Cyanide poisoning caused the deaths of six foreigners whose bodies were found in a room in a plush Bangkok hotel, Thai authorities said on Wednesday, with the suspected killer among the dead.
The bodies were found Tuesday in the Grand Hyatt Erawan Bangkok, a landmark at a central intersection in the capital busy with malls, government buildings and public transit.
The six had last been seen alive when food was delivered to the room Monday afternoon.
The staff saw one woman receive the food, and security footage showed the rest arriving one by one shortly after.
There were no other visitors, no one was seen leaving and the door was locked. A maid found them Tuesday afternoon when they failed to check out of the room.
Lt. Gen. Trairong Piwpan, chief of the Thai police force’s forensic division, said there were traces of cyanide in the cups and thermoses that police found in the room.
This was later confirmed by the initial autopsy results of the six bodies that was performed at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn Hospital.
Kornkiat Vongpaisarnsin, head of the forensic medicine department at Chulalongkorn University’s medical school, said at a news conference that there was cyanide found in the blood of all six bodies, and a CAT scan showed no signs of blunt force trauma, reinforcing the hypothesis that they had been poisoned.
Chulalongkorn’s dean of medicine, Chanchai Sittipunt, said the team “believe the cyanide to be the answer.”
“Whether they were taking sleeping pills or other stuff, we don’t know, but we can know enough from the cyanide to determine,” he said, referring to the cause of death.
Bangkok police chief Lt. Gen. Thiti Sangsawang identified the dead as two Vietnamese Americans and four Vietnamese nationals, and said they were three men and three women.
Their ages ranged from 37 to 56, according to Noppasin Punsawat, Bangkok deputy police chief. He said the case appeared to be personal and would not impact the safety of tourists.
