When Justice Came To Pornchai Moontri Mercy Followed

Clare Farr, a Western Australia trademarks attorney, read about Pornchai Moontri at These Stone Walls and set in motion a Divine Mercy saga spanning five continents.

Introduction by Father Gordon MacRae

The following is a guest post by Clare Farr, a registered trademarks attorney in Western Australia. Clare is partner with her husband, Malcolm Farr, principal of the Farr Intellectual Property law firm near Perth. She is the mother of five young adults. In 2003, while reading These Stone Walls, Clare and Malcolm immersed themselves, entirely pro bono, in the cause of Pornchai Moontri.

Clare, especially, served as a bridge to find and cultivate essential contacts for Pornchai to secure a future in Thailand, and to seek justice for him in the United States. Without Clare Farr’s assistance, this story I told in “Pornchai Moontri: Bangkok to Bangor, Survivor of the Night” could not have come entirely to light.

Please share Clare’s amazing account of Divine Mercy that connects people on five continents for a story that Pornchai Moontri once summarized in a single sentence: “I awoke one day with a future when up to then all I ever had was a past.” It is an honor to present this guest post by Clare Farr.

When Justice Came to Pornchai Moontri, Mercy Followed

It was in about the year 2010 when I first read about the plight of Fr Gordon and his cellmate, Pornchai Moontri. The more I read about Fr Gordon, I became convinced of his innocence and outraged that this holy and devout Catholic priest could be sent to prison given the paucity and quality of the evidence against him.

Many people including highly regarded journalists and lawyers find this case very troubling yet the higher ups in the Diocese of Manchester, government lawyers, politicians and those in the judiciary must have very thick skins and are prepared to let this case rest and turn their gaze the other way. They must rest their laurels on the fact that the “legal system did its job.” Well, it didn’t — it was an abysmal failure. Quite frankly, the outcome is deeply unsettling and a blight on the justice system of the United States.

The Fr Gordon MacRae that I have come to know is a man of tremendous intellect and wisdom who counsels and shares his insight and understanding of the Catholic faith to the many among his global readership as well as his fellow prisoners in the New Hampshire Prison for Men. He is just about as fine a priest as I have ever known, and the way that he has been treated by the Diocese of Manchester and many other Catholic priests is quite disgraceful.

Before the commencement of MacRae’s trial, he was not given any chance to respond to the allegations against him, yet the Diocese issued a press release in which it stated:

“The Church has been a victim of the actions of Gordon MacRae just like these individuals…”

If the Church believed Fr Gordon was guilty — what was a jury to think? The trial was compromised before it even began — sabotaged by the Diocese of Manchester.

Three years ago Bishop Libasci wrote to me “…please be assured that both my predecessor and I have understood and fulfilled our obligations as bishops with respect to Father MacRae’s rights under civil and canon law”. At the time of the press release, Bishop Leo O’Neil was the head of the diocese and he was not Bishop Libasci’s predecessor but rather, one of his predecessors. However, the upshot of acts undertaken during Bishop O’Neil’s term as Bishop have had a never-ending adverse impact on Fr Gordon and this should be acknowledged and addressed by his successors.

I’m certainly no expert on canon law though I as far as I know canonical equity dictates that there must be a balance between the spirit of the Gospel and the salvation of souls. I fail to see how doing nothing to address past wrongs done to Fr Gordon, including but not limited to dealing with Fr Gordon’s incarceration as a live issue (which is partly the Diocese’s own fault) and the payment of a regular stipend, has met these requirements.

Whatever Fr Gordon’s fate is, there is one thing for sure: when he passes on to the next life he will be greatly rewarded for all the good he has done in his life. Similarly, those who have lied about him, who have persecuted him or who have added to his misery and his circumstances will also have to stand before the Creator and account for their actions — or inaction. Heaven help them.

Bangor, Maine

A Stranger in a Strange Land

In late 2013 I chanced upon an article about Pornchai Moontri by Charlene Duline, “Pornchai Moontri is Worth Saving.” Charlene was pleading for anyone who could advocate on behalf of Pornchai, so I contacted her. I thought that even though I live in Western Australia, I might be able to help somehow. At that stage Pornchai had been in prison for more than 20 years. There was no question that he was involved in the death of Michael Scott McDowell and that a jury had found him guilty of murder. I knew that he was far from a model prisoner at the start of his sentence, but that he had a remarkable conversion to the Catholic faith and that he had achieved an abundance of qualifications in prison. Indeed, he seemed to be a model prisoner.

From everything I had read about Pornchai and the trial, and from all that I have come to know about this story, it seems that a 45-year sentence is grossly excessive. Pornchai had unsuccessfully appealed the sentence decision many years ago — so it seemed that the only recourse for him was to petition the Governor of Maine to exercise clemency for his release from prison. After a great deal of research into Pornchai’s life, in March 2015 we submitted a petition to the Governor of Maine seeking an order of executive clemency. In October 2015 it was rejected.

Pornchai has never had an opportunity to tell a court about his life and what led to his conviction. He has never really told the full story, some of which he did not even know about — but I know it. Father Gordon knows about it too and wrote much of it in these pages last week. What follows is the story that I want to emphasize, so here goes…

Pornchai was born to a family in Thailand and at age two he and his brother were abandoned by both parents and raised by their maternal grandparents for the next 9 years. With them, he had a wonderful family life and he and his brother were happy and well looked after. With their mother absent for so long, they came to believe that their aunt was their real mother. Pornchai was much loved by his mother’s family.

When he was 11, his mother, Wannee came to retrieve the boys. She told them that she was their mother and that she was going to take them with her to live in America, and that they would have a good life with her and her new American husband, Richard Alan Bailey. Within two weeks of arriving in Maine, Pornchai was violently sexually abused by Bailey. Wannee had unknowingly married a sexual predator and the two brothers became his victims. Pornchai ran away from home but was returned home by the police. He tried to tell them what had been happening but he couldn’t speak English and they couldn’t understand him, so he was returned to live in the home of his abuser. He had only just turned 12 years of age. It was December of 1985.

Pornchai was unable to tell his mother at that time because Bailey had threatened what would happen if he told anyone. About a week later he did tell her about the abuse and her reaction was to refuse to believe him and to punish him for telling lies. The abuse was ongoing, and Pornchai ran away again and again until eventually he had no home to return to. He became a homeless teenager on the streets of a foreign country. For several years he was in and out of juvenile detention centers, stayed when he could in the homes of friends, lived in a treehouse, under a bridge and found shelter wherever he could. He was often forced to steal food to survive. Eventually the court would punish him with detention and other penalties. He spent time in juvenile detention facilities and he had some counselling. At these facilities he formed good relationships with a lot of people but there was always some bullying and racial vilification by other students and with the emotional baggage that he was carrying, sometimes it was all too much to bear and he would become enraged. Eventually he was expelled from the school when he acted up against this abuse.

At two separate juvenile detention facilities he disclosed the abuse by his stepfather. His teachers and therapists believed him and reported the allegations to their superiors. Referring to the abuse allegation, one 1988 report to Child Protection stated:

“….Totally destroyed boy’s faith in family — mother made aware — did nothing. Boy began to habitually run away — Boy terrified father will take out some type of revenge on mother.”

When Pornchai was still living in Bailey’s home, his mother felt too threatened by Bailey to believe her son’s story of abuse. She then became especially hostile to him, called him names and lashed out at him in a number of ways. His home life had become highly dysfunctional and his mother was also physically and emotionally abusing him and telling him that she wished he hadn’t been born, most likely as a symptom of her own frustration and anger in living in a highly toxic environment with a violent and abusive man.

Eventually Wannee did accept that he told the truth but notwithstanding, she put much pressure on Pornchai not to discuss the abuse with anyone. She was living in fear herself.

After his expulsion from the Goodwill Hinckley School shortly before his 18th birthday, Pornchai tried to lead a normal life and get a job, finally finding work as a bus boy with a chain restaurant, but he was fired because he couldn’t provide a residential address which had been a condition of his employment.

As he lived on the streets and had received threats, he began to carry a knife for protection. At 18 years of age and after becoming very drunk one night, he went with his friend Danny Williams to a supermarket. There he got into an altercation in the parking lot. When tackled by a much larger and heavier man, in a reflex reaction he pulled the knife and Michael Scott McDowell died. It was unintentional, but nevertheless it was a terrible action for which an innocent man died. For the last 26 years Pornchai has carried with him the life of the man who died and after his conversion prayed diligently for his soul.

Whilst there is no excuse for the death of Michael Scott McDowell — I ask the reader to consider that moment when Pornchai, a small and light framed 18-year-old was tackled by a much heavier built man. Given his history of sexual assault by an older man — isn’t it just possible that mixed up with the distress of the moment there was the revulsion and terror of having a large man pin him down and take control of him? I can definitely see the connection and understand why using a knife in these drunken circumstances would have occurred.

While he was in prison and awaiting trial, Wannee visited Pornchai and pleaded with him not to mention the sexual assaults in court, as she would suffer at the hands of Richard Bailey if he did so. Against legal advice, Pornchai, fearing for his mother’s safety, refused to present any defence at trial.

In the sentencing phase of the trial, Bailey had written to the trial judge on behalf of himself and Wannee and essentially blamed Pornchai’s situation on him getting in with a bad crowd and his difficulty in adjusting to life in America. He wrote:

“As a father, who is prejudiced by love for his son, and also a former law enforcement officer that a lengthy sentence for such a young man would not serve the State of Maine, the McDowell family, or Pornchai Moontri.”

That’s about as kind as he had ever been to Pornchai. He has never once visited him in prison, has written only one letter to him and even then, he merely apologised to Pornchai for being so hard on him. He has never provided any material support for him since Pornchai was arrested.

Wannee divorced Bailey in 2000. By that time, she and Bailey had relocated to Guam where they owned property. They agreed on a division of assets and court orders were made including an order that their home be sold. In February 2000 Wannee returned to Guam in order to confront Bailey about delays in the sale of the home and the payment of monies which he was supposed to pay her. Not long afterwards, Bailey reported her missing from their isolated home in Guam and the following day he reported that he found her body. Her autopsy report and death certificate note that her death was the result of a homicide. No one has ever been charged for her death.

On the night she went missing she telephoned her niece and told her that Bailey was in a rage and that if she didn’t return from Guam, it meant she had been murdered. Prophetic words…

Under the court orders Bailey was to pay certain money to Wannee beyond April 2000. It appears that the administrator of Wannee’s estate was not aware that Bailey still owed money to the Estate so the debt was not pursued. At the time of her death Pornchai was in prison so there was no one around who would have known about the court orders other than Bailey.

Following a police investigation and grand jury indictments, in early 2017 Bailey was charged with 40 counts of Gross Sexual Misconduct. The victims were Pornchai and his brother Priwan.

Knowing that there has been a criminal case against Bailey has been difficult for Pornchai over the past few years because he has had to relive the past, give statements and go over things again and again. Thank God that his cellmate is Fr Gordon MacRae who provides spiritual advice and good counsel. Fr Gordon has had a huge positive impact on Pornchai’s life. Without his continuous efforts to pursue justice and for Pornchai’s story to be made known, the truth would never have come out.

In March 2017 the Bailey case went before the Superior Court of Maine, and following a number of arraignments, the matter was before the Court September 11, 2018. On that date, Bailey formally entered a plea of nolo contendere — his attorney indicated that Bailey denied any wrongdoing but that he would not contest the charges and agreed to be sentenced by the court. The Victims Impact Statements of both brothers were read to the court and the judge was quite shaken and deeply moved by the statements. The case was adjourned to the following day, September 12.

As is common in the US legal system, the Office of the District Attorney had agreed on a plea deal with Bailey’s attorney which provided for a suspended sentence of 17 years with a probation period imposing strict conditions — but the length of such probation had not been agreed upon. However, the judge found Bailey guilty on all 40 charges and imposed a longer suspended sentence of 18 years, the whole of which would be subject to very strict probation conditions. It appears that the judge had to take Bailey’s claims of poor health into consideration (he is four years older than Fr Gordon), but also the impact of a trial on both brothers. At the hearing, Pornchai’s brother was quite visibly distraught. Despite there being no prison term for Bailey, I think that justice has been served in this case. The judge was obviously more than satisfied that Bailey is guilty and ordered a longer sentence on probation than in the plea agreement that was submitted to the court.

The Divine Mercy Redemption

Over the past few years, myself and others have been planning what happens with Pornchai when he is eventually deported at the end of his sentence. Then out of the blue, a wonderful lady from Bangkok named Yela Smit contacted Fr Gordon to find out how she could help. Yela was the co-director of the Divine Mercy Apostolate in Thailand. She has since gathered a lot of support for Pornchai and offered practical assistance. We have spoken a number of times on the phone and I distinctly remember her saying to me “He’s going to have a wonderful life in Thailand, he’ll wonder why he ever stayed so long in America”. Yela’s input was invaluable. Knowing about Pornchai’s conversion and his Marian consecration — to find Yela was a Godsend as are her friends, Khun Peter in Thailand and Viktor Weyand, an American travel agent. Viktor was a co-founder of a Divine Mercy orphanage and school in Thailand, and two years ago travelled to Thailand for the priesthood ordination of the first resident of the orphanage. Viktor has since become a very dear friend to Pornchai, and he and his wife have visited Pornchai at Christmas time.

In “A Stitch in Time: Threads of the Tapestry of God”, Fr Gordon wrote about this amazing tapestry where the lives of people from all over the world touch each other, and I am proud to have been part of it. Fr Gordon wrote:

“This story now connects people on five continents who have no obvious connection beyond their interest in Pornchai’s life and their immersion in the work of Divine Mercy.”

People from around the world have all used their skills and life experience to help Pornchai, all being driven and guided by Heaven. We all had an important part to play and we did what was expected of us.

Pornchai’s story is a great story on so many different levels. It is a story of faith and Divine Mercy. It’s a story of great tragedy followed by a dramatic conversion, a Marian consecration and a faith filled life. It’s the story of a young agnostic child in Bangkok who became a truly holy and devout man with hope for tomorrow and who survived the most brutal prison life. He is not just prisoner number 77948 — he is a truly remarkable and unique man who will give witness and glory to God.

It’s also a story of the power of prayer and of Divine Providence. None of us could have achieved anything without help from above. All of you who have prayed and fasted and given practical assistance to Pornchai and Fr Gordon are also a very important part of the tapestry. Without faith and prayer, nothing would have been achieved. So, consider it a collective effort guided by the Lord with a lot of help from Our Lady. All of the key players who have and are helping Pornchai have a connection with Divine Mercy and are Marian devotees and we all came together to help Pornchai.

Fr Gordon has spoken about Fr Seraphim Michalenko’s involvement in Pornchai’s life. Several years ago, a friend asked me if I wanted to go to a talk by a visiting priest to be held at the home of a friend in the Perth hill in Western Australia. I had never heard of the priest before but knew that he was going to give a talk on Divine Mercy. His name was Fr Seraphim Michalenko. At the talk I found out more about St Faustina’s revelations and of the two miracles that led to the canonisation of Faustina. I even had a private chat with Fr Seraphim.

In the 2014 post, Fr Seraphim Michalenko on a Mission of Divine Mercy, Fr Gordon told us that the Felix Carroll book, Love Lost Found – 17 Divine Mercy Conversions with its chapter about Pornchai was sent by Fr Seraphim to Yela Smit in Thailand. That’s how Yela became involved. Another Divine Mercy connection is that Fr Seraphim was the director of the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and he has been a visiting priest to the chapel of the New Hampshire Prison for Men and has also participated in a Divine Mercy Retreat at the prison. What are the odds that I would ever meet Fr Seraphim? — and the fact that he has a connection to Pornchai and Fr Gordon is amazing. The tapestry Fr Gordon wrote about gets more amazing by the day and I know that I will never know the full extent of it.

Pornchai will probably be in prison until at least the first half of 2021 when he will be eligible for release and once released he will be held in detention by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. He will then be deported to his native Thailand because he is not an American citizen.

Pornchai has made the most of prison life and has received a good education and has many vocational skills. He is not bitter at all. As for his thoughts on Bailey — when asked by the Assistant District Attorney if he wanted Bailey to go to prison — Pornchai said to her, “No, I don’t want him to go to prison — I just want him to know that what he did was wrong.” Awesome! I don’t know if I could utter those words if I was in Pornchai’s position but whilst old memories will always be there, he has forgiven Bailey. He looks back on the past with great sadness, but doesn’t dwell on it and he has great hope for the future. It will be a culture shock to return to a country where he no longer speaks the language but he has new friends to meet and a career to begin.

Many people have prayed for Pornchai and continue to keep him in their prayers. Without a doubt this has helped him enormously and God’s providence has also rained down upon him.

Please keep him in your prayers and pray that he will transition smoothly into Thai life, that he will forge a good career that will make him financially independent and that he will truly find peace.

And continue to pray for Fr Gordon MacRae who in my eyes is a living saint. Without him, his tenacity and unwavering efforts to help Pornchai, this story would have never come to light.

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Father Seraphim Michalenko on a Mission of Divine Mercy

Saint Maximilian Kolbe and the Gift of Noble Defiance

If Loved Ones Fall from Faith, Let Them See You Believe

Dreamers of Home: The Slow ICE Deportation of Kewei Chen

Pornchai Moontri: Bangkok to Bangor, Survivor of the Night

This is the long-awaited story of Pornchai Moontri and Fr. Gordon MacRae, two lives denied justice and deprived of hope that converged upon the Great Tapestry of God.

Editor’s note: The photo of Pornchai Moontri at the top of this post was a middle school yearbook photo taken at age 12 just after his arrival in America and just prior to the onset of events described in this post. His brother Priwan wrote the word “Brother” with the two hearts under the photo in the yearbook.

In nine years of writing for Beyond These Stone Walls, this is the most important post I have ever composed. If you have never before shared my posts on social media or emailed them to friends, I urge you to share this one. It is not about me — at least, not directly. It is about something that has haunted my every day for the last twelve years. It’s about someone who committed a ‘real’ and tragic criminal act, but was himself the victim of a horrible crime. It is something so ironic it defies belief.

I recently hinted that this story was coming. After twelve years in the making it came to its apex this month on the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary. Here’s what I wrote in a recent post about “Mary, Undoer of Knots”:

“I want to put some unexpected context on the significance of that day — September 10, 1985 — as I eulogized my beloved Uncle near Harvard. Unbeknownst to me, on that same day and moment on the far side of the world, Pornchai Moontri turned 12 years old in Bangkok, Thailand where he was reunited with his mother after her ten-year absence from his life. On that day, he began a journey to a promised new life in America.”

Six-and-a-half years later, on Saturday evening, March 21, 1992, in a state of intoxication, 18-year-old Pornchai Moontri walked into a Bangor, Maine supermarket and tried to walk out with a six-pack of beer. He was chased into the parking lot. In his drunken state Pornchai had trouble piecing together what came next. He heard much of it for the first time sitting in court.

As he fled across the Shop’n Save parking lot that night, 27 year-old Michael Scott McDowell injected himself into the scene. He saw store employees chasing a young Asian man and assumed it was for shoplifting. The much larger McDowell tackled Pornchai and wrestled him to the ground. Pinned down and helpless, Pornchai described this moment in “Pornchai’s Story” as “something that lived in me got out.”

Pornchai remembers getting up and running, running, running. Later that night he wandered the streets alone, exhausted and confused. He lived on those streets, a homeless teenager in a small port city of 31,000 in a foreign country. He slept under a bridge. As he fled, hunted, through the streets of Bangor that night, a car pulled up. A man he neither knew nor remembers told him to get in.

There, in that vehicle, he sat in silence until the police came for him. To this day, he knows nothing of the identity of the man who sheltered him. Pornchai was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, a knife he carried for protection while living on the streets. The next morning, the police told him that the charge is upgraded to murder. Michael Scott McDowell had died.

On Thursday, September 30, 1992, journalist Steve Kloehn penned a report for the Bangor Daily News entitled, “McDowell murder closed with a verdict, not a reason.” Its opening paragraph set the stage for the mystery contained therein:

“Thomas Goodwin, representing the state of Maine, was trying to explain to a jury the inexplicable: how Pornchai Moontri walked into the Shop’n Save a teenager and came out a murderer.”

Until now, I have not been able to write the whole truth of my last twelve years behind these stone walls. I have alluded to some of it in cryptic prose, but not everyone caught it. But many understood that there is an important story coming, a true story of unimaginable pain, power, and consequence. This is the most important post I have ever written.

If you have been reading these pages with any regularity at all, then you have come to know Pornchai “Maximilian” Moontri. This is his story, and it may bring tears. It should. But the sun also rises, and with the long awaited dawn comes — if not rejoicing — then at least a modicum of peace.

Solitary Confinement

Pornchai and I first met at the New Hampshire State Prison in 2006. He had been transferred from a “Supermax” prison in the State of Maine where he served the previous fourteen years — half of them in the utter cruelty of solitary confinement. He had a short fuse. He lived with a despair and a rage that walls could not contain.

The system deemed Pornchai to be dangerous, unfit for the presence of other human beings. A day in his life in Maine’s “supermax” prison was chronicled by the social justice site, “Solitary Watch” in an article entitled, “Welcome to Supermax.” After fourteen years in and out of that horror — including nearly four years in one long grueling stretch — Pornchai was transferred to another state.

The transfer from a prison in Maine to one in New Hampshire was administrative and not at Pornchai’s request. His arrival in 2006 took him to a very familiar place: an initial stay in solitary confinement. After a few months he was sent to a close custody unit, and finally to a unit in the general prison population where he and I met and became friends in early 2007.

I remember the first time we met. I was walking through the prison “chow hall” carrying my tray of food. As I made my way among the crowded tables looking for a seat, I heard my name. “Hey G, sit here with us.” I spotted my young Indonesian friend, Jeclan Wawarunto sitting next to the meanest looking young Asian man I had ever encountered. I could instantly see why the other two seats at their table were still empty.

“Come sit with us,” said the ever-smiling Jeclan. “This is my new friend, Ponch. He just got here.” As I sat down, I looked into the dark eyes of the young man across from me and saw anger, but it was anger masking something else, a hurt and pain I had never imagined possible. “Ponch wants to ask you a question,” said Jeclan. His friend looked so agitated that I looked quickly away. “I just want to know if you can help me transfer to a prison in Bangkok, Thailand,” said Pornchai with hostility.

I had, ironically, just finished reading a book — 4,000 Days — about the horror of life in a Bangkok prison. I told the young man that I would not help him do something that would only destroy him. “Who is this jerk?” he asked Jeclan. Weeks later, I was surprised to see that same young Asian man dragging a trash bag with his belongings into the housing unit where I lived. I approached him and said, “I’m glad you’re here.” He glared at me as though I were crazy.

We slowly became friends. I cannot really explain this long, slow, gradual building of trust with someone for whom trust is a deadly affair. I today know the courage it took for Pornchai to trust me. One day, his assigned cell mate came to me and said that he did not know what to do. He said that Pornchai had not spoken, eaten or even gotten out of bed for days.

I went to see Pornchai. He was known for having a short fuse, but I told him I would not leave until he got out of that bunk and spoke with me. I told him that I know what is under how he feels right now. I asked him to let me try to help him.

Some time later, his cell mate moved. Prison officials were cautious in imposing a new cell mate on Pornchai, so they told him to find someone he wanted to live with. He asked me and I said yes. It was early 2007. Over time, as trust developed, the story of Pornchai’s life was drawn out of him — de profundis — from out of the depths. It is a remarkable account that is now fully corroborated, and it is shocking.

From Thailand to Terror

Pornchai was born on September 10, 1973 near the village of Bua Nong Lamphu in the Northeast of Thailand beyond the city of Khon Kaen. His father was a Thai marshal arts fighter who earned a hard-won living traveling from town to town for bouts. He was sometimes away for long periods. When Pornchai was two years old, and his brother, Priwan, was four, their mother, Wannee, left telling them that she was going to the city. She did not return. The two boys were abandoned and stranded.

Their father came home weeks later to find Pornchai and Priwan foraging for food in the streets. Pornchai was hospitalized for severe malnutrition. When he left the hospital, his father was also gone, leaving them in the custody of another woman. She eventually put them out into the street where again they had to forage for food and shelter.

Learning of this, the extended family of Pornchai’s missing mother sent a 17-year-old uncle to search for the two boys and bring them to their small farm. Pornchai and Priwan grew up there raising rice, sugar cane, and water buffalo. They worked hard, but they were happy. Over time, Pornchai forgot his mother. He came to believe that his Aunt Mae Sin was his mother.

It was 1975 when Wannee left Pornchai and Priwan at ages two and four. She went to Bangkok to find work. While there she met Richard Bailey, an American military veteran and air traffic controller from Bangor, Maine who was a frequent visitor to Thailand. He brought Wannee to the United States.

Nine years passed. In 1985, when Pornchai was 11 years old, his mother, Wannee, suddenly reappeared in Thailand to claim her sons. Pornchai had no memory of her, and was traumatized to be taken away by a stranger. He never saw his home and family again. Wannee took Pornchai and Priwan to Bangkok for several months to await passports and travel documents. Pornchai turned 12 in Bangkok on September 10, 1985. Wannee told Pornchai and his brother that in America, they would never be hungry again.

In early December, 1985, they flew from Bangkok to Boston where Wannee’s husband, Richard Bailey, met them. On the long drive from Boston to Bangor, Pornchai and Priwan had their first meal in America at a McDonalds drive-thru. Both boys vomited the meal out the back seat windows of the car.

From the moment of their arrival in Bangor, the tone changed rapidly. Richard controlled their money, their speech, and their every move. The two boys and their mother were forbidden from speaking Thai in Bailey’s presence, and neither boy spoke or understood English.

Richard Bailey’s sister, who always treated Pornchai and Priwan with kindness, asked them what they wanted for Christmas. The boys did not know much about Christmas, but they understood that it involves presents. Pornchai’s adjustment had been traumatic. He asked for a watch and a teddy bear.

I caution you that from here on, this story may be difficult to read but please be brave for our friend who lived it. That night Pornchai was awakened from sleep and brought to a basement room by Richard Bailey. While there, Pornchai was forcibly raped by Bailey, an event that was to be repeated too many times to count. Pornchai was traumatized and terrified.

He did not understand what was being said, but its meaning was clear. If he resisted or told, the consequences to his mother would be severe. To demonstrate this, Bailey beat Wannee in the presence of both boys. When they tried to stop him, he beat them as well. They were treated as slaves.

Bailey then arranged separate bedrooms for the two brothers. Only much later did Pornchai learn that Bailey also raped his brother Priwan. In fear for each others’ safety, they both kept silent. They lived in a nightmare from which they saw no escape.

Witnesses who grew up in Bangor, and had read of Pornchai at this blog, have come forward with accounts of the 12-year-old who showed up at their homes traumatized, beaten and bloody. One man reports that he confronted Richard Bailey who later beat Pornchai again while forbidding him to interact with neighbors. Others have similar accounts. A school nurse reported his injuries. Nothing happened.

The first police intervention came when Pornchai was 13. He had run away, following railroad tracks out of Bangor. After a day or two, Richard Bailey reported him missing. Sheriff’s deputies pursued Pornchai through the woods and caught him. They did not understand his protests as they handed him back over to Bailey, but they filed a report alluding to their suspicions. Nothing happened.

Lost in America

By the time Pornchai was 14 in 1987, his brother, Priwan, traumatized and broken, fled Bangor. Pornchai was alone. He ran away again and again, and while evading police he lived for months on the streets of Bangor. For the second time in his life, he was forced to forage for food in the street. He also amassed a police record for stealing food, for truancy, and for being a chronic runaway.

At one point, Wannee asked Pornchai why he keeps running away. Pornchai broke down and told her in Thai what Richard Bailey had been doing to him. She warned Pornchai never to speak of this again. She said Bailey would beat her and then send her back to Thailand with no means to support them.

In the summer Pornchai lived in the woods, or under a downtown Bangor bridge (photo above) where his mother would sometimes bring him food. She held a job as a hotel maid arranged by Richard Bailey, but he tightly controlled her earnings. In the winter, Pornchai would sleep in vacant buildings or at times in the homes of friends whose parents’ welcome of him was at times generous but sometimes not. At 15, he was sentenced to reform school, the Maine Youth Center, and became a ward of the state.

While there, social worker Nancy Cochrane built some trust with Pornchai. When she learned of the severity of the physical and sexual violence he suffered, she filed a formal report with the Sheriff’s department. Deputies interviewed Richard Bailey, but no one else. Bailey convinced them that he heroically gave Pornchai a home in America and Pornchai made this whole story up. The deputies dropped the case without questioning Pornchai or his mother or brother or the social worker treating Pornchai.

The Maine Youth Center staff did not drop the matter so easily. They brought it to other authorities. During the investigation, Wannee visited Pornchai at the facility where he was held. She told him that the police questioned Bailey who then sent her to warn Pornchai to withdraw his claims. The implication — the truth of which Pornchai had already witnessed — was that Wannee would face Richard Bailey’s violence.

Fearing for his mother’s safety, Pornchai refused to cooperate further with the investigation. She was his only contact in both worlds, the nightmare he lived in America and the world he left behind in Thailand. He suffered in silence, consuming the injustices visited upon him like a toxin.

For many years, Pornchai believed that his mother chose to protect Bailey over him and Priwan. But at that moment Pornchai came to see that Wannee was as much a victim of Richard Bailey as he was. The evidence for that belief was still looming on the horizon.

State officials did not understand what was behind Pornchai’s silence. He was transferred to the Goodwill Hinckley School in Maine where he met Joe and Karen Corvino, foster parents who, for a brief period, became instrumental in his life. He later lost contact with them. Their tearful reunion with him came twenty years later when they discovered him by discovering this blog.

Pornchai did well at the Hinckley School. He excelled in Math and Soccer, and the Corvinos recognized the special child who had come to them. They considered legal adoption of Pornchai, but were told this would be difficult given that his biological mother still lived in Maine.

One day, at a soccer match with a rival school, a group of players realized that they could not win with Pornchai on the Hinckley team, so they targeted him for harassment. They pushed him, struck him, checked him, and he endured it all. Finally they shouted slurs about his mother. In seconds, all three of the larger boys were on the ground.

Pornchai was expelled from the game. The next day, over the strenuous objections of Joe and Karen Corvino, he was also expelled from the school. Joe and Karen had no choice but to put the 16-year-old alone on a bus to Bangor. They were told that a social worker would be at the other end but there was no one. At 16, Pornchai was again living on the streets. Sleeping in alleys and doorways, he began to carry a knife for protection.

Pornchai went in search of his brother, Priwan, and found him living in an Asian community in Lowell, Massachusetts. But because Pornchai was still a minor, authorities required that he return to Maine. He petitioned to be emancipated from being a ward of the state. At 17, Pornchai’s legal emancipation was processed by a reluctant Maine Youth Center staff.

The Fateful Day and the Loss of All Hope

At age 18, on March 21, 1992, Pornchai became intoxicated and the tragic offense that began this story took place. It was the last day Pornchai knew freedom, but in reality, his freedom had been taken from him six-and-a-half years earlier at age 12.

This is the context, the “why” that journalist Steve Kloehn asked in the Bangor Daily News at the end of Pornchai’s trial in 1992. Once charged, Pornchai was held without bail for months while awaiting trial in the Penobscot County Jail.

He was assigned a public defender. After a month, Wannee came to visit Pornchai once. Again sent by Richard Bailey, she pleaded with him to protect her by saying nothing of his past life. Convinced his mother was in danger, he again became silent, refusing to allow any defense that included an evaluation of his life. Under duress, he refused to participate in his own defense.

Pornchai’s brother, Priwan, told the public defender of the years of traumatic sexual and physical abuse, but Pornchai refused to discuss this and refused to allow the lawyer to raise it. He was never evaluated, and none of what happened to him became part of the court record. The judge mistook Pornchai’s silence for a defiant lack of remorse. Citing that he “had many opportunities in America but squandered them,” she sentenced 18 year-old Pornchai to 45 years in the Maine State Prison.

After the trial, Richard Bailey sold his Bangor home, took Wannee, and purchased land and a home on the U.S. Territorial Island of Guam in the Western Pacific. At age 18, alone and in prison, Pornchai was thousands of miles from his only contact with the outside world.

Eight years passed before he saw his mother again. She traveled to Thailand, and then to Maine to visit Pornchai in prison. She told him she was returning to Guam to finalize her divorce from Richard Bailey and financial settlements in the Guam courts. The year was 2000, Pornchai’s eighth year in prison.

To this day, the financial agreements ordered in the divorce decree have not been met. A cousin of Wannee in Thailand today reports that, upon her return to Guam, Wannee called her in 2000. Richard could be heard shouting in the background. The cousin states that Wannee cried that she is being threatened, and if she is found dead, she wants her cousin to demand an investigation.

Weeks later, Pornchai learned in prison that his mother had been murdered on the Island of Guam. He could learn no details except that it was filed as a homicide. The autopsy report indicates that she had been beaten to death and her body left on a beach. A Guam police report shows that Richard Bailey reported her missing, then the next day reported finding her body himself. No one has been charged. It remains today a “cold case” unsolved homicide in Guam.

This was a breaking point for Pornchai. He gave up, and ended up spending the next nearly seven years in and out of solitary confinement in Maine’s supermax prison. After seven years in hell, Pornchai was transferred to the New Hampshire State prison where we met. You know most of what followed, but not all. [Editor: WGBH-PBS Frontline’s documentary “Locked Up in America – Solitary Nation” depicts the nightmare of Pornchai’s solitary confinement. The prisoners you see were in solitary with him in adjacent cells. We’ve been having problems with the link, but this one to WGBH works well Frontline Solitary Nation.]

Once I learned the entire story, I could not let it go. I began several years ago to make discreet inquiries into Pornchai’s life in both Thailand and Maine. In 2007, shortly after we became friends and cell mates, a U.S. Immigration judge ordered that Pornchai is to be deported from the United States upon completion of his sentence. I assisted him in an appeal based on the severity of his life and his need for asylum, but to no avail.

I told Pornchai that we will need to build some connections in Thailand. He said that he did not even know where to begin. Pornchai felt overwhelmed, and took refuge in his imagined “Plan B” — his own final self-destruction. I challenged him to trust. A few years later, on Divine Mercy Sunday, 2010, Pornchai became a Catholic, and accepted my challenge to place his future in God’s hands with the guidance of his chosen Patron Saint, Maximilian Kolbe, whose name Pornchai chose as his own.

Then, Felix Carroll and Marian Press published Loved, Lost, Found with a beautiful chapter about Pornchai’s conversion. Felix graciously made the chapter available for posting. It made its way to Thailand where it moved many people in Bangkok to become involved in Pornchai’s story. A group called “Divine Mercy Thailand” organized to help bring him home. They have assured him of a home and support system when he returns.

Richard Alan Bailey at the time of his arrest on forty counts of felonious sexual assault.

A Day in Court

After being received into the Church, I convinced Pornchai to seek some treatment in the prison system. He was diagnosed with acute anxiety and severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He is working with a counselor and is prescribed a medication for acute anxiety and another to inhibit nightmares.

The inquiries I had been making produced some amazing results. Clare and Malcolm Farr, a husband/wife team from an intellectual property law firm in Perth, Australia had been reading Beyond These Stone Walls. Entirely pro bono, they immersed themselves in Pornchai’s story with overtures to the government of Thailand and the State of Maine. Clare Farr, one of the attorneys, has been in daily contact with us over the last three years.

Their tireless efforts gained the notice of the Thai Consulate in New York from where officials have since visited Pornchai and involved themselves in his plight. This story also gained the attention of law enforcement in the State of Maine from where an investigation was launched. Detectives from the Bangor police traveled to Concord, NH to interview Pornchai and also met with his brother, Priwan. An Assistant District Attorney came on the second interview.

In 2017, Richard Alan Bailey was indicted on forty felony counts of gross sexual misconduct for his well documented victimization of Pornchai and his brother. He was arrested at his West Lake, Oregon home and released on $49,000 cash bond. On September 12, 2018, the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary, Richard Bailey entered a plea of no contest but was found guilty and stands convicted of the charges. At this writing, the 2000 Guam case remains an open unsolved homicide.

Bailey’s sentence may bring the biggest gasp of all, forty-four years in prison, but all suspended, and eighteen years of supervised probation. He will not serve a day in prison. This was a hard truth for me. I am serving 67 years in prison for crimes that never took place, with a fraction of the charges faced by Richard Bailey and with none of the evidence. It is clear. He is not ‘Father’ Richard Bailey.

Covering this story for the Bangor Daily News, reporter Judy Harrison referred to Pornchai as “the now 45-year-old convicted killer.” Fully one third of her brief coverage of this story focused not on Richard Bailey’s crimes, but on Pornchai’s. Judy Harrison turned a deaf ear to the profoundly troubling serial victimization that his Victim Impact Statement describes.

The shallowness of reporters notwithstanding, Pornchai has also learned the ways of Divine Mercy. He learned them from me. In his submitted impact statement, he asked the court for justice but also for mercy for his tormentor, the very person who has haunted his nightmares for all these years. From Pornchai’s Victim Impact Statement presented in court:

“My brother has struggled with gambling and alcohol addictions and my mother is dead. Richard carried out more sexual assaults against me than there are current charges against him. His actions have robbed me of a normal life which I can never reclaim. Fortunately I have since had a lot of counseling and with the guidance of a wonderful Catholic priest I have found faith and a firm belief in God… I asked God to help me to forgive Richard and through my strong faith I have done this… I cannot forget what he has done but I do forgive him. The law must pass a just sentence, but I agree with the terms of this plea agreement.”

But there is something even more compelling in this story. Pornchai Moontri came to me, a Catholic priest whom he believes with all his heart to be innocent of the very things that stole his hope and his ability to trust. The irony sends me to my knees in thanksgiving for an opportunity. The most important mission of my life as a man and as a priest has been walking with Pornchai Moontri from dusk to dawn in his survival of the darkest night.

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Editor’s Note: Thank you for reading and sharing this important post. You may also like these related posts:

Getting Away with Murder on the Island of Guam by Fr Gordon MacRae

Pornchai Moontri and the Long Road to Freedom by Fr Gordon MacRae

Elephants and Men and Tragedy in Thailand by Pornchai Maximilian Moontri

My Visit with Pornchai Maximilian Moontri by Claire Dion

Claire Dion, a contributing writer for Beyond These Stone Walls, interviewed Pornchai “Max” Moontri at the New Hampshire State Prison for a tale of hope and amazing grace.

Preface by Father Gordon MacRae

The following is a guest post by Mrs. Claire Dion, a reader of Beyond These Stone Walls in Bridgton, Maine. Claire graced these pages with a Corporal Work of Mercy that touched our hearts in 2017. After two years with us, our friend, Kewei Chen from Shanghai, China, was transferred to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to await his deportation.

After reading of the unique circumstances that brought Chen from China to an American prison, and the pain of our parting as well as our hopes for Chen, Claire drove from her home in Maine to meet with him at the place where he was awaiting deportation. The result of that visit became her first guest post on Beyond These Stone Walls, “My Visit with Kewei Chen in ICE Detention.”

Her post was comforting. From my perspective, and that of Pornchai Moontri who had become Chen’s older brother, the void in our hearts could not be filled, but Claire’s guest post left it not quite so empty. It ended with a wonderful photograph of Chen emailed from the Shanghai airport as he saw his parents for the first time after his unplanned three-year absence.

More recently, Claire asked if she could visit me and Pornchai, a much further winter drive for her. Since prison rules allow for being on the visitor list of only one prisoner, I asked her to visit Pornchai, to treat it as an interview, and to write another guest post for Beyond These Stone Walls.

I did this because, as I have hinted in some previous posts, there is a very special story coming, one that I know will both break your hearts and then mend them again with evidence of the immense power of Divine Mercy to restore the human soul. This story is coming when I am able to fully tell it, and it will be unlike anything you have ever read before on Beyond These Stone Walls.

So as a prelude, I want to present Pornchai “Max” Moontri through the eyes of a reader meeting our friend for the first time. His story should begin, after all, not upon the dung heap of Job where life took him, but at the point to which Divine Mercy has redeemed him out of darkness into a very great light.

Claire Dion is a wife and mother of five adult daughters and a devoted grandmother. She is currently retired from a career as a registered nurse in obstetrics at Lynn, Massachusetts General Hospital. She today lives in Bridgton, Maine where she has been part of the Faith Formation Team at Saint Joseph Parish and a follower of Father Michael Gaitley’s 33 Days to Morning Glory and Marian Consecration. It’s an honor to present Claire Dion.

Saturday – January 8, 2018 at 8:00 AM

I pulled into the parking lot of the New Hampshire State Prison for Men in Concord. I will be meeting Pornchai Moontri, a man I have come to know and love from reading Beyond These Stone Walls. Walking into the visiting area where I have to sign in, I feel a little uneasy. I did not have a clue what I was to do and I had not slept the night before as I was afraid I would do something wrong and the visit would be canceled.

Everything went well until I passed through a metal detector and the alarms went off. What was I thinking? I should have realized that two knee replacements and a hip replacement might present a problem. After being sent back to the waiting room with alarm bells ringing, some guards questioned me, and then led me into the visiting room. It was a large room with metal tables and chairs screwed to the floor. Each table was numbered, and I was instructed to go to table number twenty-four.

From a distance I saw Pornchai walk into the visiting room. I realized that he had not seen me before, but I recognized him from Beyond These Stone Walls. So I waved and smiled, and he smiled back. When he got to the table, I asked him if I could give him the allowed “three-second hug.” He laughed while I hugged this man whom I had only read about but was very anxious to meet.

While I was waiting for Pornchai to arrive, I wondered how we were going to fill in a two-hour visit. I was not allowed to bring anything with me so I had no notes to help me remember what I wanted to talk to him about and all the questions I had. I knew that Father Gordon wanted me to write about this visit for Beyond These Stone Walls.

We sat next to each other at the table in a room filled with cameras. The large room was also full of visitors, and, as many of them were children visiting their fathers on a Saturday morning, it was noisy. It took only seconds for us to relax and start talking. From the moment we sat down, I had a sense that I already knew this very special person.

We continued to talk nonstop for the entire two hours. We both felt that it was amazing that we were sitting here together, Pornchai from Thailand and me from Lynn, Massachusetts (which, by the way, is the city just North of Boston where Father Gordon grew up).

Soon we were talking about Pornchai’s incredible journey from a village in Northeast Thailand to Bangor, Maine and ending at the New Hampshire State Prison. I learned that Pornchai was abandoned by his mother at age two and that a teenage relative found him and brought him to live with his family.

Nine years later, when Pornchai was age eleven, his mother returned to Thailand. He did not recognize or even remember her, but against Pornchai’s will he was taken from Thailand and brought to America. A series of traumatic events broke his heart and his soul. That is another story that hopefully Father Gordon will be telling soon at Beyond These Stone Walls.

When Pornchai was fourteen years old, he ran away. He became — though not by choice — a homeless child living on the streets for the second time in his young life, and he spoke little English. While still a teen, he was involved in a struggle that resulted in the death of another man, and he was sent to prison.

While listening to his story, my heart ached as I could see and feel his pain over these events from so long ago. Sentenced to 45 years in a Maine prison, Pornchai continued to have outbursts of anger and rage which landed him in solitary confinement for many years in Maine’s “supermax” prison. [Note: PBS Frontline did a gripping story on that very place and time.]

Pornchai told me that his only plan for life was to never leave prison. It sounded as though he knew he was going to die there, and that was what he wanted. It was his “Plan B” for his life. However, God had other plans for Pornchai Moontri. Fourteen years later, he was moved to a prison in New Hampshire for the rest of his sentence, and Father Gordon MacRae stepped into the story of his life.

Here Pornchai’s eyes and expression softened as he spoke about meeting Father Gordon whom he and other prisoners call “G.” At this point, Pornchai said he felt completely alone, still angry and trusting no one. Another prisoner, a young man from Indonesia, introduced him to a man called “G” and said that G helped him a lot and that he trusted G.

Pornchai watched how G in a caring and patient way helped others and how they trusted him. In his life, the very idea of trust was entirely new. Slowly and cautiously, Pornchai let G into his life and a friendship began.

We talked for awhile about G and I learned that no matter what happens in prison G stays calm. He is a humble, steady person in the midst of the constant turmoil and darkness of prison life, and is always available to any prisoner who comes to him. With a chuckle, I have to add here that I remember Chen telling me that G is a very good man “but you don’t bother him when he is typing a BTSW post!”

“When I Was in Prison, You Came to Me” —Matthew 25:36

It was quite awhile before Pornchai found out that G is a Catholic priest. We spoke about how Father Gordon’s strong faith impressed Pornchai even though many in the Church had abandoned him. Pornchai told me that G’s faith shines in prison, and has attracted some of the prisoners to join him at Sunday Mass and in retreats sponsored by Father Michael Gaitley and the Marians of the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy.

Pornchai also said that Father Gordon constantly reaches out to those he feels he can help, and Pornchai was one of them. It was during this conversation that I asked Pornchai to tell Father Gordon how much I love, respect and honor his priesthood.

Through him, Christ’s presence is being felt there, and it is making a difference for many behind those stone walls and many of us BTSW readers.

As their friendship grew, Father Gordon told Pornchai that he must start taking positive steps with his life. He encouraged Pornchai to leave aside “Plan B” and plan instead for a future.

Pornchai began taking education courses, spending his days in school instead of in a cell. He proudly told me that he earned his high school diploma in prison and was Valedictorian of his 2012 graduating class. I listened and learned that his educational journey was just beginning. With Father G’s help, he then enrolled in courses in social work and psychology at Stratford Career Institute earning academic certificates “with highest honors.” This was followed by studies through a scholarship at Catholic Distance University where he took courses in theology with a straight “A” average.

What Pornchai has accomplished is nothing short of amazing given that he learned English in prison. He and “Father G” encourage other prisoners to become educated, and Pornchai now spends time mentoring and tutoring them, especially in mathematics in which he excels. He also spends his days in the woodworking and Hobby Craft shop where he teaches safety training to other prisoners on the use of carpentry tools and machines.

Pornchai designs and builds handcrafted model ships, beautiful Divine Mercy keepsake boxes, and other creations in wood. Some of these are made as gifts and some are sold in a store near the prison grounds. Pornchai used the proceeds to pay for his education courses. Father Gordon later told me that Pornchai is modest about his great skill in woodworking. One of his ships is on display in Belgium where a curator posted a brass plaque indicating that it was designed and created by “Master Craftsman Pornchai Moontri, Concord, New Hampshire.”

Divine Mercy Conversion

As Pornchai’s friendship with Father Gordon deepened, and Pornchai was influenced by his patient practice of faith, he made a decision to become a Catholic. Seeing in the many comments how much Father Gordon’s posts spiritually affect BTSW readers, we talked about how becoming Catholic has helped Pornchai in prison. He received the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation on April 10, 2010. He chose “Maximilian” as his Christian name to honor St Maximilian Kolbe.

On the next day, he received his First Eucharist from Bishop John McCormack. When this was first being planned, neither Pornchai nor Father Gordon realized the date was Divine Mercy Sunday. On that day, Jesus showered Pornchai with His love and mercy and Pornchai felt it. He said that before he became a Catholic he was always feeling unloved and alone. Now he could feel that God was with him and loved him. He also spoke about his love for the Blessed Mother. As he told me this, there was a sense of peace within him.

When I asked Pornchai what he would like me to tell BTSW readers, he became very serious. He said that he and Father Gordon are deeply impacted by the support they receive and that BTSW could not exist without it. They deeply appreciate the love, prayers, and encouragement they receive from readers all over the world. He kept going back to the BTSW readers and how important they are to both of them. He spoke of how he has done nothing to earn this outpouring of love.

Pornchai spoke about the lawyer who has helped him and Chen so much, Clare Farr in Western Australia, and how she learned of him through BTSW. He spoke of Suzanne Sadler, BTSW’s Australian-based webmaster and publisher. He spoke of Father George David Byers who helps ready Father G’s posts for publishing. He spoke of Mrs. LaVern West who prints and mails him the BTSW comments.

Pornchai also said that Father Gordon corresponds with Father Andrew Pinsent, a scientist at Oxford University who has cited his science writings. I mentioned that Father Gordon’s science posts are over my head and Pornchai said with a smile, “Mine too!” In an astonishing connection that Father Gordon later told me about, Father Georges Lemaître, the priest-physicist considered in science to be “Father of The Big Bang and Modern Cosmology,” was a close family friend of Mr. Pierre Matthews in Belgium who today is Pornchai Moontri’s Godfather.

And Pornchai also spoke of Charlene Duline who helps Father G communicate with readers, and is Pornchai’s Godmother. She once sent him a letter in which she called him “precious,” and then other prisoners teased him about it, but he laughed and said that they are jealous because no one calls them precious.

Suddenly the lights in the room flashed on and off. Our visit was over, but not before we were able to have a photograph taken together. With a hug (three seconds only) we said goodbye. I was truly blessed to meet this amazing young man, Pornchai Maximilian Moontri, and to see Father Gordon through his eyes. I know I will visit him again.

On the coldest day of winter, I left the New Hampshire State Prison with summer in my heart.

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae:

I thank Claire Dion for this snapshot into our lives. In my recent post, “The Days of Our Lives,” I wrote that Pornchai Moontri and our friend, J.J. Jennings work together in the woodworking and Hobby Craft center. The photos below are of their latest project, a Jewelry Cabinet.

The design for a cabinet of this size was by J.J. Jennings, who collaborated with Pornchai Moontri for the highly skilled construction. The one on the right was made by J.J. and the one on the left by Pornchai. The woods for both are solid maple and black walnut. The drawer fronts are maple or black walnut with poplar sides and bottoms. The drawers and side cabinetry doors are lined with velour.

These beautiful pieces are 20” high, 14” width, and 8.5” depth, and are customized with wood-burned or painted designs and brass fittings. The top is hinged with a 2.5”-deep display area. Two of the drawers are for rings and the other drawers are deeper. The intricate side cabinets are for hanging jewelry such as necklaces, bracelets, and rosaries. Other photos of their work can be seen on the Pinterest Board, “Woodworking and Model Shipbuilding by Pornchai Moontri.”