Ginggaew Lorsoungnern: The Thai Lady That Survived Her First Execution
- Julian Beckett
- Aug 11
- 4 min read
It is one of the most harrowing episodes in Thailand’s modern criminal history — a case that began with a botched ransom drop and ended with a rare and grisly double volley of bullets. On 13 January 1979, Ginggaew Lorsoungnern became the second woman in Thai history to be executed by gunfire. Her death was as shocking as the crime that brought her to the execution ground.
“I didn’t do it, I didn’t kill the boy. Please don’t kill me,” she pleaded, moments before being tied to the wooden cross.
From Domestic Servant to Kidnap Conspirator
Born in 1950, Ginggaew worked as a housekeeper and childcarer for Vichai and Jitra Srijareonsukying, a Bangkok couple with a six-year-old son. She was trusted with the boy’s care, picking him up from school and tending to him daily — until she was dismissed from the job. In late 1978, unemployed and in financial difficulty, she was persuaded by her 28-year-old boyfriend, already a convicted criminal, to take part in a kidnapping plot.
Authorities later named six conspirators: Ginggaew herself, Thongmuan Grogkoggraud, Pin Peungyard, Thongsuk Puwised (Pin’s spouse), Gasem Singhara, and Suthi Sridee. Ginggaew’s role was crucial — she would use her familiarity with the child to lure him away without raising alarm.
The Kidnapping and Murder
On or around 18 October 1978, Ginggaew collected the boy from school and took him to a hideout in Nakhon Ratchasima Province. The kidnappers demanded 200,000 baht, instructing the parents to throw a bag of cash from a moving train between the Jantuek and Pakchong railway stations, where a flag would mark the drop point.
The plan failed almost immediately. It was dark, the parents couldn’t find the flag, and the ransom wasn’t delivered. Enraged, the kidnappers turned on the boy. He was stabbed, then buried alive. Soil found in his lungs confirmed he had been breathing when the earth covered him. In a macabre touch rooted in local belief, they buried him with traditional goods to avoid being haunted by his spirit.
Prison officer and later memoirist Chavoret Jaruboon recorded that Ginggaew allegedly tried to stop the killing, at one point throwing herself over the child. “She was all over the news, like some kind of film star,” Chavoret later wrote, noting that lurid and sometimes unreliable newspaper accounts sensationalised the story.
Trial, Sentence, and the Death Warrant
On 12 January 1979, the Prime Minister of Thailand signed the executive order for Ginggaew’s execution — a common practice in the politically authoritarian 1970s. She was moved from Lard Yao Prison at Klong Prem Central Prison to Bang Kwang Central Prison in Nonthaburi Province, infamous for its death row.
Three members of the gang — Ginggaew, Gasem Singhara, and Pin Peungyard — were to be executed on 13 January. The others received life or fixed-term prison sentences.
The Final Hours
Ginggaew’s last hours were marked by fear and repeated fainting. Chavoret, who was then serving as an “escort” rather than the executioner himself, recalled how “escort duty was one of the most emotional roles in the whole process of execution.” Even seasoned prison staff were unsettled by her distress.
By 5 p.m., she was selected to be first. She collapsed on the way to the execution chamber, had to be revived, and was finally tied to the wooden cross. Her hands were placed in the traditional wai position of prayer, her torso bound, and a white square fixed to the screen behind her to mark the heart’s position.
At 5.40 p.m., the executioner fired ten bullets. Dr Porngul examined her and declared her dead. She was untied, laid face down, and carried to the morgue.
“She Was Trying to Get Up”
Then came the moment that still haunts those who witnessed it. As the second prisoner, Gasem, was being brought in, sounds came from the morgue. Ginggaew, drenched in blood, was trying to stand. Chavoret and the escorts rushed to her. Her unusual anatomy, situs inversus, with the heart on the right side, meant none of the bullets had struck the intended target.
Some escorts tried to hasten her death by pressing on her back or even attempting to strangle her, but Chavoret stopped them. “I couldn’t help thinking that she was dying the way that little boy had died, except suffocating from blood instead of earth,” he wrote.
Dr Porngul ordered that she be taken back to the cross. This time, 15 bullets were fired into her back. Only then was she truly dead.
The Others Follow
Gasem died instantly from his volley, stoic and silent to the end. Pin Peungyard was last. Like Ginggaew, he required two volleys before death, the second delivering the fatal shots.
For the prison staff, the evening ended in shock. “We were all in need of more than one stiff drink that evening,” Chavoret admitted.
Legacy of a Grim Day
Ginggaew’s execution marked the first shooting of a woman in Thailand since 1942, and it was the first female execution Chavoret had ever witnessed. In his 2006 memoir, he expressed doubts about the severity of her sentence given her role in the crime, but in Thailand’s 1970s justice system, clemency was scarce.
The case remains infamous not only for the brutality of the crime but for the extraordinary and disturbing events of the execution itself, a rare moment when the mechanics of capital punishment failed in a most public way.
Jaruboon, Chavoret. The Last Executioner. Bangkok: Maverick House, 2006.
“Ginggaew Lorsoungnern.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginggaew_Lorsoungnern
Bangkok Post archives, October 1978 – January 1979.
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