Chiang Mai resident Don Linder, spent many months interviewing Chavoret Jaruboon, known as Thailand’s Last Executioner, who executed 55 people, including one woman, with a machine gun. Chavoret worked at Bang Kwang Prison in Bangkok and was the last person in the country assigned to perform court-ordered executions by gun before Thailand switched to lethal injection, the method still used today.
Chavoret has since died of cancer but his story, told by Linder in his script for the movie The Last Executioner, has gone on to win numerous international film awards. See this podcast interview of Linder with www.BangkokRealTV.com. According to the podcast introduction, “Don Linder is a writer, editor, photographer, and academic who has travelled, lived, and written on five continents. He is a native-born New Yorker who did his BA and MA in Comparative Literature at Columbia University where he minored in Film Studies under Andrew Sarris, the noted proponent of the auteur theory of film criticism. Don’s work and travels have included director of academic English programs in the U.S., the Canary Islands, China, and Thailand; writing program director for Poets & Writers, Inc., the State University of New York, and the North Carolina Arts Council; jazz and blues radio host in New York and radio lecturer in China; plus travel and culture writer worldwide, most notably in Mongolia and Morocco. Don has written and acted for Japanese cable TV and taught scriptwriting in Egypt, Brazil, and the U.S. “The Last Executioner” is his first feature-length film. After ten years in Bangkok, Don now lives in Chiang Mai, Thailand with his wife, Lida.”
Or read more from this old Citylife interview.