Credit: Netflix

Netflix Thailand is readying to make an entry to the streamer’s true-crime catalogue this August with Chompoo: Lost & Forgotten, an original documentary based on the shocking true story of Nong Chompoo.

Scheduled to premiere globally on August 20th, the upcoming documentary marks Netflix’s first Thai true-crime documentary directed by Nontawat Numbenchapol and co-produced by Thai Film Works in association with Singapore’s Beach House Pictures.

Chompoo: Lost & Forgotten recounts one of the most unsettling true crimes of Thailand: three-year-old Orawan ‘Nong Chompoo’ Wongsricha, who went missing in 2020 and was found dead three days later. The toddler disappeared from her home in Kok Kork village in the town and province of Mukdahan on May 11th. A few days later, her body was found on a mountain in Phu Pha Yon National Park, almost two kilometres away from her home.

The case made massive headlines, but what began as a probe into a missing-child case soon turned into a national media circus, with the primary suspect transformed into a celebrity.

The suspect in question was Chaipol ‘Uncle Phol’ Wipha, Chompoo’s uncle-in-law, who made many emotional television appearances, maintaining his innocence throughout. In fact, his interviews turned out to be such a big smokescreen for spectators that the murder case became one of the most polarising incidents ever to leave the public divided.

Rather than being ostracised, the perpetrator in question benefited in more ways than one as he came under the spotlight as a celebrated pop-culture spectacle.

The online sympathy for Uncle Phol bizarrely had no bounds. While supporters backed him with uncalled-for donations, despite being the primary suspect in the murder case, he amassed hundreds of thousands of YouTube followers, appeared on music videos, and, even worse, was hired as a product presenter. Needless to say, the internet hullabaloo around Uncle Phol had made him into a star of a kind that dims and steals shine.

But despite Uncle Phol’s unexpected rise, the fall was always inevitable. He was eventually convicted by the Court of Appeal in August 2025 and received a sentence of 26 years in prison on counts of premeditated murder, child abduction, and concealing a body.

Chompoo: Lost & Forgotten sheds light on this unexpectedly dark phenomenon, investigating societal conditions and invisible forces which managed to transform an active criminal investigation and an accused suspect into a flashy exhibit that seamlessly detaches itself from the alarming accusations hovering over one’s head.