BANGKOK
A Thai crocodile farm popular among tourists has denied having tried to cover up the suicide of a depressed woman who jumped in a crocodile pond last week.
A communication officer at the farm told the Anadolu Agency on Wednesday, “We have never tried to cover up anything. The best proof of it is that journalists came on the site where the incident happened.”
The Samut Prakarn crocodile farm, located a few kilometers to the east of capital Bangkok, is a major tourist attraction which takes care of hundreds of crocodiles, some as long as six meters (over 19 feet).
On Friday afternoon, a 65-year-old woman took her shoes off on a bridge overlooking a crocodile pond, before climbing over the security fence and jumping into a pit filled with 1,000 crocodiles.
She was quickly torn apart by the animals. Farm staff tried to push away the crocodiles with long sticks but it was too late.
One day later, she was identified as Wanpen Inyai with the help of her 30 baht (less than $1) insurance card found floating in the pond.
The low-cost cards were initiated in the 2000s by overthrown Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra as Thailand’s first-ever universal health insurance coverage.
The woman’s family said she had been deeply depressed for a few days, refusing to talk to anyone. She disappeared from her home on Friday morning and could not be contacted afterwards.
When the family was informed of the death by the farm officials, it was shown a video of the incident on the condition that it kept silent about the suicide and did not file a suit against the farm, according to Thai television channel Thai PBS.
The farm officer interviewed by AA, however, flatly denied that was the case.
The latest suicide is the third at the crocodile farm. The first incident occurred in 1992 and was followed by another in August 2002, when a woman with marital troubles climbed a security fence and jumped into a pit filled with 300 crocodiles. While initially not attracting the animals’ attention, she had to swim toward them before they finally grabbed and killed her.
After the 2002 incident, the farm increased the security fences' height and put more employees on lookout for suspicious behavior.
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