Bangkok hotel cyanide murder victims 'were poisoned by US woman', police believe
17 July 2024, 14:02 | Updated: 17 July 2024, 14:22
Police believe a US woman is responsible for a murder-suicide that left six people, including herself, dead in a luxury Thai hotel room.
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Sherine Chong, 56, is believed to have poisoned herself and five others with cyanide after the group met to discuss debts she owned, Vietnamese media reports.
Investigators believe the victims had been dead for 24 hours by the time they were discovered at the Grand Hyatt Erawan hotel in Bangkok.
Chong is alleged to have convinced a married couple and two other victims to invest large amounts of cash into a failed business plan, before losing between $215,000 and $280,000.
The victims have been named as American citizens, Sherine Chong and Dang Hung Van, 55.
The other four were Vietnamese nationals Thi Nguyen Phuong, 46, her husband Hong Pham Thanh, 49, Thi Nguyen Phuong Lan, 47, and Dinh Tran Phu, 37.
“We are convinced that one of the six people found dead committed this crime,' said Noppasin Punsawat, Bangkok deputy police chief.
Police Lieutenant General Thiti Saengsang added: “This was not self-harm - someone caused the deaths. We are tracing every step since they got off the plane.”
Forensic police chief Lt. Gen. Trairong Piwpan noted that a mass suicide was unlikely, as some of the victims had booked plans for later in the week.
Authorities initially reported a mass shooting had occurred at the luxury hotel.
But they have since said there were no signs of a struggle, robbery, or forced entry and have later found traces of cyanide in all six tea cups.
The group of six ordered food and tea, which was delivered to the room and received by Ms Chong - who was the only person in the room at the time.
According to the deputy police chief, a waiter offered to make tea for the guests but Ms Chong refused this.
The waiter recalled that she “spoke very little and was visibly under stress”, authorities said.
The waiter later left the room. The rest of the group then began streaming into the room at various points, between 14:03 and 14:17.
No one else is believed to have entered the room apart from the six.
Pictures released by the police show plates of untouched food left on a table in the room, some of them still covered in cling wrap.
The Vietnamese foreign ministry has paid tribute to the four citizens left dead in the incident.
“We hope that the victims' families soon overcome this great loss,” foreign ministry spokesperson Pham Thu Hang said.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller meanwhile confirmed he is aware of the deaths of two US citizens in Bangkok.
The FBI is believed to have assisted with the investigation.
