The circumstances are not yet clear, but police believe the shootout may have been the result of a dispute over drugs or caused by drug abuse.
Called to the scene, police found 25-year-old Chalermpon Tripak dead on the bed in his room with one shot in the stomach. Lying dead in a bloody heap next to the door was 25-year-old Saran Chaiyatham, shot in the left side of his chest.
Still alive on the bed, also with a stomach wound, lay Natthapong Keawkuanchum, 25.
The investigators checked the area and found two 9mm bullets and two spent cartridges on the floor of the room, along with a large amount of kratom leaves, bottles of 4x100 (a narcotic mixture of cough mixture, kratom, cola and ice) and drug paraphernalia.
There was also a pool of blood outside the door.
Warankana Wichien, who rents a room in the same building, told police that her husband, 40-year-old Tourist Police Sen Sgt Maj Pinchai Piyadilok, had also been shot twice in the right leg, but had already been taken to Vachira Phuket Hospital.
She said that her husband had walked past the room. The door was open and he heard people talking. He developed the suspicion that the room was being used by drug users, and walked in.
His wife, hearing gunfire, run to see what was happening, and saw her husband slumped outside the room, bleeding. He was taken to Vachira Hospital, and Ms Warankana took his gun back to the couple’s room.
Police are still interviewing the two injured men to find out precisely what happened.