9 Slayings at Temple Baffle Police

Authorities pleaded with the Asian community Sunday for any information that might help explain the baffling killings of six Buddhist monks and three others found shot to death Saturday in their temple outside Phoenix.

But grim-faced Thai immigrants who came to the temple Sunday said they had no answers.

“The monks never bothered anyone,” said Amnuay Farmer, a member of the temple. “They lived here for three years and nothing happened. No enemies at all.”

“They are happy people,” said Ratchanee Yates. “I don’t know who could do such a thing.”

The bodies of the monks, a Buddhist nun and two young men who were members of the temple were found Saturday side by side and face down, each shot in the head. Their positions indicated that they may have been kneeling when they were killed some time late Friday or early Saturday, said Maricopa County Sheriff Tom Agnos.

The Maricopa County medical examiner said Sunday that each victim was shot twice in the back of the head, once with a small-gauge shotgun and once with a .22-caliber weapon. No weapons were found at the scene.

The temple, called Wat Promkunaram, was untouched, Agnos said, but nearby sleeping rooms had been ransacked.

Agnos said that investigators, who have been working around the clock, are “days away” from completing their examination of the scene. They have not determined a motive, Agnos said, adding that robbery is a possibility. He said the crime will be solved.

“I think this crime is so horrendous,” Agnos said, that the entire Phoenix community “is not going to tolerate this. This is just really a terrible, terrible tragedy.”

A. Somsin, secretary of the temple’s board of directors, said he believes the killings may have been a hate crime.

“We think that an important message was being sent that said: ‘We don’t need you around here,’ ” he said. “This is not a burglary. This was not done by a psychotic killer. Psychotic people don’t do things so methodically.”

Authorities say they have not ruled anything out.

The monks, who were from Thailand, never locked the doors of their small temple and attached living quarters, Agnos said. The plain stucco structure was built three years ago amid cotton fields about 20 miles west of downtown Phoenix. The temple has a largely Thai membership.

“This is really a very unusual crime for any part of the country or any part of the world,” Agnos said. “It’s really a tragic, one-of-a-kind situation.”

Somsin said the temple’s board voted unanimously in an emergency meeting Sunday to close the temple indefinitely.

“We’re not going to talk about the future until the problem at hand is solved,” he added. “We need to take a look at security.”

He said that unless the murders are solved and security is improved, “we may never, never get another monk here.”

Investigators said they have no plans to provide security for any members of the congregation.

Agnos said that he has called in an Asian gang expert from the Phoenix Police Department “to cover all the bases,” but he would not comment on whether there are any leads or suspects.

“We will be asking the Asian community to give us any information that they have that could help us solve this crime,” Agnos said. “If they know of any individuals who are recent arrivals here or anyone in the Asian community that they may be suspicious of, please call us.”

Bodies of the victims were discovered Saturday morning by a temple member who took the monks their daily meals. Officials have not confirmed their identities but the dead are believed to include the leader of the temple and all five monks who lived and worked with him; an elderly woman who recently had become a Buddhist nun; her grandson, who had recently begun studying with the monks, and another young male student.

Temple members were being asked to help identify the bodies from photographs, investigators said.

Investigators would say little, except that they believe that two or more attackers took part and that everyone inside the building at the time was killed.

Early Sunday, congregation members, some of whom traveled hundreds of miles to the temple, discounted suggestions that the killings may have been a hate crime.

The members painted a picture of a quiet and contemplative band of religious men who moved to the area to serve the Thai population that lives here. They did no missionary work, members said, and were not interested in gathering converts to Buddhism.

The men lived a Spartan life, existing on gifts from their congregation and hand-me-downs. The temple, surrounded by a low brick wall and a stand of cottonwood trees, is set back from the main road and is several hundred yards from the closest house.

The monks rarely mixed with the surrounding farm community, members said, where their shaved heads and flowing robes would have made them conspicuous.

Some temple members told investigators that the monks sometimes wore jewelry, but none was found on any of the bodies, a circumstance that bolstered theories of a robbery motive.

However, Somsin discounted those reports, adding: “The monks simply don’t have those kinds of jewels.”

Investigators noted that a number of valuable statues and artifacts were untouched.

Wat Promkunaram is one of 19 Buddhist temples around the country, said a sheriff’s spokesman.

The Thai ambassador to the United States was scheduled to arrive in Phoenix from Washington on Monday to meet with investigators and city officials, according to Surapit Kirtiputra, the Thai counsel from Los Angeles, who traveled to Phoenix after the slayings.

“We have no idea what happened,” Kirtiputra said. “This is the biggest tragedy that has ever happened. . . . Everybody is in deep shock.”

Many in the congregation are Thai women who married American men. Some said that they had viewed the temple as a peaceful refuge from American life that reminded them of home. The monks, they said, served as counselors who would listen to their problems, encourage them, pray for them and make them laugh.

“They’re very calm, very kind, very generous,” said Chintana Barker, a Thai woman who spent five days with the monks last June to meditate and study. “They cook, they clean, they write books for people to read.”

Barker and others interviewed Sunday said that the monks never mentioned any threats against them and seemed to have no fears. “The monks never mentioned anything but good,” Barker said.

Meanwhile, the police probe into the deaths continued.

Investigators seem to be focusing on the possibility of Asian gang involvement, but they declined to reveal what evidence--if any--they have.

Agnos said that in Phoenix, such gangs had been responsible for a number of robberies and home invasions in recent months. However, he said, he knew of no murders committed by them.

For now, Agnos said his deputies will go through “every drawer” and pore over the temple grounds in search of anything that might explain the worst mass murder in Maricopa County history.