Prosecutors at Biloxi murder trial detail gruesome MS Coast stabbing death

The state called him a cold-blooded killer. On the first day of his murder trial in Biloxi, prosecutors said Pitipong Daengbunga stabbed, beat and strangled his roommate, then laughed when he told police she was dead.

His defense attorneys urged caution. Despite the tragedy and the gruesome details of the case, they asked the jury to control their emotions. They called the killing self-defense.

Those opposing views on Tuesday began the first-degree murder trial of Daengbunga, a 40-year-old Thailand native charged with stabbing a woman to death in Biloxi more than two years ago. He is also accused of tampering with physical evidence.

“He beat her,” Assistant District Attorney Mara Joffe said. “He stabbed her. He strangled her. He bit her face.”

Daengbunga, dressed in a blue collared shirt, sat silently beside his lawyers.

He was arrested in February 2022 after officers found Jamie Boggs, 42, dead one morning in an apartment in the 300 block of Rodenberg Avenue.

Daengbunga had been released from state prison four months before for a violent assault in Jones County of his ex-wife, who he nearly killed by beating her head with a rock, using his fingers to gouge out one of her eyes and gnawing off part of her nose, court records showed. He had also been previously convicted twice of misdemeanor domestic violence charges against the same woman. He moved to the Mississippi Coast after his release, and was on parole when Biloxi police arrested him.

Prosecutors on Tuesday accused him of similarly gruesome acts. They said he wrapped Boggs’s body tightly in sheets and towels, burned his clothes in a charcoal grill, walked to a laundromat, then the Veteran’s Affairs hospital in Biloxi, where prosecutors say he reported killing Boggs in self-defense.

At the hospital, prosecutors said Daengbunga told an officer he defended himself with a hammer after his roommate attacked him with a knife. Then his story changed, they said. He told a different officer he slit Boggs’s throat after she attacked him with a hammer, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors and witnesses said Daengbunga had no injuries, except a bloodied right hand.

“This,” Joffe said, “is no case of self-defense.”

“This case involves death,” Alan Green, a defense attorney for Daengbunga, said. “It is tragic.”

He asked the jurors to focus on evidence and keep an open mind.

“He had to defend himself,” Green said.

Prosecutors said Boggs, a Pennsylvania native who lived in Biloxi, died of strangulation, blunt force trauma and sharp force injuries. She had a bite mark on her face that contained Daengbunga’s DNA, Joffe said, and had severe injuries “particularly around her eyes.”

The state called four witnesses on Tuesday. Scott Smith, a VA Police supervisor in February 2022, confirmed Daengbunga was a veteran of the U.S. military. He said he went to the emergency room that morning and found Daengbunga sitting in the waiting room, his hand wrapped in white tissue. Daengbunga kept his eyes down, Smith said. He was calm. When he said Boggs was dead, Daengbunga looked up, smirked and giggled, Smith said.

Michael Hodek, a Biloxi police lieutenant in 2022, said he was called to the hospital waiting room the morning Daengbunga reported the incident. Daengbunga’s hand, Hodek said, had inside lacerations “like he was holding something.”

“His hand was cut up,” he said. “You could see bone.”

Prosecutors showed body camera footage from Jeffrey Duffield, a Biloxi police patrol lieutenant who responded to the apartment and found Boggs dead. The front door of the apartment was off its hinges, the footage showed. Duffield entered the dark apartment by flashlight, and pushed into the bedroom door. He found Boggs deceased on the floor with a hammer by her feet, he said.

Brandon Clark, a Biloxi police lieutenant, said he responded to the VA emergency room to meet Daengbunga. Daengbunga reported pain in his ribs, leg and back, Clark said. He noticed Daengbunga’s hand injury.

Daengbunga had no other injuries, Clark said.

Sun Herald staff writer Margaret Baker contributed reporting.

This story was originally published August 13, 2024 at 5:50 PM.