Dr. Porntip led massive forensic operations after the 2004 tsunami tragedy. (AFP: Pornchai Kittiwongsakul)
abc.net.au - After examining more than 10,000 corpses in her 30-year career, Thailand's leading forensics expert Porntip Rojanasunan says she believes the spirits of the dead have become her guardian angels.
"Spirits of the dead keep protecting me," said Dr Porntip, known in Thailand as Doctor Death.
With crimson lipstick and multi-coloured spiked hair, Dr Porntip has stood up to police bullying and death threats as she pursues goals she says the spirits have set up for her.
"They want me to do two things. First, they want me to improve forensic science in Thailand. Second, they want me to establish an institute for missing persons in Thailand," said the 52-year-old pathologist.
In addition to examining thousands of bodies, Dr Porntip led massive forensic operations after the 2004 tsunami tragedy and pioneered the introduction of DNA testing as a criminal investigative tool in the kingdom.
A cancer survivor, she has fought death one-on-one, and has battled the country's male-dominated criminal justice establishment, which has been quick to belittle one of the most powerful women in the profession.
The outspoken doctor frequently appears in the media to challenge autopsy findings by police, who control all aspects of criminal investigation in Thailand.
As a result, she has become a prime target for harassment, bullying and lawsuits.
"Police ... they don't like me. They say bad things about me, like, I'm not a good doctor, or I steal money. Because they see me as a threat undermining their power," she said.
Battle with authority
As an example of police reluctant to make use of science in their investigations, she told the story of a man who three years ago was suspected of killing his wife, who had been found dead in his house with five bullet wounds on his body.
Police said the man shot himself, but Dr Porntip disputed their finding.
"What I found was not compatible with suicide. Blood patterns and a position of his gun indicated he was murdered," she said in an interview at her office.
Dr Porntip went on television to knock down the police account, and very quickly drew scorn and ridicule from them, with a senior police officer accusing her of just wanting to become a celebrity.
"I only want justice, and I only want the public to pay attention to our criminal justice system," Dr Porntip said.
A court eventually ruled the death was indeed murder, but that did not stop the Thai police from suing Dr Porntip for defamation. A judge tossed out the suit.
She says her toughest case so far was the death of Hangthong Thammawattana, a rich and famous lawmaker in Bangkok who at age 50 was found dead with a gun in his right hand in his younger brother's bedroom in 1999.
Police said Mr Hangthong committed suicide, but Dr Porntip's autopsy report found he had not only been shot but might also have been hit across the head with a hard object.
"The position of his body, blood patterns and the position of his gun all pointed out that this man was killed. He did not commit suicide," she says.
While working on the Hangthong case, Dr Porntip received anonymous calls from a man warning that she should quit the case or would be dead by "tomorrow morning".
But Dr Porntip, who has survived two gruelling battles with thyroid and colon cancer, refused to give in.
"My father taught me to be strong," she said. Both her parents were scientists.
Mr Hangthong's younger brother, Noppadol Thammawattana, was eventually charged with the murder, but a criminal court in September this year acquitted him in a verdict that was splashed across front pages of Thai papers.
High-profile contribution
Dr Porntip has single-handedly urged the Government to take forensic science more seriously, and helped create the Forensic Institute under the justice ministry in 2002.
In 2003, the Thai king recognised her public works, including many years of teaching at Ramathibodi Hospital of Mahidol University, with the title Khunying, equivalent to the British Dame.
But Dr Porntip says nothing prepared her for the unprecedented forensic operations in the wake of the tsunami disaster in December 2004.
About 5,400 people - half of them foreign holiday-makers - were killed in Thailand alone after the Indian Ocean tsunami hit the kingdom's southern resort island of Phuket and other provinces along the Andaman coast.
Dr Porntip rushed to the site and took charge of identifying the dead, which became one of the world's largest-ever forensics jobs.
"I just wanted to help. But it was very difficult because there was no coordination," she said.
"The most important lesson I learned from the tsunami is that we need a special organisation that can coordinate with various Government agencies during times of large-scale natural disasters," Dr Porntip said.
DNA database
She has now set her sites on an insurgency in Thailand's Muslim-majority south where thousands of people have been killed in almost daily shootings, bombings and ambushes since January 2004.
Mainly Buddhist Thailand annexed the troubled region bordering Malaysia a century ago and separatist violence has flared periodically since.
"I recognise problems in the south. The situation there is like a war, and I really want to help my country," Dr Porntip.
She has helped set up a DNA database for local authorities in the south to identify suspects and victims.
She says her forensic team mostly works with the military due to the violence, adding that police rarely cooperate with them.
"Senior police officers ordered low-ranking officers not to talk to me. But they cannot stop me from working," she said.
She has also collected DNA samples from teachers and students at Islamic schools to try to exonerate people who feel they have been wrongly accused by authorities.
"My daughter does not want me to work in the south. She is worried about my safety," she says, referring to 15-year-old Yarawee, her only child with banker husband Vichai, 55.
Burning ambition
But Dr Porntip says she cannot slow down until she succeeds in setting up a national institute for missing persons.
"Creating such an institute is my next goal. Also this is the second wish of my spirits of the dead," she said.
Each year hundreds of unidentified bodies are found in Thailand, especially in the violence-torn south and northern provinces bordering Myanmar, the doctor says.
"In five to 10 years, all of these unidentified remains will be cremated with no investigation, and I want to stop that," she says.
Having met more corpses than mortals in her life, Dr Porntip says she has learned a lot from the dead.
"We cannot control our lives, and I try to be happy all the time," she said.
Spirits of the Dead Have Become Her Guardian Angels
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