Three men have been arrested in connection with the execution-style killing of a British man and his Thai wife.
Thai police discovered the bodies of Alan Hogg, 64, and his wife Nott buried in the garden of their three-storey farmhouse in Phrae district, 120 miles south-east of Chiang Mai.
A previous inspection of the spot, where a hoe was found alongside a patch of freshly turned soil, had turned up nothing, the Bangkok Post reports, but a deeper excavation uncovered the two bodies buried side by side around two metres below the surface.
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Edinburgh-born Hogg, a retired engineer, and his wife had been reported missing by friends last week, Sky News reports, after they failed to turn up to a pre-arranged meeting.
Two men taken into custody today have already confessed their involvement in the murders, police say.
Bia Kamsai and Kittipong Kamwan, both 27, describe the killings as a paid hit organised by Nott’s brother, Warut Satchakit, claiming he paid them 50,000 baht (£,1,170) to carry out the murders, supposedly motivated by a family feud.
The pair told detectives that they shot Hogg in front of a duck pen on the property, and “then used a hammer to beat Nott, 61 to death in front of the garage”, the Post reports.
Police had previously interviewed Satchakit, who was seen on CCTV footage entering the couple’s property after they were reported missing and leaving in their white pick-up truck. He was charged with theft of a vehicle and released on bail.
Detectives made a breakthrough in the case on Sunday when a man contacted police to report that he had recently purchased a pick-up truck matching the description of that stolen from the Hoggs’ property. The recovered vehicle is now being examined by forensic experts.
The two alleged executioners and Satchakit are being held on suspicion of murder.
Over the weekend, police Major-General Sanpat Praputsra told reporters that investigators were “certain” that the disappearances were connected to a “long-standing conflict within the family” and that they were “confident” the culprit would be brought to justice.
