Six people, including a California woman, died under mysterious circumstances Monday in what appears to be a mass cyanide poisoning at a Thai hotel, according to reports.
Two of the dead were Americans, including an Oakland resident, while the other four were Vietnamese, police officials in Bangkok said, according to the Washington Post.
The group was found dead in room 502 of the Grand Hyatt Erawan, where a full meal was left untouched on the table and police found empty cups with traces of cyanide in them, according to reports.
The only Oakland woman, Sherine Chong, was in the room that day when hotel workers brought tea and food to the room about 2 p.m. Monday, police said. The five other people entered the room later.
In this photo released by the Royal Thai Police, food remains can be seen on a table in a room at the Grand Hyatt Erawan hotel, where six people were found dead from unknown causes. Police said the dead were two Vietnamese Americans and four Vietnamese nationals, and speculated that they may have died from some form of poisoning.
(Royal Thai Police via Associated Press)
A housekeeper found the bodies after they failed to leave on Tuesday. Two of the bodies were in a bedroom, while the other four were in a living room, according to police.
In a photograph from the scene showing food on the hotel room table, one of the victim's legs can be seen on the floor.
The head of the forensic medicine department at Chulalongkorn University's faculty of medicine said there was cyanide in the blood of all six, according to the Associated Press.
A husband and wife who were among the dead had invested more than $250,000 with two others, which police are investigating as a possible motive for the killings, according to Noppasin Punsawat, Bangkok's deputy police chief.
