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Six people, two of them US citizens, were found dead in an upscale hotel in Bangkok on Tuesday in what police said they suspect was a homicide.
The bodies were found at the Grand Hyatt Erawan at about 4pm local time Tuesday, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said at a news conference at the hotel, reports The Washington Post.
The dead were all of Vietnamese descent, two of them with US citizenship and four with Vietnamese citizenship, Srettha said, adding that he had spoken with the Vietnamese ambassador.
The people were believed to have been dead since Monday, the prime minister said. There was no immediate sign of robbery or assault, and the preliminary investigation was focused on the possibility that the visitors ingested a harmful substance, he said.
Lt Gen Thiti Sangsawang, the Metropolitan Police Bureau commissioner in Bangkok, said the initial conclusion among investigators was that whoever was responsible for the deaths was not among the dead.
“We are not saying that they were poisoned,” he said at the news conference. “We are considering the possibility that their lives were intentionally targeted. There is a suspicion that someone intended to harm or kill this group of people.”
Angelina Hue, a spokeswoman for Hyatt’s Asia-Pacific region, said in an emailed statement that Hyatt was “deeply saddened by this tragic situation” and that “the safety and security of our guests and colleagues is always a top priority.” She said Hyatt was cooperating with the local authorities and referred further questions to the police.
The Vietnamese Foreign Ministry said in a statement to The Washington Post that the Vietnamese ambassador to Thailand, Pham Viet Hung, went with embassy officials to the hotel and that the embassy was working closely with local officials to “monitor the incident, clarify information, identify the victims, and implement necessary citizen protection measures.”
A spokesperson for the US State Department said in a statement that the department was “aware of reports [of] the deaths of two US citizens in Bangkok.”
The State Department is “closely monitoring the situation” and is “ready to provide consular assistance,” the spokesperson said.
“When a US citizen dies in a foreign country, local authorities are responsible for determining the cause of death,” the spokesperson said, referring questions about the deaths to Thai authorities. “Out of respect to the families during this difficult time, we have no further comment.”
Representatives for the Thai Foreign Ministry and the US embassies in Bangkok and Hanoi did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday evening local time.
Photos of the room where the bodies were found showed a spread of room service food and teacups. Most of the food appeared untouched, with plastic wrap still covering some of the plates.
Although the food was uneaten, beverages appeared to have been “fully consumed” from the cups, with a residue left at the bottom, said Thiti, the police commissioner. The residue was collected as evidence, he said.
The dead did not have wounds, except for one person who had a “facial injury” that appeared to be from a fall onto a hard surface, rather than being struck, he said.
The room was locked from the inside, Thiti said. When its occupants didn’t check out as scheduled, he said, a housekeeper entered through a back door and found the bodies. Management then called the police.
Four of the bodies were found in a living room and two were in a bedroom, Thiti said. The people checked into the hotel at different times and occupied five rooms across two floors in the hotel.
The people moved their luggage to one of their rooms, “suggesting that these individuals knew each other,” the commissioner said. The hotel told police that the payment for the stay was not settled.
The authorities were combing through the table settings and items left in the room, the guests’ luggage, security camera footage and the visitors’ social media profiles to try to discern what happened, he said.
