Autopsies of Americans, Vietnamese found dead in a Bangkok hotel identify traces of cyanide

Six people including two Vietnamese Americans have been found dead in a Bangkok luxury hotel in Thailand and police say they died from cyanide poisoning with one of them believed to have poisoned the others over a bad investment, Thai authorities said Wednesday.

The grisly discovery was made by a maid on Tuesday just after 5:30 p.m. at the five-star Grand Hyatt Erawan Bangkok, a landmark at a central intersection in the capital busy with malls, government buildings and public transit. The maid found the bodies after they had failed to check out on time.

Four bodies were in the living room and two in the bedroom. Police say all six deceased had sipped cyanide-laced tea, which led to their deaths with traces of cyanide discovered in the cups and thermoses that police found in the room.

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Initial autopsy results pointed to poisoning as the cause of death. 

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.

Bangkok police chief Lt. Gen. Thiti Sangsawang said that two of them appeared to try to reach for the door but collapsed before they could.

Three of the six were men while the three others were women with their ages ranging from 37 to 56, police said.

Two of those deceased had American citizenship and were named as Chong Sherine, 56, and Dang Hung Van, 55, the Bangkok Post reported. 

Four of those found dead were Vietnamese and were identified as Nguyen Thi Phuong Lan, 47; Pham Hong Thanh, 49; Tran Dinh Phu, 37; and Nguyen Thi Phuong, 46.

Police say a seventh person whose name was part of the hotel booking was a sibling of one of the six. That person left Thailand on July 10 and had no involvement in the deaths, according to police. 

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Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin visited the hotel to discuss the mysterious case with investigators.

He ruled out terrorism and said the incident would likely not affect a conference with Russian Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev at the hotel later on Wednesday. "This wasn’t an act of terrorism or a breach in security. Everything is fine," he said.

A husband and wife among the dead had invested about 10 million baht ($278,000) with two of the others, and that could be a motive, Noppasin Punsawat, Bangkok deputy police chief said, citing information obtained from relatives. The investment was meant to build a hospital in Japan and the group might have been meeting to settle the matter. 

Police say one killed the rest, but did not say which of the six is the suspect.

Lt. Gen. Trairong Piwpan, chief of the Thai police force's forensic division, ruled out the possibility the incident was a mass suicide event given some of them had future travel plans in place.

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There were also packed bags of luggage at the door and the bodies had been found spread across different parts of the hotel room, giving weight to the poisoning theory. Food that had been ordered to the room hadn’t been touched either. 

He said the Vietnamese and U.S. embassies have been contacted over the deaths, and the FBI was en route.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller in Washington said he was aware of the incident and offered condolences to the families of the dead. He said the U.S. is closely monitoring the situation and would communicate with local authorities.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.