After seeking information from many resources about her father's death during the armed skirmish at Rajprarop Road on May 15, Monchaya Phonsrila has finally found an eyewitness who can tell her exactly how he died.
She said her father was present during the skirmish at Rajprarop Road, but could not be contacted after 3pm. However, it was only the next morning, when her mother bought a local newspaper, that she learned about his death.
The frontpage report said her father had been severely injured and taken away from the battle zone by two men. The report though did not explain how her father had died. So, she started scouring the Internet to find information and finally came upon a video clip showing the May 15 skirmish.
This video clip showed her father and fellow protesters hiding behind a barricade built from tyres in front of a Shell petrol station near Soi Rang Nam. The clip captured her father being shot, but it did not show him dying.
"When I saw the clip I was quite sure that my father would not have survived because he was caught in the firing zone," Monchaya said. "But I still had to know how he died."
On May 18, she began the search for her father's body by visiting all hospitals around the Rajprarop area. Finally she found him at Ramathibodhi Hospital, where an autopsy had been performed.
Autopsy results showed that her father had been shot in the abdomen and then drowned. This piece of information surprised Monchaya, but luckily she found the truth when she met Nick Nostitz, a German photographer who has lived and worked in Bangkok since 1993.
Nostitz told her that on May 15 he had gone to the Din Daeng-Rajprarop junction to observe the protesters and had spotted Monchaya's father. He was one of the people setting up a barricade in front of the petrol station near Soi Rang Nam. The cameraman positioned himself at the petrol station and a few minutes later, saw a small group of protesters caught on the other side as bullets started whizzing past.
Monchaya's father was the first to be shot - he was hit in the stomach. Some protesters tried to escape by running across the road, while others tried to throw a rope over the barricade to pull the injured to safety.
Meanwhile, Nostitz ran to the toilet at the back of the petrol station and found a group of injured people there. Monchaya's father had been brought here, and the photographer took some pictures before jumping over a wall and landing in someone's garden.
He later saw the injured being helped over the wall, and caught sight of Monchaya's father slip into a small artificial pond.
Then soldiers were spotted scaling the wall, and one of them ordered Nostitz to pull Monchaya's father out of the pond. While Nostitz was trying to help the injured man, he heard a weak voice saying he couldn't take it any more. Monchaya's father slipped back into the pool once again, and a soldier had to help Nostitz pull him out again.
Nostitz said one of the soldiers then ordered him to look after the injured man, but he said he didn't know how because Monchaya's father had really bad injuries. The photographer then saw Monchaya's father being carried out of the private compound on a stretcher.