Thai serial killer cremated after decades as museum display

For decades, some Thai parents warned their naughty children that if they didn’t behave, Si Ouey would come eat their livers.

If the threat of a ghostly visit from the executed child killer, long called a cannibal, proved ineffective, those children could always be taken to see Si Ouey. After all, his mummified corpse — gnarled and blackened — for years stood on display in a glass case in the Forensic Museum at Bangkok’s Siriraj Hospital.

In recent years, however, doubts were raised about whether the man called Thailand's first serial killer was given justice and a campaign was launched to at least give him a proper funeral. On Thursday, six decades after his execution, that finally happened.

Charity workers put the coffin of Si Ouey into an incinerator for cremation at the Wat Bang Phraek Tai temple Nonthaburi province, Thailand, Thursday, July 23, 2020. The corpse of Si Ouey, a notorious figure who was convicted of murder in 1959 and accused of cannibalism, was put on museum display for six decades, but an online campaign last year was successful in having him be given a proper funeral. (AP PhotoSakchai Lalit)

Nine Buddhist monks at a temple north of Bangkok chanted prayers and paper flowers were placed in front of Si Ouey's coffin, which was then moved to the crematorium, where the head of the Corrections Department lit the fire. Hospital officials as well as residents of a town where he once lived looked on.

Si Ouey, a Chinese immigrant who worked as a gardener, was reportedly caught red-handed in 1958 in a forest in Rayong province burning the body of a 8-year-old boy who had disappeared on an errand.

Police were quick to pin on him at least five previous unsolved murders of children dating back to 1954, some in other provinces. Lurid newspaper accounts detailed how he supposedly relished eating their hearts, livers and intestines.

The portrait of the infamous serial killer Si Ouey stands below his coffin in preparation for cremation at the Wat Bang Phraek Tai temple Nonthaburi province, Thailand, Thursday, July 23, 2020. The corpse of Si Ouey, a notorious figure who was convicted of murder in 1959 and accused of cannibalism, was put on museum display for six decades, but an online campaign last year was successful in having him be given a proper funeral. (AP PhotoSakchai Lalit)

Si Ouey was said to have told police that he acquired a taste for human flesh during World War II, when as a Chinese soldier in a unit besieged by the Japanese he survived by eating the bodies of those killed in battle.

He was tried and found guilty of murder and executed by firing squad on Sept. 16, 1959. He was 32.

His body was then handed over to Siriraj Hospital for what was described as medical study. His story soon became a regular staple of horror books and B-movies.

The coffin of the infamous serial killer Si Ouey is cremated at the Wat Bang Phraek Tai temple Nonthaburi province, Thailand, Thursday, July 23, 2020. The corpse of Si Ouey, a notorious figure who was convicted of murder in 1959 and accused of cannibalism, was put on museum display for six decades, but an online campaign last year was successful in having him be given a proper funeral. (AP PhotoSakchai Lalit)

The truth about Si Ouey's case, however, is difficult to confirm.

Police at the time had a reputation for beating confessions out of suspects, and popular newspapers dished out tabloid-style sensationalism.

Si Ouey was also at a disadvantage because he was a poor immigrant, arriving from China in 1946 at age 19. Thailand's military governments at the time were keen stir up anti-Chinese sentiment in the Cold War atmosphere and often blamed immigrants for crime and unrest.

A Buddhist monk prays over the coffin of the infamous serial killer Si Ouey before being cremated at Wat Bang Phraek Tai temple Nonthaburi province, Thailand, Thursday, July 23, 2020. The corpse of Si Ouey, a notorious figure who was convicted of murder in 1959 and accused of cannibalism, was put on museum display for six decades, but an online campaign last year was successful in having him be given a proper funeral. (AP PhotoSakchai Lalit)

Doubts about Si Ouey’s guilt only garnered much interest in the past decade, after several television documentaries pointed out discrepancies in the evidence, such one of his victims still having her organs despite Si Ouey’s confessing to eating them.

Pharaoh Chakkraphattranan, who heard the warnings about Si Ouey as a boy, saw one of those programs and it led him in 2018 to start an online petition asking that Si Ouey no longer be labeled a cannibal and that he be given a proper funeral.

“I went back to that museum and I felt different looking at him,” Pharaoh said. “Before I just thought I was looking at a man-eater, now I see a victim who was stripped of his rights and dignity. Whether or not he committed the crime, his body shouldn’t be displayed in the glass box.”

An employee at the National Library shows the Daily Mail newspaper's Monday, Feb. 1958 edition front page showing the infamous serial killer Si Ouey in Bangkok, Thailand, on Monday, July 9, 2019. The corpse of Si Ouey, a notorious figure who was convicted of murder in 1959 and accused of cannibalism, was put on museum display for six decades, but an online campaign last year was successful in having him be given a proper funeral. (AP PhotoSakchai Lalit)

Siriraj Hospital reviewed the matter last year, removed the sign on his display case calling him a “cannibal" last June and then withdrew his body from public view last August. Officials finally announced this month that he would be cremated.

Wannapa Thongchin, whose parents employed Si Ouey, also embraced the cause and along with other residents of the town where he once lived lobbied for a proper funeral. She said her parents always told her Si Ouey was innocent.

“Even though he was not our family member, we counted him as one,” Wannapa said Thursday at Si Ouey's funeral. "Villagers spoke of him as a good person. It made me feel sorry for him. It was as if he was being tormented, so we had to find a way to bring him out from the glass box.”

A visitor views the corpse of the infamous serial killer Si Ouey, right, on display in an upright glass case at the Forensic Museum Siriraj Hospital, Friday, May 17, 2019, in Bangkok, Thailand. The corpse of Si Ouey, a notorious figure who was convicted of murder in 1959 and accused of cannibalism, was put on museum display for six decades, but an online campaign last year was successful in having him be given a proper funeral. (AP PhotoSakchai Lalit)

A Ukrainian drone strike killed one person and wounded three others in the Russian city of Voronezh, local officials said Sunday.

A young woman died overnight in a hospital intensive care unit after debris from a drone fell on a house during the attack on Saturday, regional Gov. Alexander Gusev said on Telegram.

Three other people were wounded and more than 10 apartment buildings, private houses and a high school were damaged, he said, adding that air defenses shot down 17 drones over Voronezh. The city is home to just over 1 million people and lies some 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

The attack came the day after Russia bombarded Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles overnight into Friday, killing at least four people in the capital Kyiv, according to Ukrainian officials.

For only the second time in the nearly four-year war, Russia used a powerful new hypersonic missile that struck western Ukraine in a clear warning to Kyiv and NATO.

The intense barrage and the launch of the nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile followed reports of major progress in talks between Ukraine and its allies on how to defend the country from further aggression by Moscow if a U.S.-led peace deal is struck.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday in his nightly address that Ukrainian negotiators “continue to communicate with the American side.”

Chief negotiator Rustem Umerov was in contact with U.S. partners Saturday, he said.

Separately, Ukraine’s General Staff said Russia targeted Ukraine with 154 drones overnight into Sunday and 125 were shot down.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

This photo provided by the Ukrainian Security Service on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, shows a fragment believed to be a part of a Russian Oreshnik intermediate range hypersonic ballistic missile that hit the Lviv region. (Ukrainian Security Service via AP)

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, second left, listens to British Defense Secretary John Healey during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)