A Thai woman has confessed to killing her friend and cutting off her fingers to remove two diamond rings to pay a gambling debt. [Image: Shutterstock.com]

Stranger than fiction

Fans of the hit HBO TV series “The Penguin” are familiar with chopped-off fingers and brutal murders, but a similar incident in Thailand recently defies belief.

woman desperate to repay a gambling debt

Unlike the fictional TV show, this was no play by underworld New York crime families, just a lone Thai woman desperate to repay an online gambling debt.  

Thai news site khaosodenglish.com on Monday reported that Kamonwan Wolf, 57, confessed to murdering Wanna Kürner, 65, on a dirt road in a palm plantation to strip the woman she once called a friend of all her valuables.  

Wolf admitted to bludgeoning Kürner to death before stealing her cash and gold jewelry and cutting off her fingers to remove two diamond rings.

Murderer re-enacts crime

After hiding the body of the victim in the plantation, Wolf drove to a market in the neighboring province of Chonburi, where investigators revealed she sold the jewelry for “80,000 baht ($2,300) to pay gambling debts.”

Wolf at first denied murdering her wealthy friend but came clean after DNA evidence from Kürner found Wolf’s hair in her fingernails. 

locals gathered to watch as Wolf recovered the iron bar

Thai police then escorted a heavily guarded Wolf to the murder scene, where they conducted a re-enactment of the crime. A crowd of locals gathered to watch as Wolf recovered the iron bar she used to murder Kürner and, using a police official as the victim, revealed how she conducted her bloody work. 

The victim’s brother Somchai also attended the re-enactment, where he “shouted angrily” at Wolf. 

According to khaosod, Somchai expressed disbelief that Wolf could be so cold-hearted towards his sister. 

Lone Wolf?

According to reports, Somchai stated that if Wolf needed money, she could have asked Kürner, who was wealthy and the mother-in-law of a prosecutor. 

Police cited Somchai as stating his sister “would have surely helped” Wolf. The bereaved brother is “deeply grieved by the irreversible loss of his sister and absolutely refuses to forgive the suspect.”

Somchai doubts Wolf was acting alone

While Somchai doubts Wolf was acting alone, police cleared her husband after his alibi, that he was riding his motorcycle to Pattaya at the time of the murder, checked out. 

Wolf is looking at the death penalty, life behind bars, or a 15-20-year prison term for murdering Kürner.