ON THE AFTERNOON OF JUNE 23, Peerapat Sompiengjai’s entire family waited for him to come home from soccer practice. Aunts and uncles gathered at the compound in Vieng Hom, a rural village where he and his best friends Tle, Nick and Note lived and played for the local Wild Boars soccer team. It was his 16th birthday, and a cake was in the refrigerator. As night fell with no word, his parents started making phone calls.
“For the first few hours, I thought he was fine, I wasn’t too concerned,” Sriward Sompiengjai, his grandfather, told TIME. But when Peerapat, who goes by the nickname Night, didn’t come back by morning, the family knew something was very wrong. Word spread that the boys and their coach had gone to a…