Village community holds merit-making rite for spirit of murder victim found floating in Mekong

Village headwoman Sirirat Chanthakhot said the community’s residents had attended the funeral ritual to offer robes and food to four monks, who conducted prayers at the pavilion for the deceased man’s merit.
The unnamed murder victim, 175-180 centimetres tall and in his 30s or 40s, was found tied with nylon rope around his neck, hands and feet, while his wrists were handcuffed. 
The body – wrapped in netting and with a sack covering the head – had sustained a large carving-knife wound to the stomach and the internal organs had been removed, so that his killer(s) apparently could stuff part of a concrete pillar into the stomach to keep him sunken at the bottom of the river. 
The man was estimated by a medical examiner to have been dead for at least 48 hours before the body’s discovery on December 29.
Police sent the decomposed body to Sri Nakarind Hospital’s morgue in Khon Kaen for an autopsy.