Chilling photographs reveal how a once-popular Thai water park has been left to rot, with the site forever haunted by a grisly murder-suicide that left even seasoned investigators unsettled.
Located on the scenic hills of Kanchanaburi, in central Thailand, the Castle Mall and Water Park drew in locals and tourists alike when it opened in 1995.
The good times, however, did not last, with the hotspot only surviving a mere 10 years before shutting down, leaving the site abandoned and crumbling away.
Eerie images of the now-dilapidated park, taken by photographer Dax Ward, show the former tourist trap overtaken by rust and mold, with ceiling tiles collapsing and debris littered across the floors.
Sections of the old mall have roofs completely collapsed and are exposed to the elements, with trees and foliage slowly reclaiming sections of the water park.
“Standing in the ruins of Castle Mall, there’s a strange collision between what it was meant to be and what it became,” Ward told The Sun.
“You can still see the bones of a place built for families, but everything is decaying in slow motion,” he added.
Along with the decay, the park is also littered with graffiti from vandals brave enough to run around the abandoned structure despite its dark past.
In 2010, just five years after the tourist attraction shut down, police encountered the haunting site of the neatly seated Surachet Lertsatchayan, 45, dead with a concrete pole crushing his back and a stab wound across his neck.
Surachet was found by a pond behind the mall, with his wife’s body discovered slumped in a Chevrolet pickup truck nearby.
The woman had her throat slit, and investigators concluded that the gruesome deaths were a murder-suicide after finding letters written by Surachet at the scene.
Rewat Klinngesorn, commander of Kanchanaburi Provincial Police, said Surachet had become convinced that his wife was cheating on him with a foreigner and lured her to her death at the abandoned water park.
Klinngesorn told local media at the time that the suspect had initially tried to kill himself by swallowing a highly toxic insecticide, but the poison failed to do the job.
Surachet then tried to stab himself with a knife, but, once again, he failed to die, leading him to topple a concrete pole on his head to finish the job, Klinngesorn said.
Jirasun Kaewsaeng-ek, the former superintendent of Mueang Kanchanaburi Police Station, said Surachet’s method of death shocked and baffled police.
The official noted that despite the gruesome methods Surachet used to kill himself, he was ultimately found with his clothes prim and proper and his body neatly seated as he was crushed.
Ward said that despite the 16 years since the murder-suicide, the park retains the same haunting atmosphere of that day.
“There’s a quietness that feels unnatural, especially knowing what happened there,” he told the Sun. “Even in daylight, it feels like a place you shouldn’t stay too long.”
