Homepage > Thai Youth Issues > Chat lines not safe, say girl's parents

Date: 13th September 2000, Bangkok Post

Firm has no record of suspect calling girl

Wassayos Ngarmkham

The parents of a 15-year-old disabled girl who was murdered by a teenager she met through a telephone chat programme, have appealed to programme monitors to focus more on the safety of phone users.

Pol Sgt-Maj Pornchai Pluempool, father of the victim, said he did not want to blame anybody for the murder of his daughter. However, he wanted the programme monitors and the telephone owner who runs the programme, to improve the safety of phone users.

The request was made following the murder of Patthama Pluempool, a Mathayom Suksa 3 student (ninth grader) from Nakhon Nayok Witthayakhom School in Nakhon Nayok province. The girl was strangled to death and her body was found dumped by the road behind a provincial telephone exchange on Sunday. Her car was stolen.

Police later arrested three teenagers on suspicion of murdering the girl.

One of the suspects, an 18-year-old youth, admitted that he had known the girl through Phuenkan 1900 telephone chat programme. He allegedly confessed he had tried to become friends with the girl and asked her to personally meet him, before he strangled her to death and stole her car.

He told police he had made more than 30 phone calls to the girl through this chat programme over a one-month period.

Police said the suspect did not link his two other friends to the murder.

The telephone chat programme is popular among teenagers wanting to make new friends.

The girl's mother, Mrs Namthip, said she paid more than 2,000 baht a month for her daughter's mobile phone bill, and that her daughter frequently made phone calls.

Sources said police yesterday took the three suspects to the murder scene for a re-enactment of the crime.

Sutham Malila, director of the Telephone Organisation of Thailand, said telephone chat programmes were subject to control. The TOT can revoke the programme if the operator breaks the contract.

Concerning the murder of Miss Patthama, Samart Infomedia Co, the operator of the 1900 chat line, reported to the TOT that the girl used to make calls through the system. The company suspended the service after finding that the girl was below 18. However, there were no records of the boy using the service, Mr Sutham said.

Mr Sutham admitted the nine-baht-per-minute service charge was very high because the number of customers was still small.

Tawee Udomkijchote, general manager of Samart Infomedia Co, said the objective of the 1900 chat line was to help bring about exchanges of educational information and service users must be 18 years old or more.