Six people, including a woman from California, died under mysterious circumstances after a massive cyanide poisoning incident at a hotel in Thailand on Monday, reports said.
Bangkok police officials said two of the dead were Americans, including an Oakland resident, and the other four were Vietnamese, the Washington Post reported.
According to reports, the group was found dead in Room 502 of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Love Bay. A sumptuous meal was placed on the table, untouched. The police also found empty cups containing trace amounts of cyanide.
Police said Auckland woman Sherine Chong was the only person in the room at about 2pm on Monday when hotel staff brought tea and food to her room. Five other people then entered the room.
In this photo released by the Royal Thai Police, six people died of unknown causes with uneaten meals left on a table in a room at the Grand Hyatt Erawan Shrine. Police said the deceased were two Vietnamese Americans and four Vietnamese citizens, and speculated that they may have died of some kind of poisoning.
(Royal Thai Police Associated Press)
A housekeeper later discovered the body after they failed to check out on Tuesday. According to police, two of the bodies were in the bedroom and the other four were in the living room.
In a photo of the scene showing food on a table in a hotel room, one of the victim’s legs can be seen on the ground.
According to the Associated Press, the head of the Department of Forensic Medicine at Chulalongkorn University School of Medicine said that all six people had cyanide in their blood.
Noppasin Punsawat, Bangkok’s deputy police chief, said one of the dead couples invested more than $250,000 with two others and police were investigating possible motives for the killings.
