At approximately 8 a.m. on January 28, Vicha left his daughter's apartment in the Anza Vista neighborhood of San Francisco, where he had been supervising his grandsons, to go on a walk while the children were attending Zoom online classes.

Both cameras showed Watson returning to the car to retrieve his cell phone and walking back to Fortuna Avenue, where he took pictures of Vicha's unconscious body before leaving for the parking lot again and driving away.

He worked a math teacher at a Catholic all-boys school for two years, but starting in 1961, he was employed as an auditor at Kasikornbank, at the head office in Rat Burana district.

[1] His death took place in the context of what some describe as a broader wave of racially motivated attacks and violences on Asian Americans in the Bay Area and other parts of the nation.

[32] San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin called the crime "heinous" but thought, according to the evidence, that the attack was not racially motivated, stating that "the defendant was in some sort of a temper tantrum.

"[33] The family of Ratanapakdee expressed outrage over the characterization of the attack as a "temper tantrum", finding the comments to be disheartening and inappropriate for the severity of the crime.

[37] Catherine Stefani, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, proposed renaming Sonora Lane in Anza Vista after Ratanapakdee.

One part of his ashes were poured out to sea under the Golden Gate Bridge while the remainder was brought back to Thailand to be given burial processions at a wat in his home village and then interred in a stupa that houses the remains of his six deceased siblings.