing the bruises and welts covering the boy’s body.